THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN
an original screenplay by Larry Brand
8180 Films P.O. BOX 975 Leland, MI 49654 Copyright 2011 Larry Brand
THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN WHITE SPACE and the distant WHOOSH of the WIND.
A few beats, then:
MAN’S VOICE (OVER) You’re not real.... WOMAN’S VOICE (OVER) How do you know? MAN’S VOICE (OVER) Weren’t your eyes blue? A WOMAN’S EYES HOVER huge and luminous before us.
Light brown.
Haunting.
THE MAN is OUTSIDE and VERY HIGH UP. A distant matrix of BRIDGES frames him like a spider’s web in the bright DAYLIGHT. MAN MAN And your hair...? THE WOMAN is opposite him, also framed by a latticework of BRIDGES, bits of Manhattan SKYLINE, impossibly distant CLOUDS and SKY. WOMAN I’m as real as you make me. MAN MAN That proves it. WOMAN What? We begin to HEAR the sound of DRIPPING. MAN MAN A real person would never say that. WOMAN Do we ever really exist outside each other’s imagination?
THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN WHITE SPACE and the distant WHOOSH of the WIND.
A few beats, then:
MAN’S VOICE (OVER) You’re not real.... WOMAN’S VOICE (OVER) How do you know? MAN’S VOICE (OVER) Weren’t your eyes blue? A WOMAN’S EYES HOVER huge and luminous before us.
Light brown.
Haunting.
THE MAN is OUTSIDE and VERY HIGH UP. A distant matrix of BRIDGES frames him like a spider’s web in the bright DAYLIGHT. MAN MAN And your hair...? THE WOMAN is opposite him, also framed by a latticework of BRIDGES, bits of Manhattan SKYLINE, impossibly distant CLOUDS and SKY. WOMAN I’m as real as you make me. MAN MAN That proves it. WOMAN What? We begin to HEAR the sound of DRIPPING. MAN MAN A real person would never say that. WOMAN Do we ever really exist outside each other’s imagination?
2.
The DRIPPING is getting LOUDER. MAN MAN How did we get from you not existing to me not existing? WOMAN What’s the difference? The DRIPPING suddenly becomes DEAFENING as we -CUT TO: A TENEMENT ROOM at NIGHT. NIGHT. Ugly light flashing through uncurtained windows, casting harsh SHADOWS across stained walls, broken furniture, a sagging sagging filthy filthy mattress mattress on a naked naked wire frame. Looks like a crack den from the post-Apocalypse. A DIGITAL IMAGE DISPLAYS a weird SKEWED ANGLE from the floor, where a camera has been dropped: crushed cigarette packs, scraps of aluminum aluminum foil. foil. A dark shape lies just just beyond beyond the bed. A FRYING PAN is on the floor, floor, looking out of place. A DROP of BLOOD splatters onto the the surface: surface: the source source of the DRIPPING. DRIPPING. MAN’S VOICE (OVER) So, this is where it gets you: too much thinking...or not enough. Another DROP cascades into the pan, EXPLODES in SLOW MOTION. MAN’S VOICE (OVER) (continuing) It’s a myth that we use only five percent of our brains. Ask anyone who’s who’s lost lost even even the smalle smallest st bit. bit. A THREEPENNY NAIL PROTRUDES from under the arm of a wooden chair.
3.
MAN’S VOICE (OVER) (continuing) No, we use pretty much all of it -and usually that’s not enough. FROM BEHIND we see the man, DANNY, tied to the chair. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) How do we find ourselves, inches from oblivion, still ignoring the obvious? If the past no longer exists and the future hasn’t happened yet, how can we be anywhere at all? A RED BEAD of MOISTURE begins to COALESCE along the length of the nail. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) The edge between two surfaces has no dimension -- yet somehow a blade can cut your throat. MOVE VERY SLOWLY toward the man in the chair, framed by the harsh LIGHT. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Zeno tells us we can’t be anywhere, yet somehow we find ourselves at the precipice; we can’t move, though we invariably exit life. We never catch the turtle who sits on the turtle, who sits on the...yeah, it’s turtles all the way down. A DROP OF BLOOD hangs precariously from the point of the nail --
4.
AND FALLS toward the waiting frying pan -- FREEZING in mid-flight. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) A lot to learn, a moment too late. CUT TO: A DIGITAL CAMERA IMAGE COMING UP. UP. Too BRIGHT BRIGHT for for an instant, then STOPPING STOPPING DOWN and FINDING FINDING FOCUS: FOCUS: an elderly elderly man, HERMAN HERZMAN, is FRAMED FRAMED against a window that looks out on a pleasant garden. HERMAN Are you ready? ACROSS THE ROOM Danny is adjusting his camera on its tripod -- the source of the DIGITAL IMAGE. He puts on a pair of of headphones. headphones. DANNY What did you have for breakfast this morning, Mr. Herzman? Breakfast?
HERMAN Who cares about that?
DANNY I’m checking sound levels. HERMAN Ham and eggs. Like every day. Danny adjusts the lavalier on Mr. Herzman’s shirt. DANNY Okay. He returns to his camera and finds his frame, nods to Herman. HERMAN (a few beats) The trains were hell, but even hell has levels -- some are always worse off than others. Who was that writer writer, , with with the circle circles s of of hell hell? ?
5.
DANNY Dante. HERMAN So, in there some are in the middle of the car and they’re probably not going to make it. The heat from the bodies -- their hell is worse. But my father pushed me to the edge. It wasn’t a window there, but there were slats, and sometimes through the slats you got a breath of fresh air. Heaven. It’s all a matter matter of compar compariso ison, n, right? right? All of a sudden, a bit of light and compared to the rest you are well off. The smell from the bodies ...for a moment it’s not so bad. IN AN EASY CHAIR across the room an elderly woman, RINA HERZMAN, watches her husband recount his story, nodding occasionally. THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we go CLOSE CLOSE on the old man’s man’s expres expressiv sive e face face. . HERMAN (DIGITAL) (continuing) We stopped at a station somewhere, maybe maybe the soldie soldiers rs needed needed some some fresh air. I don’t know if we were were ther there e five five minute minutes s or or two two hours -- time is different in this situation. Standing still is worse than moving, even if you’re moving to something bad. (a beat) A little bit of light hit my eye and I squeezed closer to the slat, but after all those hours in the dark, the sun hurt my eyes. I could only see a bright haze. Then, suddenly, a beautiful face appeared, with innocent blue eyes looking back at me. An angel. angel. Of course course, , I didn’t didn’t believe in angels, not even as a boy. Certainly not in this place....
6.
DANNY (V.O.) The Herzmans’ story had been featured in a local paper and was picked up nationally. Next thing they know, they had a book deal. There was talk of a movie. CUT TO: A WHITE ROOM so featureless featureless we could be inside a cloud. opposite an OFF-SCREEN FIGURE.
Danny is seated
DANNY (continuing) I thought it’d make an interesting documentary. FIGURE (O.S.) History Channel, that kind of thing? DANNY Yeah. FIGURE (O.S.) Internet says you make movies. DANNY Normally, I prefer fiction. FIGURE (O.S) Why’s that? DANNY It’s more believable. CUT TO: A SERIES OF VIEWS around Manhattan on a bright MORNING: crowds traversing Times Square, Bryant Park, Herald Square; the mercantile exchanges of Wall Street and the garment district; masses of humanity descending into or emerging from the subways. DANNY (V.O.) I was late as usual, hustling to make the 9:40 to Hudson, where the Herzmans lived. In the city you’re always in a hurry. Gotta get to that meeting, business (MORE)
7. DANNY (V.O.) (CONT'D) lunch, the ATM. People are just obstacles, inconveniences. MOVING THROUGH the morning pedestrian ocean, we SLOW DOWN and observe the FACES of passersby in intimate detail. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Make eye contact and you’re almost embarrassed by your own humanity. A face separates itself from the whole: the old woman nursing a grievance from some long-ago slight; the kid who knows he can never go home; the man who’s lost his gifts, fallen from grace; faces that have seen war and disaster, known passion and forgotten it, held grudges, forgiven sins, watched love turn into apathy. Yeah. The usual. WE SPEED UP and are suddenly HURTLING through the streets of MIDTOWN. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) And every now and then, a face you can’t get out of your mind. You see her across the subway platform, getting off a bus, in the produce aisle or at a bookstore. WOMEN’S FACES APPEAR within the crowds: turning toward us and FREEZING while the frenzied motion continues around them unabated. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Who is this person and how did our trajectories cross? What histories does she bring and what myths might we create, if only given the chance? You want to say something, but you can’t find the words. You’re just not that guy.
8.
