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you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | struck | How many times the word 'struck' appears in the text? | 0 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | leave | How many times the word 'leave' appears in the text? | 3 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | boats | How many times the word 'boats' appears in the text? | 2 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | scream | How many times the word 'scream' appears in the text? | 3 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | tweezes | How many times the word 'tweezes' appears in the text? | 0 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | i | How many times the word 'i' appears in the text? | 1 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | anyone | How many times the word 'anyone' appears in the text? | 1 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | conclusion | How many times the word 'conclusion' appears in the text? | 1 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | chubby | How many times the word 'chubby' appears in the text? | 0 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | geting | How many times the word 'geting' appears in the text? | 1 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | party | How many times the word 'party' appears in the text? | 3 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | charred | How many times the word 'charred' appears in the text? | 2 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | sky | How many times the word 'sky' appears in the text? | 2 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | drop | How many times the word 'drop' appears in the text? | 3 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | zone | How many times the word 'zone' appears in the text? | 2 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | winter | How many times the word 'winter' appears in the text? | 0 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | other | How many times the word 'other' appears in the text? | 2 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | alone | How many times the word 'alone' appears in the text? | 1 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | menacingly | How many times the word 'menacingly' appears in the text? | 0 |
you cut out one of his eyes...? HALLENBECK Nope. MILO What would you do? (CONTINUED) 113. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK I'd go off and suck some cock and leave him the fuck alone. Milo studies Hallenbeck the way a museum curator might study a new species of fish. MILO It occurs to me, Joseph, that I would very much like to hear you scream. HALLENBECK Come again? MILO You're so cool, aren't you? So... if you'll pardon the expression... hard-boiled. I'd like, just once, to hear you scream in pain. HALLENBECK Play some rap music. Milo chuckles, shakes his head. MILO Fascinating. HALLENBECK When do I kill Baynard? MILO (laughs) Come now, Joseph, did you really think that I'd hand you a loaded gun? (beat) You're not really going to kill anyone. HALLENBECK I'm not? MILO No. He leans forward. MILO You're going to be framed for the senator's murder... when they find your corpse at the scene of the crime. 114. EXT. PRIVATE DOCK - NIGHT Boats, lots of them. Sportfishers. Yachts. Floating boats. Money, money, everywhere, and plenty of drinks to drop. HATTERAS SPORT BOAT PURRS quietly into the harbor. Jimmy at the rudder. Nudges up to the dock. In the chalet above, the party rages. SERIES OF SHOTS - JIMMY'S PREPARATION Jimmy lashes the boat. Goes below. Grabs a tuxedo from the closet. Stands, dressed, in front of the mirror. Opens a box. Removes a 9 millimeter Baretta. Works the slide. Jacks a bullet into the cylinder. Stashes it in the waistband of his pants: In back. Concealed by the tuxedo. Studies his own grim face in the mirror. JIMMY Okay, hot shit, let's do it. EXT. DECK - NIGHT Jimmy emerges from the cabin. Heads for the rail. A voice calls out: DARIAN (O.S.) Nice tux. He turns, and sees Darian Hallenbeck. Peeking her head out from under a tarpaulin. JIMMY Goddammit, I told you to go home! DARIAN Fuck you, I stowed away. They're my parents, okay? Jimmy shakes his head. Exasperated. JIMMY Fine, whatever. Just stay here. With the boat. (CONTINUED) 115. CONTINUED: Darian starts to protest. He throws her the keys. JIMMY Anything funny happens, get the fuck out of here. Darian takes the keys. Frowns, says: DARIAN You look terrible. JIMMY I feel terrible. DARIAN Are you really a drug addict? JIMMY I was. I kicked the habit. DARIAN When? JIMMY This morning. Stay here. He swings over the side, onto the dock. DARIAN Don't let them break your other arm. JIMMY Thanks, kid. You're a fuckin' inspiration. INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME Milo speaks to Hallenbeck. Clipped. Businesslike. MILO At eight-fifteen, Senator Baynard will leave the party, hopefully unobserved. He and his entourage will board a fast boat, and rendezvous with us at sea. HALLENBECK Jesus. He thinks he's geting his two-million-dollar payoff. Milo nods. Points to two identical suitcases in the corner. (CONTINUED) 116. CONTINUED: MILO Baynard will not leave his boat. One of his men will board us, and inspect the contents of the suitcase. This suitcast. He opens one of the cases. Hallenbeck stares. HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS Twenty thousand of them, to be precise. Neatly bundled. MILO Then we pull a simple switch. When the man returns to his boat, he's carrying this suitcase. He points to the identical twin. HALLENBECK Plastics? MILO (nods) Detonation upon opening. Enough to kill the passengers, not enough to sink the craft. (smiles) And when we place your charred corpse amidst the wreckage, the police will draw the inevitable conclusion: a down-on-his-luck P.I. makes a suicide strike against the man who cost a career. HALLENBECK That sounds lovely, but how is my body gonna get charred? With a flourish, Milo pulls aside a tablecloth. Under the table is a five gallon can of gasoline. MILO Maybe I'll get to hear you scream, after all... Just then, one of Milo's crew sticks his head in the door. CREW MEMBER You better get up here, we got a problem. 117. EXT. YACHT - ON DECK - NIGHT Milo's yacht is anchored about a half mile offshore. Island lights blink in the distance. Fog rolls in. Milo emerges from the cabin onto the deck. Crosses to the railing, looks down at: FISHING BOAT bobbing in the water about thirty yards away. A FISHERMAN is waving his arms. Hailing them. Beside him, his wife and seventeen-year-old son. FISHERMAN Hey! Buddy, I got a cracked engine casing, I'm dead in the water! Can I get a tow? Milo swears under his breath. Calls out: MILO I'm sorry, sir. This boat is Island Security, we're under strict orders to stay within this sector. FISHERMAN Aw, shit! Look, it'll take ten minutes! MILO I'm sorry, we can't help you. FISHERMAN Goddammit, now I gotta call the Coast Guard! Milo's crewman steps up to the rail. Speaks urgently: CREW MEMBER Milo, he's gonna bring the Coast Guard down on top of us. Milo ponders for maybe three seconds. Then he calls out: MILO Excuse me. Sir? The Fisherman turns. His family beside him. MILO Fuck you, sir. (CONTINUED) 118. CONTINUED: He reaches under his Windbreaker. Pulls out an Ingram model MACHINE GUN. OPENS FIRE. The entire family is blown away. WOOD SPLINGERS POP and fly. GLASS SHATTERS. The bodies topple like broken toys. Milo ceases fire. Turns to his crewman. MILO Problem solved. Get over there and put the bodies below where they can't be seen. He saunters away as if nothing unusual has occurred. EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHT Jimmy is strolling along a hedge behind the house. Looking for a back entrance. He hears VOICES, approaching. Pulls up short. Ducks into the shadows. Senator Baynard goes by, with two bodyguards. Brisk. Businesslike. SENATOR Christ, I can't believe I agreed to this dog and pony show. Let's get it over with. The head for the boats. Jimmy stares after them, mind racing. Makes a decision: heads for the boats. Following Baynard. INT./EXT. JIMMY'S BOAT - NIGHT Jimmy casts off the lines. Heads for the cockpit. Darian is inside. JIMMY Gimmee the keys, kiddo. DARIAN Where are you going? (CONTINUED) 119. CONTINUED: JIMMY The Senator's here, and he's leaving by the back door. I'm gonna follow him. He keys the ignition. JIMMY Get off the boat. DARIAN Fuck you, man. No way. JIMMY Darian, Goddammit -- She runs below decks. DARIAN (O.S.) I'm not coming out! Jimmy looks up: The Senator's boat, a sleek, powerful Marlineer, is even now pulling out of the cove. JIMMY Okay. Shit. Okay. Easy. Shit. He throttles forward. The Hatteras pulls away from the dock. CUT TO: EXT. SKY - NIGHT The sound of THUNDERING ROTORS, as a refitted Bell Cobra HELICOPTER cuts through the night sky over Catalina. Banks sharply, cruises offshore. INT. COCKPIT - SAME The PILOT works the stick while the CO-PILOT searches the water below through infra-red binoculars. He speaks into a microphone. CO-PILOT This is Air One, over. MALE (V.O.) Roger, Air One, over. (CONTINUED) 120. CONTINUED: CO-PILOT The drop zone is clear, repeat, the drop zone is clear, over. INTERCUT WITH: MILO'S YACHT - SAME TIME Milo is at the other end of the connection. Beside him, two crewmen. MILO Roger, Air One, over and out. (replaces the mike) Up anchor, gentlemen, we have a go. (points to Hallenbeck) Gag him and stash him. As Milo goes topside, one of the men tapes Joe's mouth. The other opens a cramped storage compartment. They stuff him inside. Shut and lock the door. EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT About two miles offshore. The Senator's Marlineer cuts through the waves, converging with Milo's yacht. The two boats pull up alongside. The lines are made fast. One of Milo's crewmen greets Senator Baynard's AIDE, a slick-looking Italian in a $1,000 overcoat. Baynard's man hops from one boat to the other. Boarding Milo's yacht. Meanwhile -- EXT. OFFSHORE WATERS - IN FOGBANK Jimmy Dix is clearly lost. He bangs his fist in frustration. JIMMY Goddammit, I lost him. I can't see a fucking thing. DARIAN See if this boat has sonar. JIMMY Oh, yeah, little Miss Know-It-All. (CONTINUED) 121. CONTINUED: DARIAN Fuck you. JIMMY Watch your mouth. DARIAN Take a bath in my ass. They're clearly having no fun. CUT TO: INT. MILO'S YACHT - CABIN - SAME TIME The payoff is in progress. One of Milo's crewmen carries the suitcase over to the wall. Places it on a built-in counter. Underneath the suitcase is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Off to one side is a half-empty coffee container. The case is opened. Greenbacks galore. Baynard's Aide whistles softly. Examines the stacks of bills. Nods, satisfied. AIDE Okay. We're cool. Just then Milo enters the cabin. Adopts a harsh New York accent as he angrily barks: MILO Hey! Any of you stupid fucks bother to frisk this goombah? CREWMAN No, sir, we didn't think -- MILO Exactly, you didn't think! Goddammit, that's two million bucks there, now frisk the fuckin' guy! AIDE Hey, baby, I'm clean, take it easy -- MILO Fuck easy. Against the wall, spread 'em! (CONTINUED) 122. CONTINUED: As Baynard's man assumes the position -- Milo hits a concealed button. It happen in less than a second: the built-in counter rotates into the wall, only to be replaced by an indentical counter. Identical half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Identical coffee cup. And, of course, the identical suitcase. The indignant Aide turns around, pat-down concluded. AIDE Okay? Satisfied? Milo smiles apologetically. MILO We're cool, baby. He hands over the suitcase. BACK TOPSIDE Baynard's man emerges onto the deck, carrying the suitcase. Steps over the rail, crossing to the Senator's boat. Gives a thumbs up to the men waiting there. They cast off the lines. Freeing the two boats. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo watches, tense. As the lines are freed, he says: MILO Hard to starboard, get us out of here. Back off a hundred yards and wait for the blast. INT. SENATOR'S CABIN - SAME TIME The go-between heads below deck, carrying the suitcase. Senator Baynard puts down his wine glass. Looks up, expectant. The Aide flashes an "A-Okay" grin. Sets the suitcase on a table. Meanwhile -- INT. JIMMY'S SPORT BOAT - BRIDGE Jimmy has had about enough. He sighs with frustration. Stares ahead into the fog. (CONTINUED) 123. CONTINUED: JIMMY All we're doing is burning gas. Sorry, kid, I'm turning back. The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a throbbing NOISE, growing louder... Darian looks up puzzled. DARIAN Do you hear that -- ? And with that -- AIR ONE bursts from the fog. Directly in front of them. Hovers like an avenging angel, TURBINES SCREAMING -- JIMMY Holy fucking shit! Rotor wash sprays in every direction. The noise is deafening. INT. AIR ONE - COCKPIT The PILOT grabs the mike and shouts into it: PILOT Code yellow, code yellow, we got a bogie, repeat, we got a bogie, over. INT. MILO'S YACHT - BRIDGE Milo snaps his head to one side, hearing this. Grabs the mike: MILO Air One, Air One, where the fuck is he? PILOT (V.O.) Nine o'clock, repeat, on your nine, and closing fast! 124. ANOTHER ANGLE Jimmy's BOAT ROARS out of the fog... And suddenly he's in a world of shit. Less than fifty yards to port is Milo's yacht. Fifty years to starboard is the Senator's Marlineer. JIMMY Oh, wow. We're fucked. He GUNS the ENGINE. Spins the wheel, banks to port. AIR ONE screams past, cutting across the bow, nearly taking off the roof -- Jimmy, wrestling the wheel, and meanwhile -- INT. BAYNARD'S CABIN The Senator actually has his hands on the suitcase to open it, when one of his MEN yells: MAN Shit! Something's going on. BAYNARD What is it? MAN Another boat. It's a fucking setup! BAYNARD Get us out of here, now! The guy relays the order, and: EXT. HIGH SEAS Baynard's Marlineer surges forward. Full throttle, heading for shore, as -- EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo skids out on deck, grabbing for his machine gun. Calls out: MILO Who the fuck is he? A crewman grabs a pair of binoculars. Meanwhile -- 125. INSIDE STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck has no fucking idea what's going on, but he can hear everthing that's said, as: BACK ON DECK the Crewman lowers the binoculars in disbelief: CREWMAN Son of a bitch! It's Dix, the Goddamn quarterback! INT. STORAGE COMPARTMENT Hallenbeck's face goes through various stages of shock. It's nothing compared to when he hears: CREWMAN (O.S.) There's a little girl with him! With that, he goes berserk. Draws his legs back, thunders them against the compart- ment doors. Kicks with all his might. Over and over like a crazed horse, as: BACK TOPSIDE Air One does a flyby, circling, awaiting instructions. ON DECK Milo grabs the hand mike and says: MILO Air One, Air One, follow the Senator, roger? I'll take the sport boat, you take Baynard, over. AIR ONE (V.O.) That's a roger. Over and out. MILO (turns to his men) Okay, let's go. Full throttle. INT. YACHT - SAME TIME With a final, resounding crash, Hallenbeck kicks open the compartment. Topples out onto the cabin floor. (CONTINUED) 126. CONTINUED: Works his bound hands over his knees so they're now tied in front of him. Everybody's topside; for the moment, at least, he is forgotten. He half crawls, half lurches over to the kitchen nook. Worms beneath the table... awkward, desperate... Drags out the can of gasoline. Tries to unscrew the top. No dice. Can't get a grip. Finally, in frustration, he tips the can on its side. Brings his legs up in the air -- Slams them down on the can. Over and over until, with a metallic pop -- ! it bursts. Floods gasoline over the carpet, meanwhile: BACK TOPSIDE Milo's