THE FACES slowly FADE back into the gray of the crowd and VANISH. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) There are those sad souls who take out an ad in the personals: “Saw you in the New Age section at the Barnes and Noble on 53rd. I was wearing a green baseball cap.” Or they go back to the same spot, day after day, hoping it’s part of her routine. START MOVING again through the streets of Midtown. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) What they don’t know is that even if they got a second chance, they’d only blow it. We APPROACH the magnificent facade of Grand Central Station. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) They haven’t changed, only gotten that much older. They’d let her get away again. WE ENTER Grand Central Station, MOVING through the domed main chamber. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) So, she’ll always be a face among faces, a cypher, one of the Mysteries. You’ll never talk on the phone, recognize her scent; you won’t face each other over a bistro table, taste the Malbec, learn each other’s favorite color. She is, in short, every girl you’ll never know, never love, never fuck.
9.
DIGITAL IMAGE THROUGH Danny’s CAMERA shows us descending to the PLATFORMS, as commuters press toward the doors of a newly-arrived train. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Better to have never seen her at all. Now you understand the ancient wisdom: rip out the offending eye. A FACE turns ever so briefly toward Danny’s CAMERA amid the press of bodies: a young woman, hit by a sudden slant of light, which casts her in fierce and tragic tones; fragile and beautiful. Haunted. Is it merely a trick of light? Is she looking back at us? She starts to turn away and we FREEZE FRAME. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Except...I’d captured her in my camera. DANNY LOOKS quickly away from the eyepiece and ACROSS THE PLATFORM but the woman has disappeared into the crowd. DANNY (V.O.) And like that she was gone. FIGURE (V.O.) Just a chance occurrence? CUT TO: A MONITOR showing VIDEO of an INTERROGATION ROOM: the white room we were in earlier. With no windows, it exists in timeless space. Danny sits across a metal desk from DET. LLOYD MARTIN, who takes everything in at a glance, giving nothing away.
10.
DANNY I was getting some B-roll. She was just a face across the platform. DET. MARTIN No reason to expect you’d ever see her again? INSIDE THE ROOM the detective watches Danny dispassionately. DANNY (a beat) There are physicists who believe there are other universes like ours, but with one or two things changed. I thought, maybe there’s a universe in which we meet. I didn’t expect it’d be this one. DET. MARTIN Other universes. DANNY Yeah. DET. MARTIN That what you believe? DANNY I find it comforting. DET. MARTIN (nodding) For simplicity’s sake, why don’t we keep it to this universe.... CUT TO: DIGITAL IMAGE of Mr. Herzman’s lined and animated face on Danny’s CAMERA. HERMAN (DIGITAL) It was a little girl, maybe five or six, with pretty blonde curls. Maybe she was waiting for a train and had wandered away from her parents. She wore a little cross around her neck and the light from this was what hit my eyes. I’m (MORE)
11. HERMAN (DIGITAL) (CONT'D) sure all she could see through the slat was my eye, the eye of a boy only a little older than she. What must she have thought of this train and its strange cargo? DANNY (V.O.) After the story had broken, I needed to see the Herzmans again. HERMAN (DIGITAL) For a very long time we looked at each other through that slat, only inches away but it might have been different continents. Then she made a quick motion and her small fingers pushed through the hole. She dropped something into my palm, and a moment later, as if somehow the universe had known this moment had ended, the train started up again. I looked down at my hand and saw that she had given me the little gold cross from around her neck.... CUT TO: A COMMUTER TRAIN barreling alongside the Hudson River in the MORNING. DANNY (V.O.) At first I wasn’t sure it was the same girl I’d seen the other day. She looked different. INSIDE THE TRAIN we find Danny sitting in an aisle seat.
He notices
A YOUNG WOMAN sitting a couple of rows ahead, by the window. We only get glimpses of her as she leans to look out at the terrain. DANNY (V.O.) There is always a moment when your life changes, though you may not realize it at the time.
12.
DANNY FUMBLES with the bag at his feet to get his camera out. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) The word spoken, the light falling across someone’s face in a certain way; the moment you realize you’re in love or out of it.... DIGITAL IMAGE THROUGH Danny’s CAMERA as he FINDS FOCUS. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) History has turned on its axis and you will never be the same. THE YOUNG WOMAN is very pretty, smartly dressed in hip casual. glasses hide her eyes.
Oversized
DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Right there! That’s it. THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we watch as the girl’s hand dabs at her cheek and we FREEZE. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) That little movement of her hand -if I hadn’t been looking through the camera I never would have caught it. Was she getting a speck out of her eye, or dabbing at a tear? That touch, however small, turned her into flesh and blood for me, a soul with a past, a life with an arc. It gave her...specificity. DIGITAL ZOOM until the image PIXILATES into NOTHING.
13.
DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) A pretty girl on a train is one thing. A crying girl, a whole other matter. INSIDE THE TRAIN Danny moves into the seat beside the YOUNG WOMAN. She doesn’t seem to notice, looking out the window. He puts the camera bag awkwardly at his feet. A few beats. Then: DANNY You okay? She continues looking out the window. DANNY (continuing) I mean, you seemed upset. She is either in her own world or purposefully ignoring him. DANNY (trying again) Hey, trains make a lot of people sad. Like in all those country western songs. YOUNG WOMAN (without turning) “Country.” DANNY Right. I mean, there’s always a train and somebody’s always sad. She finally looks at him, seems to take him in at a glance. YOUNG WOMAN No. No one’s called it “country western” in thirty years. DANNY (smiling) Well, it was better music when they did. LEXI And don’t mistake crying for vulnerability.
14.
DANNY I was just -YOUNG WOMAN Your lens is showing. He looks at her quizzically, and she nods at his camera bag, which isn’t quite zipped shut. DANNY My job. YOUNG WOMAN If you’re a private eye, you suck at it. DANNY Nothing surreptitious. documentary.
Shooting a
YOUNG WOMAN (nodding to camera) It’s not on now, is it? DANNY Camera shy? YOUNG WOMAN Who are those people who think photographs capture your soul? DANNY Aborigines. Pretty sure they’re wrong. She looks back out the window.
Without turning:
YOUNG WOMAN So, what’s it about? Your movie. DANNY I guess you could say it’s a love story. YOUNG WOMAN Thought documentaries were nonfiction. DANNY That would be cynicism?
15.
YOUNG WOMAN You think just because something really happened it isn’t fiction? DANNY (V.O.) I was pretty sure this wasn’t your average girl on the commuter line. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM where Det. Martin listens impassively to Danny’s story. DET. MARTIN She give you any personal details? DANNY She had a way of turning your questions around. You thought you were talking about her but you were really just talking about yourself. BACK TO: INSIDE THE TRAIN as the New York State landscape floats by beyond the window. DANNY (a beat) So, why were you crying? She looks at him curiously.
Then:
YOUNG WOMAN You tell me. DANNY I get to make up whatever I want? YOUNG WOMAN You will anyway. DANNY Okay. Seven years ago you met a man on this very train. Got to talking but never traded more than first names. He gets off at Poughkeepsie. As he steps onto the platform he looks back through the window and your eyes meet. It’s then that you realize you (MORE)
16. DANNY (CONT'D) should’ve gotten off with him. He was the guy. He was your one chance to escape the wheel, to leave behind your everyday life for the chance, no matter how improbable, to enter mythic realms. She has to laugh at his flourish. DANNY (continuing) But the train is already moving. You’ve missed your chance. You spend weeks going through the Poughkeepsie directory but all you’ve got is his first name. YOUNG WOMAN Which is? DANNY Bob, unfortunately. YOUNG WOMAN If only it had been Zebediah. DANNY You call every one of the threehundred-and-seventy-three Roberts, Bobs, and Bobbys -YOUNG WOMAN I wouldn’t call any “Bobby”s. DANNY With no luck. But every day for seven years you buy your ticket. You get on the train, take it to Poughkeepsie, then turn around and go back home, alone. YOUNG WOMAN (laughing) That is such a guy story. DANNY Yeah? YOUNG WOMAN I wouldn’t spend that much time trying to track someone down if he’d murdered my mother. He looks at her a long beat, their laughter subsiding.
17.
DANNY You’re really not going to tell me. YOUNG WOMAN See, the difference between trains and planes is, on a train, if you don’t like the conversation you can change your seat. She reaches for her bag as the train starts to SLOW. YOUNG WOMAN (smiling) Or get off at the next stop. DANNY I don’t suppose I should ask for your number. She looks at him with sudden intensity. YOUNG WOMAN I heard once that events cast their shadows before them, that it’s only a matter of paying attention.... DANNY (V.O.) I’ve replayed that part of the conversation a hundred times. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM where Danny looks up at Det. Martin. DANNY (continuing) Was she trying to warn me? YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.) Give me your hand. BACK TO: THE TRAIN where Danny holds out his hand and she turns it palm up. DANNY Going to tell my fortune?
18.
YOUNG WOMAN (dismissively) That’s easy: you’ll know moments of joy, you’ll lose what you love, you’ll die. DANNY Can I get a second opinion? She takes out a pen and writes something on his palm. YOUNG WOMAN The other thing about trains is, you get to see the world passing in real time. When you’re eight miles up you can convince yourself you’re still the same person when you get off. She finishes writing, grabs her bag, and is gone. THROUGH THE WINDOW we see her pass the station sign for WESTPORT. DANNY LOOKS down at the single word on his palm:
“LEXI.” FLASH TO:
THE TENEMENT ROOM at NIGHT, in the harsh flickering light from the uncurtained window. Danny, his head lolling forward, bound in the chair. DANNY (V.O.) So. A million questions without a questioner. A hundred replayed nights. How do I find myself in this sweaty bed, who is this person beside me? Why are there more scars than I remember wounds? Right. Memory is flawed. But isn’t memory all that knits our moments of existence into a sense of self? MOVE SLOWLY from his shoulder down the length of his arm....
19.
DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Of course, philosophical questions lose power when you’re staring at your own mortality. It’s one thing to know you’re going to die at some point in the indeterminate future; another to watch the clock wind down. WE FIND his HAND...and the huge nail that’s been DRIVEN through it. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) And, yeah.... THE SKEWED ANGLE from Danny’s dropped CAMERA shows a pair of legs on the floor beyond the bed, dark blood slowly pooling nearby. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) I’m not the only dead guy in the room. HERMAN (V.O.) When we got to the camp everything is very simple. A man points left or right and you live or you die. CUT TO: A MONITOR ON which we see the expressive face of Herman Herzman. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) My mother and sisters, death. I was big for my age, looked like I could work, so my father and I go to the right. I still held the little cross in my hand but I saw they were taking every little piece of gold they could find. Rings, bracelets -- only the fillings in your teeth you could keep; that they took when you were dead. I decided then and there I would (MORE)
20. HERMAN (MONITOR) (CONT'D) hold on to that little cross the girl had given me, no matter what. I slipped it under my tongue. DANNY SITS at the EDITING BAY in his OFFICE, watching the MONITOR. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) Having a mission, even if it’s only in your mind, keeps you alive. I was losing everything I had known, everyone. But I would not lose this little girl’s gift -- maybe the last act of kindness I would know. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) So, you went back to work. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny nods at the detective. DANNY I had to finish my project. DET. MARTIN And the girl? DANNY Instead of destroying the mystique, that short conversation only heightened it. How many people can you say that about? DET. MARTIN But now you had a name. DANNY There were no Lexis in Westport. I found three Alexandras but none of them were her. CUT TO: MANHATTAN STREETS at DIFFERENT TIMES of DAY. Everything is SPEEDED UP around us, but we are moving VERY SLOWLY.
21.
DANNY (V.O.) When I wasn’t working I found myself wandering the streets. I would think I saw her, maybe a dozen times a day. A WOMAN turns to us very slowly -- from behind she could be Lexi. THE WOMAN’S FACE looks blankly back at us, a stranger, then moves away. SUDDENLY we SPEED UP, and everything around us SLOWS DOWN. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Like a dog at the grave of his departed master, I’d always wind up back at the same place.... WE MOVE crazily through the streets...until we find ourselves INSIDE GRAND CENTRAL STATION looking down from the BALCONY as the unceasing motion of the commuters returns to normal speed. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) I remembered an old photo I’d seen somewhere. Watch things in real time and it’s easy to believe we’re part of the world, that our motion is more than random, our presence more than accidental. But a long exposure reveals the truth. THE MOVING PEOPLE suddenly become a BLUR of motion...and DISAPPEAR. The great cathedral of Grand Central Station is empty of inhabitants.
22.
DANNY We’re just ghosts, illusions we perpetrate on ourselves. This is the world that lasts, but doesn’t know us. This is our work...but if there’s no one to see it, what does it amount to? LEXI (O.S.) Guy’s getting his morning paper at the newsstand.... GRAND CENTRAL STATION SUDDENLY returns to its normal activity as DANNY TURNS around to see Lexi standing behind him. LEXI Next to him appears this vision, gorgeous, I mean, right out of the swimsuit edition. She’s buying a lottery ticket. FLASH TO: A NEWSSTAND as a beautiful woman gets her ticket from the proprietor. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) He’s smitten, can’t get a word out. Hommina, hommina. Lets her get away. FLASH TO: THE WOMAN walking off down the street. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) Next day he stops by the stand, asks the owner if he knows the girl who bought the lottery ticket. (MORE)
23. LEXI (V.O.) (CONT'D) Only English this guys knows is, buy something or get lost. FLASH TO: THE NEWSSTAND as the owner motions brusquely to the guy. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) Well, our boy figures, people are creatures of habit, so he finds himself the nearest Starbucks and plants himself where he’s got a view of the stand, figuring sooner or later she’ll come by for her ticket. FLASH TO: INSIDE STARBUCKS as the man settles into a seat by the window. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) He’s obsessed. Days turn into weeks, seasons change. FLASH TO: VARIOUS SHOTS of Starbucks, the man in varying seasonal attire. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) He’s coming in late for work. He’s unavailable to his friends. FLASH TO: INSIDE STARBUCKS where the man seems increasingly unkempt, unshaven. Empty coffee cups and crumpled newspapers are strewn about. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) And wouldn’t you know it, on the day he’s decided to give it up, (MORE)
24. LEXI (V.O.) (CONT'D) return to some semblance of his former life -CUT TO: INSIDE A DINER in MIDTOWN, where Danny and Lexi are at a booth.
MORNING.
DANNY She shows up. LEXI Turns out she’d been out of town. DANNY Let me guess. He never makes his move. LEXI (curiously) Why? DANNY He sees the future: they’ll have their affair and in time it’ll be no more than that: an affair. FLASH TO: A BEDROOM SOMEWHERE.
The couple wrestling among the sheets. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) He can anticipate the rhythms of their sex, the purr of her throat; knows the scratchy quality of her voice in the morning. He closes his eyes and can almost smell her. CUT TO:
BRIGHT LIGHT streaming through the window as the woman turns to the man in the MORNING. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) It will be good. So good that he’s okay with her stretch marks and the butterfly tattoo, okay that she has (MORE)
25. DANNY (V.O.) (CONT'D) morning breath and lets her hair clog the drain. But they have as much chance of making it in the long run as she does of winning the lottery. The couple look at each other in the suddenly harsh light. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Because good is never perfect. In his madness he’s realized the unbridgeable distance between real and ideal. So, he would rather let her walk away with her sad lottery ticket. FLASH TO: THE NEWSSTAND and the woman, again, walking away alone. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) He would rather let her live in the purity of his imagination than succumb to the sad spectacle of flesh and blood, scent and sorrow. THE MAN WATCHES THROUGH STARBUCKS’ WINDOW as she disappears down the street. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) He’s lost something, yes. Another notch on his belt, another conquest, maybe even an enduring relationship. But think of what he gets in return. BACK TO: THE DINER as Lexi listens, amused, as Danny finishes his exposition. DANNY (continuing) He will forever be the man who waited through snow and rain, day after day, for the lottery girl. He will be the one who walked away (MORE)
26. DANNY (CONT'D) at the very moment the dream would be realized. He will be...mythic. LEXI Want to know what really happened? DANNY Sure. LEXI He’s out of that Starbucks so fast he sloshes his half-caf latté all over his shirt. Extra hot. FLASH TO: STARBUCKS as the man comes barreling out the door. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) He almost knocks her over, but they manage to strike up a conversation. They start dating. He catches up to her and they start down the street together. BACK TO: THE DINER as Danny nods at Lexi’s version of events. DANNY Two kids and a summer home on Montauk? LEXI Lasted eight months. “It’s not you, it’s me,” kind of thing. DANNY Ah. LEXI Don’t be smug.
He gave it a shot.
DANNY My version would’ve lasted forever. LEXI But now I know your secret.
27.
DANNY Didn’t know I had one. LEXI You’d rather have a great story than a great love. DANNY (V.O.) I’d never thought about it.... CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM where Det. Martin listens to Danny’s recounting of events. DANNY (continuing) If given the choice, would I rather have a great love or a great story? Danny looks at the detective as if for an answer. Oh?