yacht is plowing ahead, gaining on Jimmy's Hatteras. The crew members take up positions on the prow. OPEN FIRE. WITH JIMMY As he throws Darian to the deck, shields her with his body. The wheelhouse is RAKED by GUNFIRE. He grits his teeth. Reaches beneath his tux. Yanks out the BERETTA and returns FIRE, BAM -- BAM -- ! and meanwhile: INT. YACHT CABIN Hallenbeck is opening a box of kitchen matches with his teeth. Dozens of matches fall scattered on the carpet. He releases the box. Bends. Picks up a single match in his teeth. Presses his face to the wall. Gives his neck a wrench -- Lights the match. He drops the match on top of the GAS CAN. (CONTINUED) 127. CONTINUED: A WHOOSH of combustion. It bursts into flame. Joe swivels around. Balancing on his backside. Thrusts his legs into the fire. Strains. Pulls. Sweat runs in rivers. Until the ropes binding his legs snap. He lurches to his feet, lets free. Now there's only one problem: He's on fire. The legs of his pants are soaked with gas. Flames race up his legs. He plunges headlong up the stairs. ON TO DECK where he hurtles toward the rail, dives -- into the sea, swallowed by the waves. A CREWMAN suddenly screams: CREWMAN Fire in the hole! Fire, indeed. It's a rapidly-spreading blaze. The pursuit is momentarily forgotten as the crew races to put out the fire, and meanwhile: HALLENBECK surfaces, gasping for air. Trying to swim with his hands tied. DARIAN spots him first. Sees her father bobbing like a cork in the ocean, screams: DARIAN Daddy!! Jimmy whirls around, startled. JIMMY Shit. I don't believe it. DARIAN Do something! Hurry! (CONTINUED) 128. CONTINUED: Jimmy spins the wheel. Banks hard to port. Brings the boat around in an arc. Yells to Darian: JIMMY Keep the wheel like this! Don't let it move! She grabs the wheel. Jimmy bends down. Opens a compart- ment. Takes out the boat's anchor. Metal hook, attached to seventy yards of chain. He hefts it like a grappling hook. JIMMY Third and long, baby, lets' go... And, sure, his left arm isn't his good arm -- But, boy, does he heave that anchor. It soars through space, chain playing out behind it... Hits water, thirty yards past Hallenbeck -- Who turns, sees the anchor skimming toward him over the waves. EXT. MILO'S YACHT Milo, meanwhile, has also spotted Hallenbeck. He growls in rage. Hefts the Ingram machine gun, as: ANOTHER ANGLE Hallenbeck thrusts forward, hooks his bound hands around the passing anchor and whoosh -- ! He is catapulted forward, jerked like a rag puppet. BULLETS CHOP the water where he just was. He skims over the waves. Bounced. Battered. Trailing behind Jimmy at fifty miles an hour. Jimmy and Darian begin to haul him in. Struggling. Straining. The boat rushing headlong, driverless. With a last, desperate surge of energy -- They drag Hallenbeck over the side. Into the boat. DARIAN Dad...! (CONTINUED) 129. CONTINUED: She collapses, weeping, atop her father. Hugs him for all she's worth. HALLENBECK What the hell's she doing here?? DARIAN I stowed away... GUNFIRE splits the air. Reminds them they're not out of the woods. MILO'S YACHT is behind them again. The fire is out. The chase is on. It steadily cuts the distance. JIMMY'S BOAT Hallenbeck staggers to his feet. HALLENBECK Get below, Darian. And stay there. He stumbles into the wheelhouse. Dazed. Barely conscious. JIMMY Got any ideas? HALLENBECK Yeah. Go really fast and hope they don't catch us. (beat) Oh, shit. JIMMY What? HALLENBECK Fog bank, dead ahead. Hang on. Into the fog they go, and, folks -- This is really scary. Because you can't see a foot in front of your face. They plunge through the fog at fifty miles an hour. Hallenbeck sweats, eyes glued to the windshield. (CONTINUED) 130. CONTINUED: And then a shape materializes off to port: Milo's yacht. Running alongside. Drawing closer. Hallenbeck wrestles the wheel. No dice. The yacht draws ever closer... men on deck... machine guns... Joe looks over... and his face tells the story: HALLENBECK We're dead. Except, just then, a strange thing happens: Milo's yacht veers off to the left. Away from Hallenbeck. Jimmy stares, dumbfounded. JIMMY What the fuck? They're peeling off. Why? A pause... then it hits Joe like a thunderbolt: HALLENBECK 'Cause they got sonar, that's why! Hard to port! JIMMY Port? HALLENBECK Left, Goddammit. The boat slews to the left, as, from out of the fog -- The Catalina ferry looms right in front of them. JIMMY Shit fuck piss! They almost make it. As it is, they avoid a head-on. Instead, they hit broadside. A sickening CRUNCH -- ! Jimmy and Joe are thrown from their feet. A momentary glimpse of faces rushing past -- Horrified tourists -- And then the ferry is behind them. Jimmy gets up. Staggers to the controls. Pushes the throttle. The boat lurches forward -- Then SPUTTERS. Fizzles. He swears violently. (CONTINUED) 131. CONTINUED: JIMMY We're on half power, we lost an engine! EXT. FOG BANK - SAME TIME The crippled boat chugs through the mist. JIMMY swears again. Bangs his fist. JIMMY We're sitting ducks. They got sonar. They can find us. HALLENBECK Kill the running lights and radio the Coast Guard. Jimmy flicks off the lights. Grabs the mike. As he does, a VIBRATING RUMBLE fills the cockpit, causing him to pause... and then stare in shock as their boat emerges from the fog -- And Air One hovers directly overhead. JIMMY Fuck me. The two men watch, helpless, as the helicopter descends, the Co-Pilot taking aim with a LAWS rocket. HALLENBECK Get down! They both hit the floor. Hands over their heads -- And then the pilot makes a costly error: He descends right into the path of Milo's yacht. With no warning whatsoever, the boat comes bursting out of the fog -- PLOWS right INTO the HELICOPTER. Second number one: The boat pierces the chopper, rips it to shreds. Second number two: The whole boat-slash-chopper mix erupts in a shower of wood and fiberglass. Turns night into day. 132. JIMMY AND JOE are still huddled on the floor. Pause. They look up. Bewildered. There was a big light... Big noise... Why aren't they dead? ANOTHER ANGLE They move like sleepwalkers to the cockpit window. Stare in disbelief. Joe looks at Jimmy. Jimmy at Joe. Debris rains down. CUT TO: EXT. CRASH SITE - MINUTES LATER Jimmy, Joe and Darian are on deck, chugging through the wreckage. Darian clings to her father's arm, in shock. Hallenbeck sees something in the distance. Squints: HALLENBECK What's that? Jimmy looks: A bright object... going in circles... JIMMY That's Baynard's boat! HALLENBECK (nods) It can get us to shore faster than this one, don't you think? He starts to turn away. Notices something in the water. Speaks over his shoulder to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Hand me the pole. Jimmy hands him a long, wooden pole with a hooked end. He fishes in the water. Snares a large, floating object. Swings it aboard. Drops it at Jimmy's feet. The suitcase. JIMMY What is it? HALLENBECK Birthday present. (CONTINUED) 133. CONTINUED: He turns away. Jimmy bends to open the suitcase. Joe heads into the cockpit, Darian beside him. Steers the boat away from the crash site. Toward the senator's boat. Chugs forward on half an engine. O.S., Jimmy suddenly yells: JIMMY Holy fucking shit!! EXT. BAYNARD'S BOAT - SAME TIME The once-mighty Marlineer runs aimless circles in the mist. Half the cockpit is blown away, probably by a LAWS rocket. The Hatteras pulls up alongside, and Hallenbeck steps to the rail, carrying the Baretta. HALLENBECK Wait here. He swings aboard the senator's boat. Gun cocked. Ready. INT. SENATOR'S BOAT - COCKPIT Enters the cockpit. What's left of the roof is bullet- pocked. The navigator is dead. Slumped over the controls. Joe pulls him off the panel. KILLS the ENGINE. INT. MAIN CABIN Joe bursts inside. Hard and fast. Gun leveled. No need. It's a slaughterhouse. The walls are perforated. Baynard and his men are dead. The suitcase's evil twin lies unopened on the table. Hallenbeck walks over to Baynard's lifeless body. Stares into the wide-open eyes. HALLENBECK Sorry, Cal. Life in the big city. CUT TO: EXT. LONG BEACH BOAT RENTALS - NIGHT The senator's boat pulls up to the dock. No one is around. 134. EXT. DOCK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck crouches next to Darian, looks her in the eye. HALLENBECK Listen carefully. I'm gonna go get your mom back, okay? You're gonna go in the Denny's restaurant and stay there. Talk to the waitress but don't mention me. Mom and I will come pick you up later, got it? DARIAN (crying) They're gonna kill you...! HALLENBECK Are you kidding? I do this for a living. (hands her a twenty) Buy me an ice cream. I'll be back. (beat) I love you. She throws her arms around him. CUT TO: INT. RENTAL SUBARU - DRIVING - NIGHT All business now. Deadly serious. Jimmy and Joe stare ahead through the windshield. Grim. Tense. In the back seat sits the coveted suitcase. JIMMY Your prints are all over that boat. What happens when they find the bodies inside? HALLENBECK Quit being a fuckin' killjoy. He cuts the headlights. Cruises to a stop behind a road- side dumpster. HALLENBECK Come on. We've got some things to pick up. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE (WEST L.A.) - NIGHT They creep across a suburban lawn, hugging the shadows. (CONTINUED) 135. CONTINUED: Across the street, Hallenbeck's house is dark. Deserted. Truly a sight: Jimmy, in a white shirt and tuxedo pants, nursing a broken arm; and Joe, drenched to the skin, pants hanging in scorched tatters. Joe suddenly puts up a restraining hand. They stop. Crouched behind a eucalyptus tree. Joe points: THEIR POV A late-model Buick is parked just up the street from his house... There is a man slouched inside. Smoking. BACK TO SCENE HALLENBECK Shit. Someone's staking me out. JIMMY (clears his throat) Oh, I forgot to tell you. The police want you for killing Mike Miller. Hallenbeck shoots him a withering look. CUT TO: EXT. COASTAL WATERS - NIGHT A Coast Guard cutter is circling the site of the boat/ chopper crash. A uniformed ENSIGN shines a light on the dark waters. ENSIGN I think I got someone! Four o'clock! MILO is draped over a piece of wooden wreckage. Half his hair is burned away. His face is blistered. He looks up, pleading, at the Ensign, as: ANOTHER ANGLE He hides the Ingram beneath his body, cocked and ready. CUT TO: 136. INT. PARKED BUICK - NIGHT The sour stakeout cop reaches for a job necessity: the pot to piss in. He undoes his fly. Pees into an old Maxwell House coffee can. Opens the door to dump it out. A hand reaches in, lightning quick. Grabs the can, throws it back in his face. As he jerks backward, blinded, the hand knocks him cold. EXT. BUICK - SAME TIME Hallenbeck drags the unconscious cop from the car. HALLENBECK Let's get him inside and tie him up. JIMMY Are you crazy? That's a cop! You don't punch cops! HALLENBECK I forgot. Hurry up. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER The cop is bound and gagged in the corner. Unconscious. Hallenbeck moves hurriedly. Not a second to waste. Pulls a dark turtleneck from a drawer. Rips off the sleeve. Throws it to Jimmy. HALLENBECK Wear that. He strips off his own shirt. Crosses to the closet. HALLENBECK You know how to use a gun? JIMMY The trigger's the little black thing. HALLENBECK Here. He hands Jimmy a shotgun and a box of odd, black cylinders. (CONTINUED) 137. CONTINUED: HALLENBECK Use these. They're shredders. Equipped with an explosive charge. When you fire the gun, they spray on impact. Take out anything within ten yards. JIMMY What are you gonna use? HALLENBECK A little souvenir... He reaches into the closet. Pulls out a sniper rifle. The rifle. The one responsible for the puckered scar on his chest. HALLENBECK Go bring the car around. EXT. HALLENBECK'S HOUSE - SAME TIME Jimmy emerges, starts across the lawn. Pulls up short. Stares ahead at: HIS POV - TWO BLACK SEDANS parked at the curb. BACK TO SCENE He starts to cry out -- And a dark figure looms behind him. Clubs him in the head. INT. HALLENBECK'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME Hallenbeck snaps a full magazine into the rifle. Stuffs extras into a black Windbreaker. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, expecting Jimmy -- Draws a sharp breath: PABLO AND ASSORTED GOONS standing in the doorway. All of them have guns. Pablo grins, shakes his head: PABLO Face it, pal. You're fucked by God. CUT TO: 138. PAD AND PAPER as they're placed in front of Hallenbeck. He is seated on the bed. Three guns covering him. Beside him sits Furry Tom, grinning his stuffed-toy grin. PABLO Are you a literate man, Joe? HALLENBECK I got a subscription to Jugs magazine. PABLO That's good. See, Joe, what you're gonna do, you're gonna write a little story. A GOON sticks his head in the door. GOON We've got Jimmy Dix in the trunk. PABLO Get him out of here. Take him to Mr. Marcon. I'll follow you as soon as my business here is finished. The Goon departs, leaving Hallenbeck with Pablo and two others. He studies them. Calculates the odds. Verdict: Bad. PABLO Yeah, you're gonna write a little story, Joe. About how guilt- stricken you are over Senator Baynard's death, which is all over the air waves, by the way. Yeah... you're so guilty about paying those hitmen to kill him, that you're gonna kill yourself. HALLENBECK Hey, who's writing this story? You're doing all the good parts. PABLO Oh, and, Joe...? Don't forget to include how guilty you are over that cop you murdered. HALLENBECK What cop? (CONTINUED) 139. CONTINUED: Pablo draws his pistol. PUMPS TWO SHOTS into the unconscious cop in the corner. PABLO That one. HALLENBECK You son of a bitch...! Pablo is making a big mistake, but he doesn't know it. He is fueling Joe Hallenbeck's rage. Pity the fool. Hallenbeck regards him with dead, lifeless eyes. A thoroughly unnerving stare. Then Joe does something very odd. He says, softly: HALLENBECK We don't like Pablo very much, do we, Furry Tom...? There is a pause... And then, incredibly -- Furry Tom answers. A high-pitched, squeaky stuffed cat voice. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) No, Mr. Hallenbeck, we think Pablo is a motherless fuck who takes it up the ass. Dead silence. Pablo is completely thrown; so are we, for that matter... and then it hits us: Joe is doing ven- triloquism. And the funny thing is, he's really good. Pablo overcomes his shock. PABLO Shit, is he doing that? Hallenbeck's face remains cold. Expressionless. HALLENBECK Furry Tom, tell Pablo what I'm gonna do to him. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) You're gong to make Pablo eat all his teeth, Mr. Hallenbeck. (CONTINUED) 140. CONTINUED: Pablo can't help it. He bursts out laughing. PABLO That's amazing, man! Hallenbeck picks up Furry Tom. Inserts his hand, makes the furry head bob back and forth. HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) Hey, Mr. Hallenbeck, they're laughin' at me. That's not very nice. By now, all three hoods are in hysterics. HALLENBECK Are you mad, Furry Tom? HALLENBECK (as Furry Tom) I don't get mad. I get even. And, with that, Furry Tom's mouth opens -- And EXPLODES, showering stuffing. One of the goons is still laughing when he realizes half his throat is gone... And Furry Thomas BELCHES FIRE again, and the second goon goes down in a spray of blood, and if you haven't guessed already -- Joe has a gun hidden inside Furry Thomas. Pablo is a little sharper. A little quicker. He dives forward, knocks the puppet from Joe's hand. Joe drives upward, into Pablo's gut. They reel across the room. Locked in combat. Lamps topple. GLASS BREAKS. Pablo slams Joe's head into the wall. Leaves a dent. Does it again, a sickening | barbara | How many times the word 'barbara' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | face | How many times the word 'face' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | voice | How many times the word 'voice' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | true | How many times the word 'true' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | tremulously | How many times the word 'tremulously' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | growled | How many times the word 'growled' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | proper | How many times the word 'proper' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | pardon | How many times the word 'pardon' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | nevertheless | How many times the word 'nevertheless' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | veers | How many times the word 'veers' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | thanks | How many times the word 'thanks' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | green | How many times the word 'green' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | on | How many times the word 'on' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | coloring | How many times the word 'coloring' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | arrive | How many times the word 'arrive' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | loathing | How many times the word 'loathing' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | breathed | How many times the word 'breathed' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | trick | How many times the word 'trick' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | things | How many times the word 'things' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | disputed | How many times the word 'disputed' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have seen my face, you may love me,' came to her ears in an inane voice. 'I would you might, for you have a goodly mouth for kisses.' She breathed heavily; the click of the beads on her cross filled the silence. She fitted the bar of the crucifix to her knuckles and felt her breath come calmer. For, if the man struck a light she could strike him in the face with the metal of her cross, held in the fist; she could blind him if she hit an eye. She stepped back a little and felt behind her the damp stone of a wall. The soft voice uttered more loudly: 'I offer you a present of great price; I can solve your perplexities.' Katharine breathed between her teeth and said nothing. 'But if you draw a knife,' the voice went on, 'I will set you loose; there are as good as Madam Howard.' On the door there came the sound of soft thuds. 'That is your maid, Margot Poins,' the voice said. 'You had better bid her begone. This is a very evil gully; she will be strangled.' Katharine called: 'Go and fetch some one to break down this door.' The voice commented: 'In the City she will find none to enter this gully; it is a sanctuary of outlaws.' There was the faintest glimmer of a casement square, high up before Katharine; violence and carryings off were things familiar to her imagination. A hundred men might have desired her whilst she stood on high in the masque. She said hotly: 'If you will hold me here for a ransom, you will find none to pay it.' She heard the soft hiss of a laugh, and the voice: 'I would myself pay more than other men, but I would have no man see us together.' She shrank into herself, and held to the wall for comfort. She heard a click, and in the light of a shower of brilliant sparks was the phantom of a man's beard and dim walls; one tiny red glow remained in the tinder, like an illuminant in a black nothingness. He seemed to hold it about breast-high and to pause. 'You had best be rid of Margot Poins,' the musing voice came out of the thick air. 'Send her back to her mother's people: she gets you no friends.' Katharine wondered if she might strike about eighteen inches above the tiny spark: or if in these impenetrable shadows there were a very tall man. 'Your Margot's folk miscall you in shameful terms. I would be your servant; but it is distasteful to a proper man to serve one that hath about her an atmosphere of lewdness.' Katharine cursed at him to relieve the agony of her fear. The voice answered composedly: 'One greater than the devil is my master. But it is good hearing that you are loyal to them that serve you: so you shall be loyal to me, for I will serve you well.' The spark in the tinder moved upwards; the man began to blow on it; in the dim glimmer there appeared red lips, a hairy moustache, a straight nose, gleaming eyes that looked across the flame, a high narrow forehead, and the gleam of a jewel in a black cap. This glowing and dusky face appeared to hang in the air. Katharine shrank with despair and loathing: she had seen enough to know the man. She made a swift step towards it, her arm drawn back; but the glow of the box moved to one side, the ashes faded: there was already nothing before she could strike. 'You see I am Throckmorton: a goodly knight,' the voice said, laughing. This man came from Lincolnshire, near her own home. He had been the brother of a gentleman who had a very small property, and he had had one sister. God alone knew for what crime his father had cursed Throckmorton and left his patrimony to the monks at Ely--but his sister had hanged herself. Throckmorton had disappeared. In that black darkness she had seemed to feel his gloating over her helplessness, and his laughing over all the villainies of his hateful past. He was so loathsome to her that merely to be near him had made her tremble when, the day before, he had fawned over her and shown her the side door to Privy Seal's room. Now the sound of his breathing took away all her power to breathe. She panted: 'Infamous dog, I will have you shortened by the head for this rape.' 'It is true I am a fool to play cat and mouse,' he answered. 'But I was ever thus from a child: I have played silly pranks: listen to gravity. I bring you here because I would speak to you where no ear dare come to listen: this is a sanctuary of night robbers.' His voice took on fantastically and grotesquely the nasal tones of Doctors of Logic when they discuss abstract theses: 'I am a bold man to dare come here; but some of these are in my pay. Nevertheless I am a bold man, though indeed the step from life into death is so short and so easily passed that a man is a fool to fear it. Nevertheless some do fear it; therefore, as men go, I am bold; tho', since I set much store in the intervention of the saints on my behalf, may be I am not so bold. Yet I am a good man, or the saints would not protect me. On the other hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal would have of you.' 'God help the pair of you,' Katharine said. 'Have ye descended to cellar work now?' 'Madam Howard,' the voice came, 'for what manner of man do you take me? I am a very proper man that do love virtue. There are few such philosophers as I since I came out of Italy.' It was certain to her now that Privy Seal, having seen her thick with the Bishop of Winchester, had delivered her into the hands of this vulture. 'If you have a knife,' she said, 'put it into me soon. God will look kindly on you and I would pardon you half the crime.' She closed her eyes and began to pray. 'Madam Howard,' he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, 'the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.' 'Aye: you have cut-throats without,' Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal. The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice. 'I am an honourable knight,' he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. 'If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.' 'You are a werewolf,' she shuddered; 'you eat your brother.' 'Why, enough of this talk,' he answered. 'I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue's sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.' His voice changed suddenly: 'If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King's Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.' 'You are a mad fool to think to trick me,' Katharine said. 'Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cut-throat's gully for that.' 'Madam Spitfire,' his voice answered, 'you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.' 'Then let me go,' she cried. 'Tell me your lies some other where.' 'The latch is near your hand still,' he said. 'But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.' She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cut-throats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously: 'Tell me what you will with me in haste!' 'Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,' he answered. 'Till cock-crow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.' Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester. 'I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.' Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers: 'What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.' 'Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,' he answered. 'I am a goodly man.' 'I am meat for your masters,' she answered with bitter contempt. 'You have the blood of my kin on your hands.' He sighed, half mockingly. 'If you will not give me your favours,' he said in a low, laughing voice, 'I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.' 'God help you,' she said; 'I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.' 'I am a man that can be very helpful,' he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. 'Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.' Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly. 'Sir,' she said, 'I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street to-night after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.' 'Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,' he answered after a pause. 'Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other's throats.' 'You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,' she said. He answered: 'Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?' 'I will never partner with a spy and a villain,' she cried hotly. He cried lightly: 'Oh , Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.' 'I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,' she said hotly. 'But two men can hang you to-morrow,' he answered. 'One man you know; the other is the Sieur Gardiner. Cromwell hath contrived that you should write a treasonable letter; Gardiner holdeth that letter's self.' Katharine braved her own sudden fears with: 'Men are not such villains.' 'They are as occasion makes them,' he answered, with his voice of a philosopher. 'What manner of men these times breed you should know if you be not a fool. It is very certain that Gardiner will hang you, with that letter, if you work not into his goodly hands. See how you stand in need of a counsellor. Now you wish you had done otherwise.' She said hotly: 'Never. So I would act again to-morrow.' 'Oh fool madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and to boast.' The horror of the blackness, the damp, the foul smell, and all this treachery made her voice faint. She stammered: 'Shew me a light, or let the door be opened. I am sick.' 'Neither,' he answered. 'I am as much as you in peril. With a light men may see in at the casement; with an open door they may come eavesdropping. When you have been in this world as long as I you will love black night as well.' Her brain swam for a moment. 'My cousin was never in this plot against me,' she uttered faintly. He answered lightly: 'You may keep your faith in that toppet. Where you are a fool is to have believed that Privy Seal, who is a wise man, or Viridus, who is a philosopher after my heart, would have sent such a sot and babbler on such a tickle errand.' 'He was sent!' protested Katharine. 'Aye, he was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to be a spy.' His soft chuckle came through the darkness like an obscene applause of a successful villainy; it was as if he were gloating over her folly and the rectitude of her mind. 'Red Cap was working mischief in Paris--but Red Cap is timorous. He will go post haste back to Rome, either because of your letter or because of your cousin's boasting. But there are real and secret murderers waiting for him in every town in Italy on the road to Rome. Some are at Brescia, some at Rimini: at Padua there is a man with his neck, like yours, in a noose. It is a goodly contrivance.' 'You are a vile pack,' Katharine said, and once more the smooth and unctuous sound came from his invisible throat. 'How shall you decide what is vileness, or where will you find a virtuous man?' he asked. 'Maybe you will find some among the bones of your old Romans. Yet your Seneca, in his day, did play the villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more before I go.' Katharine said hotly: 'If you go down into Lincolnshire, I will call upon every man there to fall upon you and hang you.' 'Why,' he said, 'that is why I did come to you, since you are from where my lands are. If I serve you, I would have you to smooth my path there. I ask no more, for now I crave rest and a private life. It is very assured that I should never find that here or in few parts of the land--so well I have served my King. Therefore, if I serve you, you and yours shall cast above my retired farms and my honourable leisure the shadow of your protection. I ask no more.' He chuckled almost inaudibly. 'I am set to watch you,' he said. 'Viridus will go to Paris to catch another traitor called Brancetor, for the world is full of traitors. Therefore, in a way, it rests with me to hang you.' He seemed to be seated upon a cask, for there was a creaking of old wood, and he spoke very leisurely. Katharine said, 'Good night, and God send you better thoughts.' 'Why, stay, and I will be brief,' he pleaded. 'I dally because it is sweet talking to a fair woman in a black place.' 'You are easily content, for all the sweet words you get from me,' she scorned him. 'See you,' he said earnestly. 'It is true that I am set to watch you. I love you because you are fair; I might bend you, since I hold you in the hollow of my hand. But I am a continent man, and there is here a greater stake to be had than any amorous satisfaction. I would save my country from a man who has been a friend, but is grown a villain. Listen.' He appeared to pause to collect his words together. 'Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath elsewhere. So says Privy Seal to Baumbach: "_I love your alliance; but his Highness will naught of it._" And he fetched a heavy sigh.' Katharine said: 'What is this hearsay to me?' 'He fetched a heavy sigh,' Throckmorton continued. 'And your uncle or Gardiner knew how heavy a sigh it was their hearts would be very glad.' 'This means that the King's Highness is very far from Privy Seal?' Katharine asked. 'His Highness hateth to do business with small princelings.' Throckmorton seemed to laugh at the King's name. 'His high and princely stomach loveth only to deal with his equals, who are great kings. I have seen the letters that have passed about this Cleves wedding. Not one of them is from his Highness' hand. It is Privy Seal alone that shall bear the weight of the blow when rupture cometh.' 'Well, she is a foul slut,' Katharine said, and her heart was full of sympathy for the heavy King. 'Nay, she is none such,' Throckmorton answered. 