LEXI (V.O.) And the lottery ticket? BACK TO:
THE DINER where Danny looks back at Lexi as she finishes her coffee. LEXI (continuing) She won. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin looks at Danny, poker-faced. DET. MARTIN You didn’t think it was odd, running into her like that? DANNY I guess I wasn’t thinking at all. The detective studies him a long beat. DANNY What?
28.
DET. MARTIN I haven’t quite figured out if you’re a victim or a suspect. Danny holds up his bandaged hand, smiling. DANNY Guess that’s something you could pretty much say about anybody. DET. MARTIN Get you another pain pill for that? DANNY Actually, the pain helps me remember. DET. MARTIN Sisters at St. Jude’s would agree with you. DANNY Catholic school? DET. MARTIN You bet. Danny pulls out a small silver medallion from around his neck. DANNY Her patron saint. LEXI (V.O.) Did you try to find me? BACK TO: THE DINER as Danny holds up his palm, where she had written her name. DANNY There aren’t any Lexis in Westport. LEXI Never said I lived in Westport. DANNY Gotta give a guy a fair chance. LEXI I found you, didn’t I? He looks at her over his orange juice.
29.
DANNY You look different. LEXI It’s a different day. DANNY What color was your hair? She looks at him a long beat, then nods, as if to herself. LEXI Here’s the thing about two people meeting on a train. If they know they’ll always be strangers, it frees them. You can create me any way you want, and I’ll never disappoint. I can ask you to kill for me, and I’ll never know if you carry it out. We have no reason to lie to each other except when a lie is prettier than the truth. DANNY We’re not on the train anymore. LEXI No? DANNY (a beat) How did you find me? LEXI Don’t tell me you’re one of those New Age types who believe there are no accidents. DANNY You’re not going to ask me to kill someone, are you? LEXI (smiling) Why don’t you show me what you do? CUT TO: THE MONITOR in Danny’s OFFICE.
Mr. Herzman continues his story.
30.
HERMAN (MONITOR) I held the cross under my tongue until there was a bloody sore. I ate with it like that, slept with it. Eventually, pain fades and a callous appears. (a beat) My father only made it a few weeks. After they took my mother and sisters away he was finished. He looked at me, but didn’t see me. Maybe he didn’t want to watch the last piece of him die. One morning they took him to the infirmary and I never saw him again. The IMAGE on the MONITOR suddenly PAUSES. DANNY AND LEXI are standing at Danny’s EDITING BAY.
She looks at him.
LEXI (few beats) When I was young my mother used to tell me this story, when things got bad. She’d hold me in her arms like she was afraid to let me go. “The world ended when Jesus hung on the cross,” she would say, almost like a song. “And all of history, all the wars and famines, plagues and floods, every life played out in blood and tears, is just a dream in the last instant of a Roman centurion’s life.” She turns to look at him with soulful eyes and we CUT TO: A DIGITAL IMAGE of the ENTRANCE to an upscale Upper West Side APARTMENT BUILDING at NIGHT. We are looking THROUGH Danny’s CAMERA. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) That’s when she asked you to tail Carl Pruitt? CUT TO:
31.
INTERROGATION ROOM Danny looking back at the detective. DANNY Not at first. I knew she was hiding something. Some problem, maybe from her past. It wasn’t what she said, so much. DET. MARTIN It was the way she said it? DANNY More the way she didn’t say what she didn’t say. MALE VOICE #3 (OVER) (Slavic accent) You some kind of cop detective? CUT TO: INSIDE A TAXICAB PARKED at the curb. Danny’s in the back, looking through his camera. The CABBY watches with minimal curiosity. DANNY Yeah. CABBY You don’t look like cop. DANNY What’s a cop look like? CABBY Better dressed. Guy cheating on wife? I seen it all, right here. DANNY I imagine you have. CABBY Nothing like stories from cab driver. One guy tries to strangle hooker in back seat. I say, not in my cab. He say he give me big tip. DANNY What’d you do?
32.
CABBY I throw him out. He strangle on street, his business. Not in my cab. People fucking, okay. Good tip covers it. Killing? Not -DANNY Yeah, I get it.
Not in your cab.
CABBY You can bet you. THROUGH DIGITAL CAMERA we see a well-dressed middle-aged man EXIT the building. DANNY LOOKS down at a PHOTO of what appears to be the same man. DANNY That’s him. The cabby puts the car in gear and slowly FOLLOWS the man. CABBY Want to hear strangest story ever? Danny has his eye pressed to the eyepiece, shooting. DANNY Does it involve dwarves? Dwarves?
CABBY What?
DANNY Somehow they always seem to involve dwarves. And they’re never true. CABBY This happened one hundred percent. My brother, he’s fucking this girl. Two years. Met in spinning class. You know, bicycle doesn’t go nowhere? THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD we see the man flagging down a cab. FOLLOWING the other cab.
He gets in and we start
33.
CABBY (continuing) Only women in these classes. My brother joins for women. So, he fucking her, right? Yeah.
DANNY Two years.
Got it.
CABBY One night she asks, can her friend join in. My brother is like, winning lottery. Of course. More is merrier. THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we watch as the cab up ahead TURNS, heading downtown. DANNY Let me guess. The friend is a man. CABBY Man? You crazy? Is more beautiful woman than one my brother fucking. Big tits, everything. DANNY So, what’s the problem? THE CABBY turns halfway around in his seat toward Danny. CABBY You telling story, or me? So, they have wild night. Everything is on menu -- soup till nuts. My brother thinks he died straight to heaven. In the morning I get call. He wakes up -- everything gone. Girls, wallet, flat screen. He calls police but nothing to do. Her cell doesn’t work no more, she’s gone from spinning. Like she never exists. Danny puts down the camera, looks back at the man.
34.
DANNY Let me get this straight. She spends two years with the guy, just so she can steal his TV. CABBY His whole house! him underwear.
Lucky she left
Danny looks back through his camera as UP AHEAD the other cab SLOWS as they drive through the Lower East Side. DANNY Seems like there’d be a more costeffective way to be a criminal. CABBY I tell you was crazy story. DANNY He never found her? CABBY Every day he sees her! On subway, walking down street. Sometimes he chases five blocks, but never her. One woman he followed half an hour. She called police. THE CAB STOPS a discreet half block behind where the other cab has STOPPED. The man gets out and heads toward a dark restaurant. CABBY (continuing) My brother is never same. spinning classes even.
Stopped
DET. MARTIN (V.O.) So, she had you playing detective. CUT TO: VARIOUS SHOTS of the same middle-aged man THROUGH Danny’s DIGITAL CAMERA: in the RESTAURANT at NIGHT; EXITING an OFFICE BUILDING in the
35. AFTERNOON; meeting several apparent businessmen at a LUNCH SPOT in LATE MORNING; walking briskly down a midtown street. DANNY (V.O.) It wasn’t until the next time I saw her that she asked me. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) She just seem to find you again? DANNY (V.O.) I’d given her my number. I had no idea if she’d ever call. CUT TO: DANNY’S OFFICE at NIGHT.
Danny is at his EDITING BAY, looking at
THE MONITOR ON which appears Mr. Herzman’s face. HERMAN (MONITOR) I was put to work in the crematorium -The image PAUSES, BACKS UP a few seconds. HERMAN (MONITOR) ...in the crematorium -DANNY’S HANDS work the keyboard as he finesses the SOUND to perfection. HERMAN (MONITOR) ...the crematorium where we -We hear a cell phone RING and the image PAUSES as DANNY GRABS his cell phone and hits the button. DANNY Hello?
36.
LEXI (FILTERED) Can you meet me? CUT TO: THE ROOF TERRACE of a midtown HIGHRISE at NIGHT. Through a huge plate glass window we see the RESTAURANT atop the building. It’s late enough that the busboys are stacking chairs to close up. DANNY WALKS AROUND taking in the magnificent views of nighttime Manhattan: the twinkling lights of a million manmade constellations; the earthbound shooting stars of headlights on city streets. A FIGURE EMERGES from the shadows: Lexi moving in and out of stray light. She approaches Danny, her face pale in the false starlight. LEXI Where I grew up everything was flat. The land, even the cities. She moves over to the railing, looks at the street far below. LEXI (continuing) This seems more honest. He looks at her curiously. LEXI (continuing) Eye to eye with everyone you can convince yourself we’re not that different. Step over a homeless guy to get to your penthouse apartment, you know better. DANNY Grow up poor? LEXI Shows? He comes up beside her, also looks down at the streets.
37.