'If you look upon her with an unjaundiced eye, she will pass for a Christian to be kissed. It is not her body that his Highness hateth, but her fathering. This is a very old quarrel betwixt him and Privy Seal. His Highness hath been wont to see himself the arbiter of the Christian world. Now Privy Seal hath made of him an ally of German princelings. His Highness loveth the Old Faith and the old royal ways. Now Privy Seal doth seek to make him take up the faith of Schmalkaldners, who are a league of bakers and unfrocked monks. Madam Howard, I tell you that if there were but one man that could strike after the new Parliament is called together....' Katharine cried: 'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.' Throckmorton laughed almost inaudibly. 'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.' He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her. 'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.' 'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good monks, the lands of these honest men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.' She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will listen to no more lewdness.' A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The light twisted round abruptly and was gone. 'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered. 'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.' 'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again. He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince, nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._" Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"... Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the Lutheran league?' 'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered. 'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you, but my master wills it not._"' The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.' 'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No king would believe a treason in such words.' 'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came, reflectively. 'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.' 'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' the voice came back mockingly. 'Goodman Gilmaw had many sheep died of the rot because it rained seven weeks on end. So, coming back from a market-day, with too much ale for prudence and too little for silence, he cried, "_Curse on this rain! The weather was never good since knaves ruled about the King._" So that came to the ears of Privy Seal, who made a treason of it, and had his sheep, and his house, and his lands, and his head. He was but one in ten thousand that have gone the same road home from market and made speeches as treasonable.' 'Thus poor Gilmaw died?' Katharine asked. 'What a foul world this is!' 'Time it was cleansed,' he answered. He let his words rankle for a time, then he said softly: 'Privy Seal's words before his armoury were as treasonable as Gilmaw's on the market road.' Again he paused. 'Privy Seal may call thee to account for such a treason,' he said afterwards. 'He holdeth thee in a hollow of his hand.' She did not speak. He said softly: 'It is a folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons.' The heavy darkness seemed to thrill with her silence. He could tell neither whether she were pondering his words nor whether she still scorned him. He could not even hear her breathing. 'God help me!' he said at last, in an angry high note, 'I am not such a man as to be played with too long. People fear me.' She kept silence still, and his voice grew high and shrill: 'Madam Howard, I can bend you to my will. I have the power to make such a report of you as will hang you to-morrow.' Her voice came to him expressionlessly--without any inflexion. In few words, what would he have of her? She played his own darkness off against him, so that he could tell nothing new of her mood. He answered swiftly: 'I will that you tell the men you know what I have told you. You are a very little thing; it were no more to me to cut you short than to drown a kitten. But my own neck I prize. What I have told you I would have come to the ears of my lord of Winchester. I may not be seen to speak with him myself. If you will not tell him, another will; but I would rather it were you.' 'Evil dreams make thy nights hideous!' she cried out so suddenly that his voice choked in his throat. 'Thou art such dirt as I would avoid to tread upon; and shall I take thee into my hand?' She was panting with disgust and scorn. 'I have listened to thee; listen thou to me. Thou art so filthy that if thou couldst make me a queen by the touch of a finger, I had rather be a goose-girl and eat grass. If by thy forged tales I could cast down Mahound, I had rather be his slave than thy accomplice! Could I lift my head if I had joined myself to thee? thou Judas to the Fiend. Junius Brutus, when he did lay siege to a town, had a citizen come to him that would play the traitor. He accepted his proffered help, and when the town was taken he did flay the betrayer. But thou art so filthy that thou shouldst make me do better than that noble Roman, for I would flay thee, disdaining to be aided by thee; and upon thy skin I would write a message to thy master saying that thou wouldst have betrayed him!' His laugh rang out discordant and full of black mirth; for a long time his shoulders seemed to shake. He spoke at last quite calmly. 'You will have a very short course in this world,' he said. A hoarse and hollow shouting reverberated from the gully; the glow of a torch grew bright in the window-space. Katharine had been upon the point of opening the door, but she paused, fearing to meet some night villains in the gully. Throckmorton was now silent, as if he utterly disdained her, and a frightful blow upon the wood of the door--so certain were they that the torch would pass on--made them spring some yards further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ground and panted for breath. 'Up the steps!' he grunted. 'If you ever ran, now run. The guard will not enter here.' Katharine sped up the steps. It was old Rochford's face that greeted hers beneath the torch. He grunted again, 'Run you; I am spent!' and suddenly dashed the torch to the ground. At the entry of the tunnel some make of creature caught at her sleeve. She screamed and struck at a gleaming eye with the end of her crucifix. Then nothing held her, and she ran to where, at the mouth of the gully, there were a great many men with torches and swords peering into the darkness of the passage. * * * * * In the barge Margot made an outcry of joy and relief, and the other ladies uttered civil speeches. The old man, whose fur near the neck had been slashed by a knife-thrust as he came away, explained pleasantly that he was able to strike good blows still. But he shook his head nevertheless. It | saints | How many times the word 'saints' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | tighter | How many times the word 'tighter' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | kicks | How many times the word 'kicks' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | paris | How many times the word 'paris' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | dragoman | How many times the word 'dragoman' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | single | How many times the word 'single' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | vision | How many times the word 'vision' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | would | How many times the word 'would' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | struggle | How many times the word 'struggle' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | variety | How many times the word 'variety' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | duty | How many times the word 'duty' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | exhausted | How many times the word 'exhausted' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | lonely | How many times the word 'lonely' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | men | How many times the word 'men' appears in the text? | 3 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | let | How many times the word 'let' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | step | How many times the word 'step' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | void | How many times the word 'void' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | perceive | How many times the word 'perceive' appears in the text? | 1 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | gon | How many times the word 'gon' appears in the text? | 0 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | hope | How many times the word 'hope' appears in the text? | 2 |
you have struggled for him to this day. "Once, for an instant, you had a vision of happiness. Paolo, tumbling from the lofty sphere where his spirit was constantly soaring, was amazed to find reality so sweet; you fancied that his madness would be lulled in the arms of love. But before long Music again clutched her prey. The dazzling mirage which had cheated you into the joys of reciprocal love made the lonely path on which you had started look more desolate and barren. "In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered, perhaps, whether his heroism or your own would be the first to give way. "You clung to your really magnanimous task as Paolo clung to his chimera. If you had had nothing but a devotion to duty to guide and sustain you, triumph might have seemed easier; you would only have had to crush your heart, and transfer your life into the world of abstractions; religion would have absorbed all else, and you would have lived for an idea, like those saintly women who kill all the instincts of nature at the foot of the altar. But the all-pervading charm of Paolo, the loftiness of his mind, his rare and touching proofs of tenderness, constantly drag you down from that ideal realm where virtue would fain maintain you; they perennially revive in you the energies you have exhausted in contending with the phantom of love. You never suspected this! The faintest glimmer of hope led you on in pursuit of the sweet vision. "At last the disappointments of many years have undermined your patience,--an angel would have lost it long since,--and now the apparition so long pursued is no more than a shade without substance. Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world. When this thought first struck you, you looked back on your past youth, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men know how to love----" "Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend. Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man; others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be. "You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--" "I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further; do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live. "Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in your guardianship?" Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count, who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife. On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble soul,--for there are natures which quickly enter into each other's spirit,--Marianna was too good a housewife not to betray her annoyance at receiving such a fine gentleman in so humble a room. Everything was exquisitely clean. She had spent the morning in dusting her motley furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had put it together, at odd moments of leisure, out of the fragments of the instruments rejected by Gambara. Andrea had never seen anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad but sweet thoughts. He wished to speak of his plans and of his morning's work; but Gambara, in his enthusiasm, believing that he had at last met with a willing listener, took possession of him, and compelled him to listen to the opera he had written for Paris. "In the first place, monsieur," said the composer, "allow me to explain the subject in a few words. Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men. "I, therefore, had to seek a vast framework in which effect and cause might both be included; for the aim of my music is to give a picture of the life of nations from the loftiest point of view. My opera, for which I myself wrote the _libretto_, for a poet would never have fully developed the subject, is the life of Mahomet,--a figure in whom the magic of Sabaeanism combined with the Oriental poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures to result in one of the greatest human epics, the Arab dominion. Mahomet certainly derived from the Hebrews the idea of a despotic government, and from the religion of the shepherd tribes or Sabaeans the spirit of expansion which created the splendid empire of the Khalifs. His destiny was stamped on him in his birth, for his father was a heathen and his mother a Jewess. Ah! my dear Count to be a great musician a man must be very learned. Without knowledge he can get no local color and put no ideas into his music. The composer who sings for singing's sake is an artisan, not an artist. "This magnificent opera is the continuation of the great work I projected. My first opera was called _The Martyrs_, and I intend to write a third on Jerusalem delivered. You perceive the beauty of this trilogy and what a variety of motives it offers,--the Martyrs, Mahomet, the Deliverance of Jerusalem: the God of the West, the God of the East, and the struggle of their worshipers over a tomb. But we will not dwell on my fame, now for ever lost. "This is the argument of my opera." He paused. "The first act," he went on, "shows Mahomet as a porter to Kadijah, a rich widow with whom his uncle placed him. He is in love and ambitious. Driven from Mecca, he escapes to Medina, and dates his era from his flight, the _Hegira_. In the second act he is a Prophet, founding a militant religion. In the third, disgusted with all things, having exhausted life, Mahomet conceals the manner of his death in the hope of being regarded as a god,--last effort of human pride. "Now you shall judge of my way of expressing in sound a great idea, for which poetry could find no adequate expression in words." Gambara sat down to the piano with an absorbed gaze, and his wife brought him the mass of papers forming his score; but he did not open them. "The whole opera," said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old--twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an _andante_ in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, _allegro_, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in _Don Giovanni_. Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet's Paradise? "And next we have a _cantabile_ (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music. Kadijah has understood Mahomet! Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet's interviews with the Angel Gabriel (_maestoso sostenuto_ in F Major). The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major). "He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony. "Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love! "Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god. Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose. "Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the opera?" At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and the cook. Marianna, too, deeply affected by certain passages in which she recognized a picture of her own position, could not conceal the expression of her eyes from Andrea. Gambara wiped his brow, and shot a glance at the ceiling of such fierce energy that he seemed to pierce it and soar to the very skies. "You have seen the vestibule," said he; "we will now enter the palace. The opera begins:-- "Act I. Mahomet, alone on the stage, begins with an air (F natural, common time), interrupted by a chorus of camel-drivers gathered round a well at the back of the stage (they sing in contrary time--twelve-eight). What majestic woe! It will appeal to the most frivolous women, piercing to their inmost nerves if they have no heart. Is not this the very expression of crushed genius?" To Andrea's great astonishment,--for Marianna was accustomed to it,--Gambara contracted his larynx to such a pitch that the only sound was a stifled cry not unlike the bark of a watch-dog that has lost its voice. A slight foam came to the composer's lips and made Andrea shudder. "His wife appears (A minor). Such a magnificent duet! In this number I have shown that Mahomet has the will and his wife the brains. Kadijah announces that she is about to devote herself to an enterprise that will rob her of her young husband's love. Mahomet means to conquer the world; this his wife has guessed, and she supports him by persuading the people of Mecca that her husband's attacks of epilepsy are the effect of his intercourse with the angels (chorus of the first followers of Mahomet, who come to promise him their aid, C sharp minor, _sotto voce_). Mahomet goes off to seek the Angel Gabriel (_recitative_ in F major). His wife encourages the disciples (_aria_, interrupted by the chorus, gusts of chanting support Kadijah's broad and majestic air, A major). "Abdallah, the father of Ayesha,--the only maiden Mahomet has found really innocent, wherefore he changed the name of Abdallah to Abubekir (the father of the virgin),--comes forward with Ayesha and sings against the chorus, in strains which rise above the other voices and supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar, the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette. The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a bass, Omar a baritone. "Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first _bravura_ air, the beginning of the _finale_ (E major), promising the empire of the world to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then, by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the magistrates, the military, and the authorities have all proscribed the Prophet (_recitative_). Mahomet declares in an invocation (in C) that the Angel Gabriel is on his side, and points to a pigeon that is seen flying away. The chorus of believers responds in accents of devotion (on a modulation to B major). The soldiers, magistrates, and officials then come on (_tempo di marcia_, common time, B major). A chorus in two divisions (_stretto_ in E major). Mahomet yields to the storm (in a descending phrase of diminished sevenths) and makes his escape. The fierce and gloomy tone of this _finale_ is relieved by the phrases given to the three women who foretell Mahomet's triumph, and these motives are further developed in the third act in the scene where Mahomet is enjoying his splendor." The tears rose to Gambara's eyes, and it was only upon controlling his emotion that he went on. "Act II. The religion is now established. The Arabs are guarding the Prophet's tent while he speaks with God (chorus in A minor). Mahomet appears (a prayer in F). What a majestic and noble strain is this that forms the bass of the voices, in which I have perhaps enlarged the borders of melody. It was needful to express the wonderful energy of this great human movement which created an architecture, a music, a poetry of its own, a costume and manners. As you listen, you are walking under the arcades of the Generalife, the carved vaults of the Alhambra. The runs and trills depict that delicate mauresque decoration, and the gallant and valorous religion which was destined to wage war against the gallant and valorous chivalry of Christendom. A few brass instruments awake in the orchestra, announcing the Prophet's first triumph (in a broken _cadenza_). The Arabs adore the Prophet (E flat major), and the Khaled, Amru, and Ali arrive (_tempo di marcia_). The armies of the faithful have taken many towns and subjugated the three Arabias. Such a grand recitative!--Mahomet rewards his generals by presenting them with maidens. "And here," said Gambara, sadly, "there is one of those wretched ballets, which interrupt the thread of the finest musical tragedies! But Mahomet elevates it once more by his great prophetic scene, which poor Monsieur Voltaire begins with these words: "Arabia's time at last has come! "He is interrupted by a chorus of triumphant Arabs (twelve-eight time, _accelerando_). The tribes arrive in crowds; the horns and brass reappear in the orchestra. General rejoicings ensue, all the voices joining in by degrees, and Mahomet announces polygamy. In the midst of all this triumph, the woman who has been of such faithful service to Mahomet sings a magnificent air (in B major). 'And I,' says she, 'am I no longer loved?' 'We must part. Thou art but a woman, and I am a Prophet; I may still have slaves but no equal.' Just listen to this duet (G sharp minor). What anguish! The woman understands the greatness her hands have built up; she loves Mahomet well enough to sacrifice herself to his glory; she worships him as a god, without criticising him,--without murmuring. Poor woman! His first dupe and his first victim! "What a subject for the _finale_ (in B major) is her grief, brought out in such sombre hues against the acclamations of the chorus, and mingling with Mahomet's tones as he throws his wife aside as a tool of no further use, still showing her that he can never forget her! What fireworks of triumph! what a rush of glad and rippling song go up from the two young voices (first and second soprano) of Ayesha and Hafsa, supported by Ali and his wife, by Omar and Abubekir! Weep!--rejoice!--Triumph and tears! Such is life." Marianna could not control her tears, and Andrea was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist. The Neapolitan cook was startled by the magnetic influence of the ideas expressed by Gambara's convulsive accents. The composer looked round, saw the group, and smiled. "At last you understand me!" said he. No conqueror, led in pomp to the Capitol under the purple beams of glory, as the crown was placed on his head amid the acclamations of a nation, ever wore such an expression. The composer's face was radiant, like that of a holy martyr. No one dispelled the error. A terrible smile parted Marianna's lips. The Count was appalled by the guilelessness of this mania. "Act III," said the enchanted musician, reseating himself at the piano. "(_Andantino, solo_.) Mahomet in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass. "It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices. Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion! "Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human and divine." Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition, were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds, progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to describe this impossible music. Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down, could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes, Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite intoxicated with the poetry that filled his brain, and that he had vainly striven to utter. The strange discords that clashed under his fingers had obviously sounded in his ears like celestial harmonies. A deaf man, seeing the inspired gaze of his blue eyes open on another world, the rosy glow that tinged his cheeks, and, above all, the heavenly serenity which ecstasy stamped on his proud and noble countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at it for years. Nor were his hands alone employed; his feet were constantly at work with complicated pedaling; his body swayed to and fro; the perspiration poured down his face while he toiled to produce a great _crescendo_ with the feeble means the thankless instrument placed at his command. He stamped, puffed, shouted; his fingers were as swift as the serpent's double tongue; and finally, at the last crash on the keys, he fell back in his chair, resting his head on the top of it. "_Per Bacco!_ I am quite stunned," said the Count as he left the house. "A child dancing on the keyboard would make better music." "Certainly mere chance could not more successfully avoid hitting two notes in concord than that possessed creature has done during the past hour," said Giardini. "How is it that the regular beauty of Marianna's features is not spoiled by incessantly hearing such a hideous medley?" said the Count to himself. "Marianna will certainly grow ugly." "Signor, she must be saved from that," cried Giardini. "Yes," said Andrea. "I have thought of that. Still, to be sure that my plans are not based on error, I must confirm my doubts by another experiment. I will return and examine the instruments he has invented. To-morrow, after dinner, we will have a little supper. I will send in some wine and little dishes." The cook bowed. Andrea spent the following day in superintending the arrangement of the rooms where he meant to install the artist in a humble home. In the evening the Count made his appearance, and found the wine, according to his instructions, set out with some care by Marianna and Giardini. Gambara proudly exhibited the little drums, on which lay the powder by means of which he made his observations on the pitch and quality of the sounds emitted by his instruments. "You see," said he, "by what simple means I can prove the most important propositions. Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism." He then displayed the instruments constructed in accordance with his laws, explaining the changes he had introduced into their constitution. And finally he announced that to conclude this preliminary inspection, which could only satisfy a superficial curiosity, he would perform on an instrument that contained all the elements of a complete orchestra, and which he called a _Panharmonicon_. "If it is the machine in that huge case, which brings down on us the complaints of the neighborhood whenever you work at it, you will not play on it long," said Giardini. "The police will interfere. Remember that!" "If that poor idiot stays in the room," said Gambara in a whisper to the Count, "I cannot possibly play." Andrea dismissed the cook, promising a handsome reward if he would keep watch outside and hinder the neighbors or the police from interfering. Giardini, who had not stinted himself while helping Gambara to wine, was quite willing. Gambara, without being drunk, was in the condition when every power of the brain is over-wrought; when the walls of the room are transparent; when the garret has no roof, and the soul soars in the empyrean of spirits. Marianna, with some little difficulty, removed the covers from an instrument as large as a grand piano, but with an upper case added. This strange-looking instrument, besides this second body and its keyboard, supported the openings or bells of various wind instruments and the closed funnels of a few organ pipes. "Will you play me the prayer you say is so fine at the end of your opera?" said the Count. To the great surprise of both Marianna and the Count, Gambara began with a succession of chords that proclaimed him a master; and their astonishment gave way first to amazed admiration and then to perfect rapture, effacing all thought of the place and the performer. The effects of a real orchestra could not have been finer than the voices of the wind instruments, which were like those of an organ and combined wonderfully with the harmonies of the strings. But the unfinished condition of the machine set limits to the composer's execution, and his idea seemed all the greater; for, often, the very perfection of a work of art limits its suggestiveness to the recipient soul. Is not this proved by the preference accorded to a sketch rather than a finished picture when on their trial before those who interpret a work in their own mind rather than accept it rounded off and complete? The purest and serenest music that Andrea had ever listened to rose up from under Gambara's fingers like the vapor of incense from an altar. The composer's voice grew young again, and, far from marring the noble melody, it elucidated it, supported it, guided it,--just as the feeble and quavering voice of an accomplished reader, such | intolerable | How many times the word 'intolerable' appears in the text? | 1 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | setting | How many times the word 'setting' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | age | How many times the word 'age' appears in the text? | 1 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | peeing | How many times the word 'peeing' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | factory | How many times the word 'factory' appears in the text? | 3 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | told | How many times the word 'told' appears in the text? | 1 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | succeeds | How many times the word 'succeeds' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | conference | How many times the word 'conference' appears in the text? | 3 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | hangman | How many times the word 'hangman' appears in the text? | 2 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | photos | How many times the word 'photos' appears in the text? | 3 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | done | How many times the word 'done' appears in the text? | 2 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | waygone | How many times the word 'waygone' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | escapes | How many times the word 'escapes' appears in the text? | 2 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | blows | How many times the word 'blows' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | gown | How many times the word 'gown' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | collection | How many times the word 'collection' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | poplar | How many times the word 'poplar' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | fireside | How many times the word 'fireside' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | young | How many times the word 'young' appears in the text? | 1 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | faucets | How many times the word 'faucets' appears in the text? | 0 |