LEXI My mother was always getting mixed up with the wrong guy. My father got out before I was born. Can’t really say I blame him. DANNY Ever try to find him? LEXI I heard he had an uncle in the east. It’s why I came here originally. He wasn’t much use, though. DANNY Still close to your mother? LEXI (shaking her head) I grew up using her as a model of who not to be. She wasn’t bad, just weak. When I was seven she finally seemed to get her life on track. She’d stopped drinking, met a guy from a wealthy family. She always wanted me to be provided for, so he agreed to put something aside for me. For a while it was really good. For a while.... FLASH TO: THE KITCHEN of a modest HOUSE where a man roughly PUSHES a woman -Lexi’s MOTHER -- against the sink, SLAPPING her. BACK TO: THE ROOF TERRACE as Lexi looks at Danny, then back at the city lights. LEXI (continuing) He never laid a hand on me, but I could hear my mother screaming from the other room. I decided then and there I’d never be a victim. (looking at Danny) It’s important to keep promises you make to yourself, isn’t it?
38. 38.
He watches as she reaches into her bag and hands him A POLICE PHOTOGRAPH showing Lexi’s FACE with blackened eyes and split lip. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM where where Det. Det. Mart Martin in puts puts the the same same PHOT PHOTO O on on the the metal metal table. table. DET. MARTIN This the photo she showed you? Danny looks down at the photo of Lexi’s battered face, nods. DANNY I knew I was going to do what it took to help her. CUT TO: THE BOW BRIDGE in Central Central Park LATE at at NIGHT. In the MOONLIGHT shimmering off the lake, we make out the SILHOUETTES of two figures. LEXI (V.O.) It starts slowly. At first it’s just, “You know you like it a little rough, don’t you, babe?” DANNY AND LEXI stand on the small bridge, outlined by the moonlit water. LEXI (continuing) Makes you feel like you’re always the one at fault. If you hadn’t done this, said that. One morning you look in the mirror and realize it isn’t only your mother’s eyes you’ve got. It’s the bruises around them. FLASH TO:
39. 39.
THE MODEST HOUSE of Lexi’s Lexi’s childhood. childhood. We HEAR the sounds sounds of physical abuse while while YOUNG YOUNG LEXI LEXI cowe cowers rs in a corn corner er of the LIVING LIVING ROOM. ROOM. DANNY (V.O.) Is this why you called me? BACK TO: THE BOW BRIDGE as Lexi looks back at him in the dark, smiling. LEXI I called you... With a flourish she removes a small bottle from her handbag. LEXI (continuing) ...to get drunk. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) That’s when she told you she was marrie married? d? DANNY (V.O.) Not in so many words. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM where where Det. Det. Mart Martin in looks looks at Danny. Danny. DET. MARTIN More the way she didn’t say what she didn’t say? On Danny’s look back at the detective we CUT TO: CENTRAL PARK LATER in the NIGHT. NIGHT. We FIND Danny and and Lexi now sitting sitting on the granite rocks overlooking the lake and Bethesda Fountain. So.
LEXI Who was she?
40. 40.
DANNY She? LEXI The one who got to you. DANNY How do you know there was just one? LEXI The Devil takes many forms, but there’s really only one. DANNY You should’ve been a priest. LEXI Not an option for women. make make a terrib terrible le nun. nun.
And I’d
She takes a swig from the bottle and hands it to him. LEXI There’s always one who sets the standard. Most guys it’s some girl in college who barely knew they existed. DANNY (smiling) There were a couple of those, I guess. LEXI Just as well, because if you ever gathered the courage to talk to her, you’d notice her teeth aren’t perfect, her eyes are slightly askew. And even if she passes muster, how long before all those traits you used to find so irresistible -- the way she tilts her head to the side when you’re talking, how she clears her throat when she’s nervous -- become intolerable? Have you ever noticed how it’s always those quirks we find most most char charmin ming g in in the the beginn beginning ing that that become the most irritating over time? They’re the canaries in the mine of the heart. She takes back the bottle, looks at him curiously.
41.
LEXI You’re really not going to tell me? He holds up an imaginary camera and points it at her. DANNY I’m more comfortable on this side. Who was yours? LEXI (taking a swig) Ah, what the hell. As long as there’s no tape in it. DANNY (smiling) It’s digital. No tape. She hands the bottle back to him.
Looks out at the water.
LEXI Oh, you know, high school stuff, back seat of his car -- wish I could be more original. Blue light of the dash playing off his face, pot smoke a halo around his hair. Doors playing on the radio. It’s always the Doors, isn’t it? DANNY What I’ve found. She takes the bottle back from him but doesn’t drink. LEXI So. Was there something special about him? I don’t know, memory’s a storyteller. Soft voice, strong hands. Shy in a way, but didn’t take any bullshit, least of all mine. She’s quiet for a moment, getting deep into the memory. LEXI There’s always this moment when you know it’s going to happen, panties are hitting the floor tonight. He plays it cool, just this little smile on his face, like a kid opening up a Christmas present, already too old to make a big deal out of it. And in that smile....
42.
She hesitates.
Looks at Danny.
Then out over the dark lake.
LEXI (a few beats) In that smile, in the blue light and pot smoke, is a world of expectation and sadness. The flower is beautiful but it dies. The girl is fertile but she will age, get cancer, lose her uterus; she will survive but as a shell. His cock will produce less sperm every year and shrivel into his body. They won’t find each other again in an old age home at the sunny edge of the world; they won’t wind up in L.A. This is their moment and they better make of it what they can. Everything and nothing. She upturns the bottle, lets the last drop fall to the earth. LEXI So, there you have it. Danny is silent.
Suddenly she stands and smiles at him.
LEXI Feel like breakfast? TOWARD THE EAST the first rays of DAWN color the sky rose and peach. CUT TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM where Danny is tied to the chair, his hand dripping blood. We hear a sound, then FOOTSTEPS, and he looks up through AN OPEN DOORWAY INTO a dark hall.
A SHADOW moves, coming toward the door.... CUT TO:
THE EAST RIVER and Queens beyond it almost beautiful in the DAWN light.
43.
DANNY (V.O.) It wasn’t in college.... DANNY AND LEXI are sitting on a bench along the riverbank, eating breakfast burritos from brown paper bags. DANNY (continuing) It was a couple of years ago. We met at the museum. LEXI Impressionists? DANNY How’d you know? LEXI You always find the best women in the impressionist wing. He takes a bite of burrito, dabs his face with a napkin. DANNY She’d been married, had kids. There’d been medical problems.... Lexi watches him over her burrito. DANNY (continuing) Went out a couple of times and she invites me to her place. We’re sitting on the couch, and I’m avoiding the obvious. I don’t know how I’ll deal with the scars. LEXI Ah. Can Superman get it up in the face of imperfection? DANNY When she gets up to throw a log on the fire, I notice a slight stiffness to her step. Normally, I would convince myself I hadn’t seen it. Normally, I wouldn’t be there in the first place. Somehow, though, that tiny sign of age made her...real for me, flesh and blood, (MORE)
44. DANNY (CONT'D) vulnerable and infinitely human. Suddenly she was perfected by her imperfections. In that moment, I wouldn’t have had her a day younger. Lexi studies him under the brightening skies. DANNY (continuing) And in that moment I can see the future: I will wake up with her and not be surprised to find myself there. We will move together into the bright haze, fighting age and decay, losing gloriously. I will come to love her cancer scars, her arthritic knee, the last bead of moisture rising up inside her. And I know that sex and love are just animal things, the genes liking what’s good for them. But in this province of dead egg and biopsied flesh, maybe there’s another possibility: if love is more than the sum of its parts, more than some alchemy of pheromone and fertility, then maybe we are more than the sum of our parts. (a beat) What if there’s a chance to know someone, really know someone, see the world through one set of eyes? LEXI And if it’s just an illusion? DANNY In the moment you know it’s not. LEXI How can you be sure? DANNY How can I be sure I’m sitting here with you? LEXI You can’t. Maybe you’re a brain in a jar in some mad scientist’s lab and this is all a dream. He looks at her, then back out over the East River.
45.
DANNY (a few beats) But there’s another future. She will leave me or I’ll leave her. I’ll feel the pain of loss but only for a while. I’ll forget her in the morning, with her mess of hair and cranky eyes; forget the scar where they took the skin graft. Forget, even as I think the words, the feel of her hand, her curve of hip. The terrible thing isn’t the pain but that it fades: the end of pain means her final extinction in my memory. I know that if I ran into her a year later, I would see a woman among women, no longer young, the softness gone from her cheek. She won’t be someone I could imagine falling in love with; in fact, I’ll question that I ever did at all. Where once her imperfections particularized her, now they’re the sum of what she is: the fortyish mom with the uneven gait. How can I have changed so completely? Is continuity of identity some hoax we play on ourselves? Of course we never know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. We can’t even say what’s going on in ours. LEXI So, which future did you choose? DANNY Sometimes the scorpion stings you even if it means he’ll drown too. LEXI (nodding) It’s just his nature. She joins him in looking out at the ever-mutating currents. LEXI When I was little my mother told me about the saints. She liked the idea that each one was there to serve some earthly purpose. Saint Jude was always my favorite.
46.
DANNY Patron saint of lost causes? She smiles.
He looks at her for a long beat.
Then:
DANNY Why did you really call? CUT TO: A TRAIN traveling briskly along the Hudson in the MORNING. DANNY (V.O.) I agreed to help her out with Pruitt. But there was a condition. INSIDE THE TRAIN Danny and Lexi are sitting silently side by side. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) She still hadn’t told me why she was crying that day I’d met her.... CUT TO: A SMALL ROOM in an ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY in the MORNING. An OLD MAN lies in the room’s single bed, his eyes open but unfocused. LEXI) (O.S.) (softly) He was a very brave man, once. He saved many lives. DANNY AND LEXI stand a few feet away by the window, studying the old man, who doesn’t appear to be aware of their presence. LEXI (continuing) He had the ability to become whoever he needed to be. He fought in the resistance, and when the Germans came looking for him he forged documents and lived among (MORE)
47. LEXI (CONT'D) them. He tattooed an S.S. insignia on his forearm, the same spot where Jews were tattooed with concentration camp numbers, his way of laughing in their faces. When his unit was sent to massacre a village on the eastern front, he slit the soldiers’ throats as they slept. When the Russians came he spent six months in a labor camp until a guard from the village he’d saved recognized him. Still, the Russians wouldn’t free him if it meant admitting a mistake. So, the guard helped him escape from work detail one morning. There wasn’t much chance of surviving the frontier without papers, but at least he’d die a free man. But he survived again. He’s lived a hundred lives. The old man seems to focus briefly on them. OLD MAN Do you have chocolate? Danny and Lexi look at each other.
She turns away. CUT TO:
ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY as Danny and Lexi walk the grounds OUTSIDE in the MORNING. DANNY Your father’s uncle? LEXI This is how it ends for him. His whole history only exists in the stories I remember. When I’m gone, the last trace of him will be gone too. It’ll be like he never was. DANNY The lives he saved, the children of their children...the stories might be gone but not him. LEXI (looking at him) I need you to do this for me, Danny.
48.
DANNY What will following him with my camera give you? LEXI Ammunition. DANNY Not everybody has a double life, not everybody has a secret. LEXI That’s where you’re wrong. On her look at him we CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM Det. Martin betraying little as he studies Danny. DET. MARTIN You assumed the elderly gentleman was her great-uncle? DANNY I imagine he was just some oldtimer she’d used as a prop. She was real good with stories. DET. MARTIN You agreed to follow Mr. Pruitt. DANNY He was a criminal defense lawyer, so I knew he’d have some unsavory associations. But I didn’t expect it’d amount to much. CUT TO: MORE FOOTAGE of Carl Pruitt about town. A DAYTIME meeting with two men in front of the Criminal Court Building downtown; an EVENING dinner at an upscale Upper East Side RESTAURANT. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) You were led to believe this “ammunition” was for a potential divorce proceeding?
49.
DANNY (V.O.) She never actually mentioned divorce. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin nods at Danny. DET. MARTIN Right. The way she didn’t say what she didn’t say. CUT TO: A DOWNTOWN STREET THROUGH Danny’s CAMERA. Alphabet City on the Lower East Side, where newly gentrified condos fight for space with the few remaining drug houses and “after hours” clubs. DANNY (V.O.) About a week in, it started to get interesting. CAMERA FINDS Carl Pruitt approaching a young man who definitely doesn’t look like a business associate. He’s young, unshaven, tattooed. He glances around like he’s waiting for his connection. The two men quickly disappear into a building. THROUGH A WINDOW of the building we see a dimly-lit APARTMENT. A few people mill about desultorily or engage in conversation. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) That was the first time you ever saw James Fenatree? CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as the detective slides a MUG SHOT across the table to Danny. DANNY Well, we weren’t formally introduced. He looks down at the mug shot.
50.
DANNY (nodding) That’s him. DET. MARTIN Of course, we already know that. FLASH TO: DANNY MOVING slowly down the HALL of the TENEMENT from the earlier scenes. It is now DARK, deserted. He puts his camera up to his eye as he steps over piled rubble and debris. THROUGH HIS CAMERA we watch as he ENTERS the ROOM, looking around: we see the chair that we know he will wind up in; the window with the hard angled light; the bed with the filthy sagging mattress. HE MOVES ABOUT cautiously, his feet straining the ancient floorboards. On the floor just beyond the bed we make out a dark shape.... THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we see the pair of feet sticking out past the edge of the bed. From BEHIND him there is a SOUND and he quickly SWINGS THE CAMERA back toward the doorway as SUDDENLY a dark object SMASHES INTO the CAMERA and KNOCKS IT to the floor and we CUT TO: THE TRAIN SPEEDING south toward New York City in the AFTERNOON. DANNY (V.O.) For the record, I didn’t leave her.
51.
INSIDE THE TRAIN Lexi turns to Danny, looks at him. LEXI So. Sometimes the scorpion gets stung too. He looks out the window at the passing terrain. DANNY (a beat) You can replay the last weeks and days looking for a reason: did you say something wrong, commit some callous act? You wonder: can it really be that fragile? A misplaced word and it’s over? Or you can move on. LEXI “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”? DANNY Nietzsche. LEXI Tell that to an old boxer. See if getting beat down makes you stronger. Yeah, you’ll pick yourself up. You’ll see the light in another girl’s eyes and you’ll watch it go out. Eternal return. DANNY Also Nietzsche. LEXI Gotta love those Germans. know their death.
They
She looks back out the window, contemplatively. LEXI Envy those couples who’ve been together so long they can’t remember why. Envy lives of quiet desperation. In the land of the one-eyed, envy the blind.
52.
THE TRAIN is crowned in the reds and golds of the SETTING SUN. CUT TO: THE MONITOR in Danny’s OFFICE, as Herman Herzman continues. HERMAN (MONITOR) I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber that morning. With the Russians approaching, they were in a hurry to finish up with us. So many times I thought I would die, but somehow I survived. Now it was over. DANNY WATCHES from his seat at the EDITING BAY.
DAY.
HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) I thought back to the little girl by the train. I was so used to the little cross under my tongue that I didn’t feel it anymore. In a place where evil seemed so big -- also so small, so everyday -- I believed this one little act of kindness saved my life. I had to know there was something else, some people existed who could be good and kind. CUT TO: DIGITAL IMAGE of a SKEWED ANGLE from the floor of the TENEMENT ROOM. We get a PARTIAL VIEW of someone moving in the DARK. DANNY’S HANDS are quickly secured to the chair using duct tape.
53.
HIS HEAD lolls back in semi-consciousness. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) You didn’t notice anything a little odd about the picture she gave you of Carl Pruitt? CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny looks at a PHOTO of Carl Det. Martin places on the desk. It seems taken from a distance, with Lexi absent. DET. MARTIN Most family portraits aren’t taken with a telephoto lens. DANNY She doesn’t like being photographed. Right.
DET. MARTIN The aborigines.
DANNY I guess I took a lot on faith. DET. MARTIN Thought most Hollywood types were atheists. Well.
DANNY Only when it comes to God.
DET. MARTIN Should try this job for a while. DANNY Makes it hard to be a believer? DET. MARTIN Harder not to. DANNY I thought it was the other way around. Seeing what people are capable of. The detective looks like he’s weighing whether or not to tell Danny something. Then he gives just the slightest nod.
54.
DET. MARTIN Guess I can tell you this. are closed on it.
Books
Danny looks at the policeman curiously. DET. MARTIN (continuing) Toe-tag Doe shows up downtown Metro with a carving fork in the chest in need of explaining. Turns out one Mr. Wallstreet Hotshot comes home a bit early one night to find the little missus in bed with -- don’t get ahead of me on this -- the other woman. But it turns out he’s acquainted with this young lady too. Very well acquainted, actually. DANNY They’re both fucking the same woman? DET. MARTIN Kick in the head, huh? DANNY But how...? DET. MARTIN In the conventional manner, I would assume. DANNY I mean, how did it happen? DET. MARTIN Just a bizarre coincidence. met at a spinning class.
Ladies
DANNY Of course. DET. MARTIN Women figured it out first. No surprise there -- they’re smarter than us, you know that, right? They decide to kill the man in the middle. Why, you might ask? Could be the quarter of a billion he’s worth. Anyway, he gets tipped to the plan.
55.