you pay rent? JANE No, dad, you're a very wealthy man, you can afford to keep me. Mr. Brooks presses his Intercom. MR. BROOKS Sunday, would you show the gentleman who gave you the envelope to the conference room, and tell him I'll meet him there and... (to Jane) What happened to the BMW? JANE A friend is driving it across country, it'll be here next weekend. MR. BROOKS (to Sunday, through Intercom) And get Jane a cab. He picks up the phone and holds it out to Jane. MR. BROOKS Call your mother. JANE Are you going to give me a job? MR. BROOKS If it were up to me, and I think your mother will agree with this, you should go back to school. INT. HALLWAY - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY Mr. Brooks comes around the corner. He's raving at Marshall who's walking beside him. MR. BROOKS You see all of this?! The factory, the houses, the cars, the money, the respect!!... (CONTINUED) 25. CONTINUED: A different angle in the same hallway shows Mr. Brooks walking away from us. A passing EMPLOYEE crosses him. The Men nod to each other. Marshall is nowhere in sight. MR. BROOKS (V.O.) ... I like them! I don't want to lose them! And then we're back to the original angle and Marshall is again in the picture. MR. BROOKS ... That's why I didn't want to do the dance Couple! MARSHALL Stop your fucking whining, Earl, you enjoyed doing that Couple just as much as I did, and look on the bright side, he came to us he didn't go to the Cops. If he tries to shake us down we kill him. Period. We make it fun but we kill him. End of story. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - BROOKS BOX FACTORY DAY The Man from the Reception Area is nervously admiring a display of Mr. Brooks's ceramic pieces. He turns at the sound of the door opening behind. MR. BROOKS What can I do for you, Mr...? MAN ... Let's say, 'Smith'. MR. BROOKS Okay, Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks motions him to a seat. MR. SMITH (MAN) (sitting) Before you get the wrong impression, Mr. Brooks, I'm not here to shake you down. (CONTINUED) 26. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (holding up the photos) Then these are the only copies of these photos and you have no others. MR. SMITH No. I have other copies and other photos, and if something were to happen to me... MR. BROOKS How did you find me, Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH You're 'Man of the Year', Mr. Brooks. Your picture was in the paper. If it hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done. MR. BROOKS Lucky me. What is it that I can help you with? MR. SMITH I've been watching that Couple for months, they liked to make love with the blinds open. Sometimes I would take pictures, you know, visual aides for later. It was fun, it was a great way to get off; I thought, until I saw you kill them. I have to tell you I have never ever felt a rush like that ever. I know you're the Thumbprint killer, you've done this before. What I want is to go with you the next time you kill someone. And I would like that to be soon. From the end of the table, Marshall cackles a laugh. MARSHALL And you were worried that this was going to be unpleasant. The answer is simple. Just tell him you've decided never to kill again and he'll go away. MR. BROOKS You enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? (CONTINUED) 27. CONTINUED: (2) MARSHALL In a word, yes. MR. BROOKS Where do you think he has the other pictures? MARSHALL He put them in a safety deposit box but I'll bet the box is at the bank where he has his checking account and the key is on his keychain. He really wants to do this, he's not going to go to the cops. Mr. Smith who has grown uneasy under Mr. Brooks's stare swallows: MR. SMITH So do we have a deal? MR. BROOKS From the angle of these pictures... (taps the envelope) ... you live on the third floor of the apartment building across the alley from the Couple's house. MR. SMITH Well... eh. MR. BROOKS Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith nods 'yes'. MR. BROOKS What time do you get home from work? MR. SMITH Six thirty, seven, depending on the traffic. MR. BROOKS You can never come here again, you can never call me. Do you understand that? MR. SMITH Yes. (CONTINUED) 28. CONTINUED: (3) MR. BROOKS Tomorrow night, not tonight, tomorrow night, at eight o'clock, leave your apartment and walk east. I'll pick you up. MR. SMITH If you're thinking of doing anything to me, Mr. Brooks... MR. BROOKS We're both aware of the rules, Mr. Smith, but I feel I must warn you. If it turns out that you enjoy killing, it can become very addictive. It could ruin your life. MR. SMITH I want to do this. MR. BROOKS (looks at Marshall) Have I covered everything? MARSHALL I can't think of anything else. Mr. Brooks stands up and opens the door. MR. BROOKS I'll see you tomorrow night, Mr. Smith. On his way out, Mr. Smith nods. Mr. Brooks closes the door. His chin drops on his chest and he sighs. MR. BROOKS (under his breath) Please God, please help me find a way not to do this. EXT. DOWNTOWN CHICAGO DAY Detective Atwood comes out of the CROWD on the sidewalk and enters a Highrise. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - LAW OFFICES DAY Atwood and her ATTORNEYS, a gray-haired Man in his 60's, and an Asian Woman about the same age as Atwood are on one side of the table. (CONTINUED) 29. CONTINUED: JESSE, Atwood's soon to be ex-husband, very handsome, slightly younger than Atwood, and SHEILA, his attractive divorce lawyer, sit across from them. ASIAN ATTORNEY We've talked to our client and we've come up with a number that we feel is more than fair. Atwood is not happy with this. The Attorney slides a sheet of paper to Sheila. She turns it over. On it is written: $750,000 -. ASIAN ATTORNEY We can have a check for that amount in your office by 6 o'clock. SHEILA We told you at the beginning what we want and that hasn't changed. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY You know as well as I do, Counselor, if we go to court you're not going to get a million five. SHEILA I don't know. Let's see. She holds up the front page of the Chicago Tribune. "THE HANGMAN ESCAPES" story is circled in red. SHEILA This is the front page of yesterday's paper... (reads) 'Hangman Escapes'... eh... now, here it is... 'after torturing the young women, Thorton Meeks would hang them in public places - church steeples, balconies, Freeway overpasses'... Your client captured Mr. Meeks. This is just one example of the cases my client lived through when he was married to your client. ASIAN ATTORNEY Your client knew Detective Atwood was a homicide detective when he married her. (CONTINUED) 30. CONTINUED: (2) SHEILA But he had no idea of the mental anguish that being in close proximity to her work would cause him. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What about the mental anguish I went through being in close proximity to him. Who's gonna pay me for that? ASIAN ATTORNEY We don't need to get into this, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yes, we do. I was the one who paid for everything while we were married, and now I'm being asked to give him a bonus for spending time with me when I've already paid for it in the first place. JESSE (to Atwood) Tracy, this is not a lot of money for you, and you know how upset I was when Meeks said that he was going to escape and he would come back and kill you. SHEILA We're quite willing to find out what a court would think that mental anguish is worth. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Jesse... Darling?... you know the best thing that could happen to me right now? That you get hit by a truck and die. SHEILA (smiles) That's it! Mr. Vialo and I are leaving. (she and Jesse stand up) You've threatened my client, we're going to ask for a restraining order, and we'll see you in court. (CONTINUED) 31. CONTINUED: (3) The door closes behind them. GRAY-HAIRED ATTORNEY That's going to cost you, Tracy. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (standing up) Fuck it. It felt good. INT. APARTMENT NIGHT Moonlight seeps around the blinds to reveal Mr. Smith asleep in bed. Beyond the open BEDROOM door down the hall is only darkness until the eruption of illumination from a penlight momentarily outlines the figure of a Man. Then we're looking at what the penlight sees. A keyring. Hands in surgical gloves isolate the - safety deposit key - and press it into a soft wax block where it leaves its impression. The light goes off. In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound. Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth. WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces Mr. Smith upright and awake. MR. SMITH Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. MR. BROOKS Don't worry, if I were here to kill you, you would already be dead. The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS After you left today, I realized our friendship was a little one- sided. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 32. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS (CONT'D) So when we meet tomorrow night would you be so kind as to bring all of the pictures and the memory card from your camera. That way we can like each other simply for who we are. If you don't show up, I will presume you've gone to the police and I will kill you. Even if I go to jail because of you, someone will find you wherever you are and kill you. The penlight goes off. There's total silence. MR. SMITH (squeaks) Mr. Brooks?... He squints into the black. MR. SMITH Mr. Brooks?... Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith swings his legs out of bed and stands up. He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his arm around the jamb into the darkness. The HALL light is dazzling. A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He continues on into the LIVING ROOM. His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security chain' is in place!! Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone. He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door. Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his life. MR. SMITH Wow!... 33. INT. BROOKS HOUSE NIGHT In a robe and pajamas, Mr. Brooks comes down the HALLWAY carrying a glass of milk. The door to his Daughter's ROOM is partly open. By the nightlight in the plug at the head of the bed he can see she's asleep. INT. BEDROOM NIGHT Mr. Brooks walks to the bed, leans over and kisses his Daughter on the cheek. MR. BROOKS (quietly) It's nice to have you home. He leaves. EXT. CHICAGO - MORNING The early rays of the sun are moving down the tall buildings. EXT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING A garbage truck is picking up the trash. INT. BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Dressed for work and a smile on his face, Mr. Brooks comes down the stairs. In the BREAKFAST ROOM, the mood is decidedly different. His Wife and Daughter are leaning against opposite walls staring at the floor. MR. BROOKS What's wrong? EMMA Ask your daughter what the real reason is she dropped out of school. JANE I keep telling you it's not the reason. (CONTINUED) 34. CONTINUED: EMMA You wanted to go to college, you had good grades in High School, your father helped you get into Stanford, we're paying a ton of money, if this is not the reason, then please dear God tell me the reason. MR. BROOKS (picking up an orange juice) Why does your mother think you dropped out of school? JANE I'm pregnant. (to her Mother) And it's not the reason I dropped out. Being pregnant wouldn't stop me from going to school if I wanted to go. MR. BROOKS Who's the father? JANE Some guy I was seeing. EMMA Does he know? JANE Yes, he's a married man and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. EMMA Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry. JANE I'm going to have an abortion anyway, so there is nothing to get upset about. I wasn't even going to tell you guys. Mr. Brooks looks directly at his Daughter. MR. BROOKS There will be no abortion. (CONTINUED) 35. CONTINUED: (2) JANE Daddy, you are not going to tell me what to do. It's my body and I will do what I want to do with it. Mr. Brooks's eyes find Emma's. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head 'no'. MR. BROOKS (to his Daughter) You're right. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to say that a grandchild would be a wonderful gift for your mother and me. EMMA Please, Honey, don't have an abortion. JANE Would you really want to have a grandchild, even though I'm not married? MR. BROOKS Yes. The child is what's important. We would love it and cherish it completely and help you raise it. JANE If it means that much to you, I'll think about it. INT. GARAGE - BROOKS HOUSE MORNING Walking to the Lexus, Mr. Brooks notices Marshall waiting for him on the passenger side. MR. BROOKS (smiles) Well, we were right, she was hiding something. MARSHALL (flat) Pregnant's not all of it. She's hiding something bigger. Much bigger. MR. BROOKS You think so? (CONTINUED) 36. CONTINUED: MARSHALL I know so, and so do you. INT. CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Large and small Color Photographs pinned to a corkboard create a Collage of the dance Couple murder scene. Standing in front of this is CAPTAIN LISTER, a tall slim open- faced Woman in her mid-fifties, and the lead Crime Scene Technician we saw earlier at the Murder House. TECHNICIAN It's not what's here, it's what's not here that's interesting. There's not a trace of anything foreign. If I didn't know better I'd say these people were killed by a ghost. CAPTAIN LISTER The autopsy found a tiny piece of plastic in the female victim's brain. TECHNICIAN We're checking with the ammunition manufacturers. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (entering the room) That's a dead end, he bags the gun. TECHNICIAN I don't understand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD He ziplocks a one gallon plastic freezer bag to his wrist over the gun. Bang. Bang. A little bit of plastic is carried by the first slug, the ejected shells go into the bag and it limits the powder residue. (to Captain Lister) I hear you were looking for me. CAPTAIN LISTER (to the Technician) Sigy... (CONTINUED) 37. CONTINUED: SIGY (TECHNICIAN) Yeah, okay... (to Atwood) Did you find anything? Did they have enemies, did they owe money, did anybody ever notice someone watching the house? DETECTIVE ATWOOD So far they are Mr. and Miss Normal. SIGY (backing away) If you find anything, call, it might help me. He's gone. CAPTAIN LISTER I received a subpoena from your husband's lawyer for your work records, where you were, date and times for the past two years. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER Almost three quarters of your cases are current. I can't let that information go into open court. So until you settle your divorce, I'm going to have to put you on a desk. DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's also blackmail. CAPTAIN LISTER That's one of your big problems, Atwood, you don't know how to ask for help. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Do you know what he did to me? CAPTAIN LISTER You can't grow old as a woman without having at least one lousy man in your life. (CONTINUED) 38. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD I was so stupid. While we were married, while I paid for him to live, the son of a bitch fucked every woman he could get his hands on. He fucked my friends, he even fucked a cousin of mine. Everyone knew but me, and they were laughing at me behind my back. He made me look like an idiot. I was a joke. CAPTAIN LISTER And?... DETECTIVE ATWOOD And what? CAPTAIN LISTER Get over it. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I made him an offer. I'm not going to give him one red cent more. CAPTAIN LISTER I hear what he's asking for, you could take out of pocket change. Do that and go on with your life. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I couldn't live with myself if I did. CAPTAIN LISTER I'll spread your work among the other guys and the FBI will be here on thursday... (motions to the pictures) ... they'll take over this case. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Please, these are my cases. Nobody knows them like me. Don't give them away and don't give the Thumbprint Killer to the FBI. He's killed people in twelve other states, let them fuck up those investigations. This one's mine. (CONTINUED) 39. CONTINUED: (3) CAPTAIN LISTER (opening the door to leave) You heard Meeks escaped? DETECTIVE ATWOOD Yeah. CAPTAIN LISTER Do you want a detail on you in case he comes after you? DETECTIVE ATWOOD I can take care of myself. CAPTAIN LISTER You're a good cop, Tracy, I don't want to lose you, but you have to help me if you want me to help you. INT. HALLWAY CRIME LAB AFTERNOON Atwood is waiting for an elevator. It arrives. The doors open. The car is empty. INT. ELEVATOR AFTERNOON Atwood gets in and presses the key for her destination, then slumps into a corner for the ride. The doors close. The elevator begins to move. All at once Atwood screams. Her pent-up anger and frustration rip the air and she goes nuts. She punches the wall of the elevator, kicks it, throws herself to the other side, bangs her head against that wall, punches it, kicks it, all the while screaming. Then the tears come. The screams stop and she settles upright against the back wall, where she strikes her chest repeatedly with the flat of her closed hand. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? EXT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT It's raining. The yellow Police tape that still circles the yard snaps in the wind. (CONTINUED) 40. CONTINUED: Up the driveway, out of sight of all the other homes, there's a movement at the side door of the house. A closer inspection reveals that it's Detective Atwood. From under her umbrella she studies her surroundings and as if she's speaking to the killer, she speaks to herself. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you choose them because of where they lived or how they looked or what jobs they had? Or did you just pick them because at the instant you saw them, you had decided to kill someone? The side door was perfect. No one could see you pick the lock. With a key she lets herself in. EXT. STREET NIGHT Parked against the curb opposite the driveway of the Murder House is an old green Pontiac Convertible with the top up. The driver's window is down and from inside a WOMAN, late 20's, is watching the house. INT. MURDER HOUSE NIGHT Atwood stops in the PANTRY almost in the exact spot where Mr. Brooks stopped. The quiet is filled by the rain drumming on the roof. The wind rattles the windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD How did you know where they were in the house? She steps into the KITCHEN. On the way across she bumps into a chair. DETECTIVE ATWOOD It's darker tonight than it was on your night. But still how did you manage not to bump into the furniture? Did you have a little light? That would be too dangerous. I'll bet you were in the house before. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 41. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD (CONT'D) So I should ask the neighbors if they saw a meter reader around the house or a telephone repairman or someone from the gas company. These musings take her through the LIVING ROOM to the entrance of the HALLWAY where she pauses and looks both ways. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Once again, how did you know where they were? Did you check the rooms before you found them? She had his semen in her vagina, they had just made love, did you hear them or was there a light on? She steps into the HALL. DETECTIVE ATWOOD And when did you bag the gun? Because even though I'm sure you're an expert at it, there's still a chance of noise from the plastic. She continues down the HALL to the BEDROOM. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was the door open or did you have to open it? She opens the door and goes in. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Were they asleep or awake? Was the light on, or did you turn it on? Because I know you, you wouldn't risk a shot in the dark. She turns on the overhead light. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Too bright. What if it wasn't that light that was on, but this one? She turns on a bedside light and goes back to the door and turns off the overhead. If the dance Couple were on the bed and their blood was not on the wall, the room would look exactly the way it did when Mr. Brooks said 'hello'. (CONTINUED) 42. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD That's better... What thrill do you get by killing people? Is it sexual, is it hate, is it power? Do you feel remorse? Probably that part of your brain doesn't exist. Do you have emotions of love or affection or joy? Or have you learned to fake them so you won't stand out in a crowd. She's at the window now, feeling the curtains. DETECTIVE ATWOOD What if these are stuck closed because you yanked them closed? Which means they were open when you came into the room. She separates the fabric and looks out the rain-streaked window at the four story building across the alley. There are lights on in almost all the apartment windows. DETECTIVE ATWOOD If Mr. and Miss Normal made love with the curtains open and the lights on, someone in that building noticed them and may have seen you. She allows the fabric to drop back into place and turns to look at the bed. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Was that what you were angry about? INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT Moving slowly across a neutral colored wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD (O.S.) Thank you for your time. A door is closed. We come to the corner and are looking down a HALLWAY at Atwood coming toward us. We move to her and arrive just as she raises her fist to knock. Before she can, the door opens and she and Mr. Smith who is on his way out of his Apartment are surprised that the other one is suddenly there. Each one takes a half step back. Phwap! The manila envelope that was wedged under Mr. Smith's left arm hits the floor. (CONTINUED) 43. CONTINUED: MR. SMITH Oh! You scared me. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I'm sorry... (bends down and picks up the envelope) ... I was about to knock. I'm Detective Atwood with the Chicago Police. MR. SMITH (accepting the envelope) Thank you. Through the open door, Atwood can see Mr. Smith's camera on a table and the collapsed tripod leaning against the wall. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Are you a photographer... (glances at her list) Mr. Baffert? MR. SMITH No... eh, it's kind of a hobby, I just started. DETECTIVE ATWOOD I don't know if you're aware but there was a murder... MR. SMITH Oh, yes in the house across the alley... DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did you happen to see anything unusual or suspicious that night around that house? Anything at all? Mr. Smith puts on his thinking expression and pauses a little bit before: MR. SMITH No... I wondered that when I heard what happened, but... no. (looks at his watch) I'm sorry, I'm meeting someone and I don't want to be late. He moves into the Hallway closing the door behind him. (CONTINUED) 44. CONTINUED: (2) DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, if you hear anything or remember anything. MR. SMITH (taking the card) I wish I could be of more help, but sorry. Watching him walk away amid the crinkle of his raincoat, Detective Atwood, maybe because of her woman's intuition or maybe because she's a good cop, wonders what is in that manila envelope under his arm. The thought is gone almost as soon as it comes and she faces about to the next door. EXT. STREET NIGHT Hunched against the rain, Mr. Smith is acutely aware of the traffic. His eyes strain to see the Occupants of each passing car. He doesn't give a second thought to the older non- descript Toyota parked against the far curb. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Brooks is in the driver's seat. Marshall is in the back. They're both tracking the progress of Mr. Smith. MR. BROOKS He looks clean. He looks like he's alone. MARSHALL No, I'm telling you he wants to do this. MR. BROOKS I guess I should turn around and go pick him up. MARSHALL Nah. Just honk. Maybe he'll get killed crossing the street and save us the mess of doing it. EXT. STREET NIGHT Honk!! Honk!! Mr. Smith looks around. He's not sure that sound was for him. But when the Toyota honks again and flashes it's lights, Mr. Smith waves and splashes to the center of the street. (CONTINUED) 45. CONTINUED: Even though he stops to let it pass, a car sounds its horn and swerves to avoid him. Mr. Smith crosses behind the Toyota and opens the passenger door. INT. TOYOTA NIGHT Mr. Smith flops into the seat. MR. SMITH Woof! It's really coming down out there. MR. BROOKS They say it'll be sunny tomorrow. Mr. Smith fumbles with the buttons and zipper on his raincoat. MR. SMITH I never trust those guys, when they say it's going to be clear it always rains and when they say it's going to rain, it's sunny. He comes up with the manila envelope. MR. SMITH Here's what you asked for. Mr. Brooks takes it and hefts it. MR. BROOKS The pictures and the memory card all here? MR. SMITH Yeah. MR. BROOKS You and I both know that not all the pictures are in here and you made a copy of the Memory Card, isn't that so? MR. SMITH But you understand my position. Mr. Brooks favors him with a wolfish smile. (CONTINUED) 46. CONTINUED: MR. BROOKS Yes, I do. But it's my hope that once you get to know me better you'll feel comfortable in giving me all that I've asked for. MR. SMITH That sounds fair. Oh, I almost forgot. I thought you might be interested in this. His hand comes forward with a card. MR. SMITH It's the policewoman who's looking for you. Marshall snaps forward from the back seat. MARSHALL Wow! We've never known anyone who's looking for us before. Mr. Brooks pinches the rectangle of paper away from Mr. Smith for a closer view. MARSHALL We've got to find out everything there is to know about this woman. MR. BROOKS This is too close, Marshall, too damn close. Mr. Smith interrupts Mr. Brooks's focus on Detective Atwood's card. MR. SMITH So, what do we do now? What's the plan for the evening? Mr. Brooks slips the envelope under the seat and starts the car. MR. BROOKS We drive around until we see someone we think we might enjoy killing. MR. SMITH Really? That's it? I thought you might already have someone in mind. (CONTINUED) 47. CONTINUED: (2) MR. BROOKS I don't enjoy this, Mr. Smith. I do it because I'm addicted to it. And before you entered my life I had vowed I would never kill again. So this is your party, you can chose anyone you want and we'll do it together. MR. SMITH Can it be someone I know? MR. BROOKS You never kill someone you know. That's the easiest way to get caught. EXT. STREET NIGHT The Toyota enters the traffic. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT An older WOMAN in a Stewardess uniform is standing in the doorway of her apartment. Atwood is in front of her in the HALL. STEWARDESS I wasn't in town that night, my roommate was, maybe he saw something. DETECTIVE ATWOOD May I speak to him? STEWARDESS He's on his way to Tokyo now, he's also a Flight Attendant. DETECTIVE ATWOOD Did the victims ever leave the curtains in the bedroom open? STEWARDESS All the time. I don't know if they thought we couldn't see them "fucking" or they didn't care. (CONTINUED) 48. CONTINUED: DETECTIVE ATWOOD Here's my card, could you ask your roommate to call me when he gets back, the people at | sunday | How many times the word 'sunday' appears in the text? | 2 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | send | How many times the word 'send' appears in the text? | 1 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | walk | How many times the word 'walk' appears in the text? | 3 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | brought | How many times the word 'brought' appears in the text? | 1 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | necropolis | How many times the word 'necropolis' appears in the text? | 0 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | know | How many times the word 'know' appears in the text? | 2 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | cargan | How many times the word 'cargan' appears in the text? | 2 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | everybody | How many times the word 'everybody' appears in the text? | 1 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | evidence | How many times the word 'evidence' appears in the text? | 0 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | wanted | How many times the word 'wanted' appears in the text? | 2 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | decided | How many times the word 'decided' appears in the text? | 2 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | conscience | How many times the word 'conscience' appears in the text? | 0 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | who | How many times the word 'who' appears in the text? | 3 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | foot | How many times the word 'foot' appears in the text? | 2 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | stairs | How many times the word 'stairs' appears in the text? | 3 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | sation | How many times the word 'sation' appears in the text? | 0 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | engage | How many times the word 'engage' appears in the text? | 0 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | aged | How many times the word 'aged' appears in the text? | 1 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | explanations | How many times the word 'explanations' appears in the text? | 1 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | tap | How many times the word 'tap' appears in the text? | 1 |
you say?--oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--" She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly. "Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight. If the man has an atom of decency--" "A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly. "Splendid. I--" "Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New glories shone in her eyes. "Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand, surely. "Run up and get your things." While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat. "I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?" "Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health? Come along, by all means." With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news that Mr. Max also was enthralled by the possibilities of a walk up Baldpate. The three went out through the front door, and found under the snow a hint of the path that led to the shack of the post-card merchant. "Will you go ahead?" asked Magee of Max. "Sorry," grinned Max, "but I guess I'll bring up the rear." "Suspicion," said Mr. Magee, shaking his head, "has caused a lot of trouble in the world. Remember the cruelty practised on Pueblo Sam." "I do," replied Mr. Max, "and it nearly breaks my heart. But there's a little matter I forgot to mention last night. Suspicion is all right in its place." "Where's that?" asked Mr. Magee. Mr. Max tapped his narrow chest. "Here," he said. So the three began the climb, Mr. Magee and the girl ahead, Mr. Max leering at their heels. The snow still fell, and the picture of the world was painted in grays and whites. At some points along the way to the hermit's abode it had drifted deep; at others the foot-path was swept almost bare by the wind. For a time Mr. Max kept so close that the conversation of the two in the lead was necessarily of the commonplaces of the wind and sky and mountain. Covertly Mr. Magee glanced at the girl striding along by his side. The red flamed in her cheeks; her long lashes were flecked with the white of the snow; her face was such a one as middle-aged men dream of while their fat wives read the evening paper's beauty hints at their side. Far beyond the ordinary woman was she desirable and pleasing. Mr. Magee told himself he had been a fool. For he who had fought so valiantly for her heart's desire at the foot of the steps had faltered when the time came to hand her the prize. Why? What place had caution in the wild scheme of the night before? None, surely. And yet he, dolt, idiot, coward, had in the moment of triumph turned cautious. Full confession, he decided, was the only way out. Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come. "I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of--quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you--" The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming. "I'm so glad," she said. "But why--why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had." "That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in." "Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--" "I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her." The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there. "Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money." "And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully. "Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until to-day. I--I did wait." He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on second thought. "I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package yet." The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with tears. "You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend to now." "On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room." "Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to her?" Oh, the perversity of women! "It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't believe in me, I know--" Her face was cold and expressionless. "And I wanted to believe in you--so much," she said. "Why did you want to?" cried Magee. "Why?" She plodded on through the snow. "You must believe," he pleaded. "I don't know what all this is about--on my word of honor. But I want to give you that money, and I will--the minute we get back to the inn. Will you believe then? Will you?" "I hate you," said the girl simply. She should not have said that. As far back as he could remember, such opposition had stirred Mr. Magee to wild deeds. He opened his mouth and words flowed forth. What were the words? "I love you! I love you! Ever since that moment in the station I have loved you! I love you!" Faintly he heard himself saying it over and over. By the gods, he was proposing! Inanely, in words of one syllable, as the butcher's boy might have told his love to the second kitchen maid. "I love you," he continued. Idiot! Often Mr. Magee had thought of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night--a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. And this--instead. "I love you." In heaven's name, was he never going to stop saying it? "I want you to believe." Bright morning on the mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed him his transfers. Mr. Magee had been scornful. He could never be scornful again. By a tremendous effort he avoided repeating his childish refrain. The girl deliberately stopped. There was never less of sweet gracious surrender in a suffragette hurling a stone through a shop-keeper's window. She eyed Mr. Magee pityingly, and they stood until Mr. Max caught up with them. "So that's the hermit's shack," said Max, indicating the little wooden hut at which they had arrived. "A funny place for a guy to bury himself. I should think he'd get to longing for the white lights and the table d'h tes with red wine." "A very unromantic speech," reproved the girl. "You should be deeply thrilled at the thought of penetrating the secrets of the hermitage. I am. Are you, Mr. Magee?" She smiled up at Magee, and he was in that state where he thought that in the blue depths of her eyes he saw the sunny slopes of the islands of the blest. "I--" he caught himself in time. He would not be idiot enough to babble it again. He pulled himself together. "I'm going to make you believe in me," he said, with a touch of his old jauntiness. Mr. Max was knocking with characteristic loudness at the hermit's door. CHAPTER XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS "Make me a willow cabin at your gate," quoted Mr. Magee, looking at the hermit's shack with interest. "U-m-m," replied Miss Norton. Thus beautiful sentiments frequently fare, even at the hands of the most beautiful. Mr. Magee abandoned his project of completing the speech. The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color. "Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?" He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards--furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen. "Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?" "A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee. "We have come to plead"--began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face. "I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out--in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once." He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown. "It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion." Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders. "My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that to you when we first met, Mr. Magee." "Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his instincts for a good salary, payable in advance." "You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't do it. I ask you." "I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make life worth living. It's beyond me." "I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be let alone." "Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends, you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?" But Peters shook his head again. "I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down. But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my oath--I got to be a hermit." "Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit. Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it." "You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit, turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the life you lead. But it isn't true." "And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why, only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there is so much of it in the world." "Well he might," replied the hermit. "Suspicion is the key-note of modern life--especially in New York." He drew the purple dressing-gown closer about his plump form. "I remember the last time I was in the big town, seeing a crowd of men in the grill-room of the Hoffman House. One of them--long, lean, like an eel--stooped down and whispered in the ear of a little fellow with a diamond horseshoe desecrating his haberdashery, and pointing to another man near by. 'No, I won't,' says the man with the diamonds, 'I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say.' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'" "It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements." "I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers' chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now." The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest. "New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "Its a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me." The hermit's eyes strayed far away--down the mountain--and beyond. "New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it was four years ago--I see the candles lit on the Great White Way--I hear the elevated roar, and the newsboys shout, and Diamond Jim Brady applauding at a musical comedy's first night. New York!" Mr. Max rose pompously and pointed a yellow finger at the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. "I got you!" he cried in triumph. "I'm wise! You want to go back." A half-hearted smile crossed the visible portion of the hermit's face. "I guess I'm about the poorest liar in the world," he said. "I never got away with but one lie in my life, and that was only for a little while. It was a masterpiece while it lasted, too. But it was my only hit as a liar. Usually I fail, as I have failed now. I lied when I said I couldn't cook for you because I had to be true to my hermit's oath. That isn't the reason. I'm afraid." "Afraid?" echoed Mr. Magee. "Scared," said Mr. Peters, "of temptation. Your seventh son of a seventh son friend here has read my palm O. K. I want to go back. Not in the summer, when the inn blazes like Broadway every evening, and I can sit here and listen to the latest comic opera tunes come drifting up from the casino, and go down and mingle with the muslin brigade any time I want, and see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they buy my postals. It ain't then I want to go back. It's when fall comes, and the trees on the mountain are bare, and Quimby locks up the inn, and there's only the wind and me on the mountain--then I get the fever. I haven't the post-card trade to think of--so I think of Ellen, and New York. She's--my wife. New York--it's my town. "That's why I can't come among you to cook. It'd be leading me into temptation greater than I could stand. I'd hear your talk, and like as not when you went away I'd shave off this beard, and burn the manuscript of _Woman_, and go down into the marts of trade. Last night I walked the floor till two. I can't stand such temptation." Mr. Peters' auditors regarded him in silence. He rose and moved toward the kitchen door. "Now you understand how it is," he said. "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking." "One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie--your masterpiece. We must hear about that." "Yes--spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max. "Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable--it ain't very short." "Please," beamed Miss Norton. With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close. "It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about overthrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast. "Sitting on those yellow sands the afternoon I speak of, wearing carpet slippers made for me by loving, so to speak, hands, I saw Alexander McMann come along. He was tall and straight and young and free, and I envied him, for even in those days my figure would never have done in a clothing advertisement, owing to the heritage of too many table d'h tes about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little, with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his exile, and why. "I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator. This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard. "'She cast you off?' I asked. "'She threw me down,' said he. "Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky, and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it." The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle. "'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.' "I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting. "'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and steamship books. Bright red books--the color came off on my eager hands. I picked out a country, and sailed away. Like you, I thought I could never be happy, never even smile, again. Look at me.' "He looked. I guess my face radiated bliss. The idea was so lovely. He was impressed--I could see it. 'I'm supremely happy,' I told him. 'I am my own master. I wander where I will. No woman tells me my hour for going out, or my hour for coming in. I wander. For company I have her picture--as I saw her last--with twinkling feet that never touched earth. As the spirit moves, I go. You can move the memory of a woman in a flash, my boy, but it takes two months to get the real article started, and then like as not she's forgot everything of importance. Ever thought of that? You should. You're going to be as happy as I am. Study me. Reflect.' I waved my carpet-slippered feet toward the palms. I had certainly made an impression on Alexander McMann. "As we walked back over the sands and grass-grown streets to the hotel, his heart got away from that cupid's lunch-counter, and he was almost cheerful. I was gay to the last, but as I parted from him my own heart sank. I knew I had to go back to her, and that she would probably give me a scolding about the carpet slippers. I parted from McMann with a last word of cheer. Then I went to the ship--to her. My wife. That was the lie, you understand. She traveled everywhere with me. She never trusted me. "We were due to sail that night, and I was glad. For I worried some over what I had done. Suppose my wife and Alexander McMann should meet. An estimable woman, but large, determined, little suggesting the butterfly of the footlights I married, long before. We had a bad session over the carpet slippers. The boat was ready to sail, when McMann came aboard. He carried a bag, and his face shone. "'She's sent for me,' he said. 'Marie wants me. I got a letter from my brother. I'll blow into Kansas like a cyclone, and claim her.' "I was paralyzed. At that minute a large black figure appeared on deck. It headed for me. 'Jake,' it says, 'you've sat up long enough. Go below now.' "McMann's face was terrible. I saw it was all up. 'I lied, McMann,' I explained. 'The idea just came to me, it fascinated me, and I lied. She did turn me down--there in the wings. And she shed that tear I spoke of, too. But, when I was looking over the railroad folders, she sent for me. I went--on the wings of love. It was two blocks--but I went on the wings of love. We've been married twenty years. Forgive me, McMann!' "McMann turned around. He picked up the bag. I asked where he was going. 'Ashore,' he said, 'to think. I may go back to Kansas City--I may. But I'll just think a bit first.' And he climbed into the ship's boat. I never saw him again." The hermit paused, and gazed dreamily into space. "That," he said, "was my one great lie, my masterpiece. A year afterward I came up here on the mountain to be a hermit." "As a result of it?" asked Miss Norton. "Yes," answered Mr. Peters, "I told the story to a friend. I thought he was a friend--so he was, but married. My wife got to hear of it. 'So you denied my existence,' she said. 'As a joke,' I told her. 'The joke's on you,' she says. That was the end. She went her way, and I went mine. I'd just unanimously gone her way so long, I was a little dazed at first with my freedom. After fighting for a living alone for a time, I came up here. It's cheap. I get the solitude I need for my book. Not long ago I heard I could go back to her if I apologized." "Stick to your guns," advised Mr. Max. "I'm trying to," Mr. Peters replied. "But it's lonesome here--in winter. And at Christmas in particular. This dressing-gown was a Christmas present from Ellen. She picked it. Pretty, ain't it? You see why I can't come down and cook for you. I might get the fever for society, and shave, and go to Brooklyn, where she's living with her sister." "But," said Mr. Magee, "we're in an awful fix. You've put us there. Mr. Peters, as a man of honor, I appeal to you. Your sense of fairness must tell you my appeal is just. Risk it one more day, and I'll have a cook sent up from the village. Just one day. There's no danger in that. Surely you can resist temptation one little day. A man of your character." Miss Norton rose and stood before Mr. Peters. She fixed him with her eyes--eyes into which no man could gaze and go his way unmoved. "Just one tiny day," she pleaded. Mr. Peters sighed. He rose. "I'm a fool," he said. "I can't help it. I'll take chances on another day. Though nobody knows where it'll lead." "Brooklyn, maybe," whispered Lou Max to Magee in mock horror. The hermit donned his coat, attended to a few household duties, and led the delegation outside. Dolefully he locked the door of his shack. The four started down the mountain. "Back to Baldpate with our cook," said Mr. Magee into the girl's ear. "I know now how C sar felt when he rode through Rome with his ex-foes festooned about his chariot wheels." Mr. Max again chose the rear, triumphantly escorting Mr. Peters. As Mr. Magee and the girl swung into the lead, the former was moved to recur to the topic he had handled so amateurishly a short time before. "I'll make you believe in me yet," he said. She did not turn her head. "The moment we reach the inn," he went on "I shall come to you, with the package of money in my hand. Then you'll believe I want to help you--tell me you'll believe then." "Very likely I shall," answered the girl without interest. "If you really do intend to give me that money--no one must know about it." "No one shall know," he answered, "but you and me." They | adding | How many times the word 'adding' appears in the text? | 1 |
Subsets and Splits