DANNY By his gay lover? DET. MARTIN Actually, it’s the trigger man the girls hired. Turns out the kind of hit man you find on Craig’s List isn’t all that reliable. He decides it’s smarter to cut a deal with hubby and do the girls. DANNY So, the corpse is the wife? the girlfriend?
Or
DET. MARTIN It’s the hitter -- that Craig’s List thing again. Hubby decides to reconcile with wifey, extra girl in the bargain. Hitter won’t take no for an answer, they struggle, genius winds up with the fork in his chest. DANNY So, it all worked out. DET. MARTIN You could say that. DANNY Not clear on the God connection. The detective looks at Danny a beat, as if truly surprised. DET. MARTIN Do you really think a random universe could be that absurd? DANNY (smiling) You’re good. Det. Martin looks at him quizzically. DANNY Putting me at ease with that story. You share, I share. DET. MARTIN Ah.
56.
DANNY So, was it true? DET. MARTIN Didn’t Jesus say, “What is truth?” DANNY Actually, I think that was Pilate. CUT TO: THE MONITOR as Mr. Herzman continues his narrative. HERMAN (MONITOR) In the morning, there was a big commotion. People running everywhere. The Russians had liberated the camp. ACROSS THE ROOM we find Danny fashioning a “spy case” of sorts out of an old camera bag. He finishes making a small hole at the end of the bag, then places the camera inside it and aligns it. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) They had hot food for us, just some broth with a little meat, but it was so long since I’d had anything so hot and good. I ate so quickly the little cross came loose and I almost choked. Just think about it -- if after all I’d been through I choked because of this kind gift! I took the cross from my mouth and hung it round my neck. A Jewish boy wearing a cross! I got tired of explaining, so if they thought I’d converted, let them. CUT TO: “AFTER HOURS” CLUB somewhere in Alphabet City at NIGHT. It’s little more than the LIVING ROOM of a tenement flat, with a small Formica counter at which sit a handful of denizens, purchasing overpriced screwdrivers or vodka tonics.
57.
THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we look around at the tattered rugs, the naked low-wattage bulbs in unshaded lamps, the tacky mismatched couches, riddled with the scorch marks of a hundred cigarettes. DANNY (V.O.) I’d seen Pruitt go into the building a couple of times, so I decided to get a better look. DANNY SITS at a small table, trying to be inconspicuous. A CD player plays mellow JAZZ while a couple dances in arhythmic druggy stupor in the middle of the room. A tall bottle blonde is making out with a short fat black man in an easy chair in the corner. His hand moves under her dress like a mouse. THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we FIND Carl Pruitt and the younger tattooed man at the kitchen entrance, involved in an intense discussion, though we can’t make out what’s being said. The IMAGE turns into THE MONITOR in Danny’s OFFICE, where we are watching WITHOUT SOUND. DANNY AND LEXI watch the images on the screen. DANNY Ever seen him before? LEXI (nodding) His name’s Spider. DANNY Of course. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) That would be Fenatree? CUT TO:
58.
INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin holds up the MUG SHOT of James “Spider” Fenatree. Danny nods. LEXI (V.O.) Carl represented him a few times. CUT TO: “AFTER HOURS” CLUB where Carl and Spider are now joined by a young woman with several face piercings, wearing a zebra-striped miniskirt. They seem to be engaged in some kind of animated negotiation. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) He’s required to do a certain amount of pro bono work. CUT TO: DANNY’S OFFICE where Danny and Lexi watch the images on the MONITOR. DANNY And Spider? LEXI He’s kind of a...provider. Girls, drugs, you name it. The thing about Carl is, he likes to get paid, one way or another. DANNY So much for social conscience. ON THE MONITOR we see the trio of Carl, Spider, and the girl disappear down a hallway into the nether regions of the derelict building. DANNY (V.O.) If there was any dirt on Carl, I was pretty sure this was where I’d find it. CUT TO:
59.
“AFTER HOURS” CLUB as Danny gets up, grabs his camera bag and heads INTO THE HALLWAY of the old building. At the far end we lose sight of the three figures as they turn and head up a staircase. AN ENORMOUS MAN sits on a tiny stool by the stairs.
He looks up as
DANNY APPROACHES and stops. The man looks at him expressionlessly. Then he points to his wrist, as if at a non-existent wristwatch. DANNY Are you asking the time? Irritably, the guy points to his wrist again. DANNY (trying again) Do I need some kind of wrist band? BIG MAN Ain’t no part of the club, man. Danny nods, having no idea what the man is talking about. THROUGH HIS CAMERA we get a view of the man’s monstrous girth -- and suddenly the kindly visage of Herman Herzman APPEARS in it place. HERMAN (CAMERA MONITOR) Eventually, I made my way to New York. I found work with a relative who sold small gifts -- religious trinkets from the church. He always made fun of me anyway -- “the goyim” he called me because of the cross I wore -- “Go out and sell the saints!” So I went every day with a cart out on Coney Island. I couldn’t believe how happy all the people were, just for nothing. For some cotton candy (MORE)
60. HERMAN (CAMERA MONITOR) (CONT'D) and a few silly rides. This happiness was more foreign to me than the new language. DANNY (V.O.) The camera holds two memory cards. I’d forgotten to swap out one of the cards from Herman’s interview. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny explains to Det. Martin: DANNY (continuing) I wasn’t getting past this guy, anyway, so I figured I’d come back another night. He had to take a break sooner or later. DET. MARTIN You didn’t think you might be getting in over your head? DANNY Ever try to jump off a moving train? Det. Martin gives him a look. DET. MARTIN Just to be clear on this -- you weren’t having an affair with her. DANNY Thought I wasn’t a suspect. DET. MARTIN What I said was, I wasn’t sure if you were a suspect. DANNY We weren’t having an affair. DET. MARTIN Yet you’re willing to walk into a potentially dangerous situation armed with a video camera. DANNY Digital.
61.
DET. MARTIN If there’s anything more you need to tell me about your relationship with this young woman, this would be the time and place. Danny looks at the detective for a long moment.
Then:
DANNY I guess I wanted to know what was real, and what was just some kind of image of her in my head. DET. MARTIN Real? DANNY I needed to know if it’s possible to know someone, really know someone. It seemed...very important. The detective takes a deep breath.
Then he turns and
ON POLICE VIDEO we see him look INTO the CAMERA and motion to turn it off. THE TWO MEN sit opposite each other across the small metal table. DET. MARTIN (a few beats) My wife died last year. Thirty years. Got that call I’m usually the one making. Car accident. Funny thing is, she wasn’t supposed to be going out that night. Turns out she was going somewhere after all. She was going to meet the guy she was screwing. POLICE VIDEO SHOWS it hasn’t been turned off:
it’s still RECORDING.
DET. MARTIN (VIDEO MONITOR) (continuing) I thought about killing the guy. I really wanted to kill her, but (MORE)
62. DET. MARTIN (VIDEO MONITOR) (CONT'D) she was already dead. For weeks I bounced between hurt, anger, loss. The hardest part was constantly going from one feeling to the next. I couldn’t get a foothold. IN THE ROOM Danny watches as the detective continues his story. DET. MARTIN (continuing) So I made a decision to pick one emotion. I tried to remember who she was and why I’d loved her. Every time the dark feelings would rise, I would...what’s that thing where you turn lead into gold? DANNY Alchemy. DET. MARTIN I would take everything about her -even the things I hated -- and tell her, in my mind, how it made me love her, because it was also the flaws that made her who she was. Even tried to find a way to love her sucking some other guy’s dick. That was a rough one. But I knew I had a choice: to love the bad in her or hate the good. If I didn’t, I’d kill her memory, and the part of her I couldn’t live without. Danny notices the wedding band around the detective’s finger, which he twirls round and round in an unconscious tic. DET. MARTIN (a beat) I see it every day. The same person you’ve loved for half your life, one day you wake up and can’t find a single thing not to hate. I’ve seen women carved to ribbons by men who two days ago would’ve jumped in front of a truck to save. I wasn’t going to do that, wasn’t going to let gold turn into lead. DANNY Did it work?
63.
DET. MARTIN Most of the time. Danny looks at him a long beat, then nods. DANNY There should be a tab in the camera menu to turn off the tally light. Det. Martin looks at him quizzically.
Danny nods up at
THE CAMERA in the upper corner of the room.
Its red light is ON.
DANNY SMILES at the detective, who remains as inscrutable as ever. DANNY That way the suspect can’t tell when you’re recording. CUT TO: THE MONITOR in Danny’s OFFICE at NIGHT.
Herman Herzman on the SCREEN.
HERMAN (MONITOR) One day I’m pushing my cart and a young woman approaches to buy something for her niece. We talk and I hear she has an accent, so we start talking German. DANNY (V.O.) I’d gotten behind on my project, so I went back to work. DANNY SITS at his EDITING BAY, working the keyboard controls. HERMAN (MONITOR) I never talked about my experience with a gentile, certainly not a German. But she was so nice, so gentle, when we got to talking, I (MORE)
64. HERMAN (MONITOR) (CONT'D) let her know I was a Jew. She could figure out the rest. ACROSS THE ROOM Lexi is curled up on a couch, using a coat as blanket. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) She told me her parents had escaped with her from the east. Her father was a scientist so America was happy to have him. SLOWLY MOVE INTO the MONITOR...to become part of the DIGITAL FOOTAGE. HERMAN (DIGITAL) (continuing) So much was different between us, and yet it was so easy to talk to her. I never forget her smile. DANNY WATCHES from the EDITING BAY as the elderly man continues his tale. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) Finally, she buys a trinket and when I reach for a bag to put it in, the little cross comes out from under my shirt. Her eyes get very big. Like two blue pools of water. ON THE MONITOR Mr. Herzman’s expressive face seems close to tears. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) Where did you get this? she asks. I didn’t want to her tell the whole story. But of course she already knew -- why is a Jewish boy wearing a cross?
65.
NOW WE MOVE THROUGH THE MONITOR and INTO the ROOM at the Herzman HOME. HERMAN It seemed like forever us said a thing. Then tears in her eyes. “I when I told my parents it,” she says, so soft ever sure I heard it.
neither of there are got punished I’d lost I’m not
ON AN EASY CHAIR nearby Mrs. Herzman watches her husband, her eyes shining. We notice the small gold cross around her neck. HERMAN (continuing) I had found my angel, the little girl whose kindness had seen me through impossible times. I left the cart right there on the boardwalk and we walked for hours, just talking, two people who couldn’t have been more different. It was like we had known each other our whole lives -- which, of course, we had, at least in our imagination. The ocean a hundred feet away could have swallowed us up and I would’ve been happy. BEHIND THE CAMERA Danny shoots the scene, wearing headphones to monitor sound. HERMAN (continuing) For many months, in the worst of circumstances, she had given me hope. Now that I’d found her again, I promised her, promised myself, I’d never let her go.
66.
NOW WE MOVE INTO Danny’s DIGITAL CAMERA...and THROUGH IT to the EDITING BAY in his OFFICE, where we now see that Lexi has gotten up, is watching the MONITOR from behind Danny’s chair. HERMAN (MONITOR) (continuing) So, right there on the Coney Island boardwalk, I proposed to her. I didn’t want to wait. I’d waited long enough. And, after fifty years of marriage, three children and five grandchildren, I’ve kept that promise. LEXI (softly) I was wrong.... He turns around to see her standing behind him. DANNY Wrong? LEXI You don’t want to choose between the great love and the great story. DANNY You think that’s what this is about? LEXI (a few beats) I woke up one morning, I couldn’t have been more than seven, saw my mother at the kitchen sink, and suddenly I understood what hell was. You see the world, but you’re not in it. People walk by your grave, laughing and alive, forgetting you...until your last reflection is extinguished, the last time your name is spoken. Still you remain, voiceless, a bead of awareness in a universe of uncaring. Infinitely, you don’t matter. Infinitely, you aren’t. Her shining eyes meet Danny’s.
67.
LEXI (continuing) But what if there’s a way out? What if there’s a bridge to just one moment, a story, a sentence of our lives, a single word? Do we become part of that story? Does that become our eternity? CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM where Danny sits there thoughtfully for a long moment. DANNY I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. I wonder if it saved my life. CUT TO: A TAXICAB DRIVING the Manhattan streets at NIGHT. INSIDE THE CAB Danny and Lexi sit in the back. He’s got his camera bag on his lap. They look out their respective windows. DANNY (V.O.) She took the cab down with me. The idea was I’d get the footage and we’d meet up later at a diner. THE CAB PULLS UP half a block from the tenement. DANNY OPENS the cab door -- but Lexi holds his arm. LEXI You should’ve fought for her. He looks at her quizzically.
He turns to her.
68.
LEXI (continuing) Whatever happened to the grand gesture? Camping out on her lawn, throwing yourself at her door, walking a hundred miles on your bleeding bare feet? Aren’t we descended from men who crossed rivers and mountains, survived the sabertooth and hunted the mammoth? (intensely) You think it’s her imperfections you loved but it’s really just the story. Makes you into a nicer guy than the one who would’ve left her for someone younger. The great lost love has its appeal, even to a girl like me. Stories don’t age; they don’t look like hell in the morning. You can tell them over and over. The only problem is, they always end the same way. (meeting his eye) You should’ve given it a shot. He returns her look another beat, then exits the cab. ON THE STREET we MOVE with him as he approaches the tenement entrance. INSIDE THE TENEMENT we see that even the hall lights are OUT. The door to the “after hours” club is closed. A note is taped to it but in the dark we can’t make out what it says. DOWN THE HALL the path to the rear staircase is clear: the big man from the other night is nowhere in sight. The place is deserted. DANNY TURNS back toward the entrance -- when he HEARS something from the second floor: FOOTSTEPS? He looks back down the hall. He reaches into his camera bag and
69.
THE DIGITAL CAMERA comes ON, showing us the VIEW as he starts down the hall. HE REACHES the rear staircase. The FOOTSTEPS have stopped, and it’s suddenly very QUIET. He starts up the stairs.... THROUGH THE CAMERA we watch as he reaches the SECOND FLOOR LANDING. the hall. Finds the OPEN DOOR and moves
Walks down
INSIDE THE ROOM we’ve been in before: we recognize the uncurtained windows, the hard flickering light, the sagging mattress...the feet sticking out from the floor beyond the bed. HE TURNS SUDDENLY as he hears something from behind him and EVERYTHING GOES BLACK as the camera hits the floor.
A few long beats.
Then:
SPIDER (O.S.) Seriously, man. What the fuck were you thinking? EYELIDS FLICKER OPEN and we are now seeing the room THROUGH DANNY’S EYES as SPIDER STANDS looking down at Danny, who’s duct-taped to the chair. DANNY (groggily) Fair question.
70.
SPIDER I mean, what did you expect was going to happen? DANNY Damned if I know. SPIDER Damned if you don’t. DANNY Good one. Yeah?
SPIDER Well, take it to the grave.
Spider makes sure Danny’s bindings are secure. DANNY Why, exactly, am I here? SPIDER Hey, man, you chugged in on your own steam. DANNY It was a rhetorical question. Spider looks down at him expressionlessly. DANNY I was asking myself. SPIDER (irritably) I know what “rhetorical” means. DANNY No disrespect. SPIDER You know what I like about vampire stories? The good ones, anyway. DANNY I couldn’t begin to guess. SPIDER The victim needs to invite the vampire in. DANNY I think I might have misjudged you.
71.
SPIDER (grinning) It’s a common mistake. DET. MARTIN (V.O.) You saw Pruitt lying on the floor? CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny looks back at the detective. DANNY Well, let’s just say the shoes looked familiar. CUT TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM where Spider squats down to eye level with Danny. SPIDER Did you really think you could have her? Think she’d ever show you her real self? DANNY Guess I wasn’t thinking at all. SPIDER That’s where you’re wrong, pardner. You think too much. Girl like Lexi isn’t about thought. (intensely) She tell you what floats her boat? Tell you to grab her hair and push her face into the pillows? Tell you she likes it rough? Danny notices the medallion dangling from Spider’s neck. DANNY I just thought of something funny. SPIDER Wouldn’t think you’d be in a laughing mood. DANNY Something about a saint for lost causes.
72.
SPIDER (nodding) Yeah, that’s one of her raps. Unlike you, I don’t imagine I’m the first man she’s told that to. Probably not the first to wear this around his neck either. You always believe women when they tell you you’re their first? DANNY Actually, I never believe that. SPIDER Well, there’s hope for you yet. Spider takes off his jacket, tosses it to the bed. We notice the lurid blue-and-red scorpion tattoo on his neck. DANNY You do realize, of course, that’s a scorpion. Spider looks at him blankly. DANNY (continuing) I mean, you’re Spider, right? Why would you have a scorpion tattoo? SPIDER You do have a right to remain silent, which I strongly advise. DANNY I’m just saying. Spider studies Danny a long beat. SPIDER In the end, does all that smarts really pay off? Look at where I am, and look where you sit. Doesn’t that strike you as funny? Well.
DANNY Not ha-ha funny.
SPIDER I have this theory about smarts, that it gets in the way of seeing things.
73.
He leans in close to Danny. SPIDER (continuing) What, did you think she cared? Danny says nothing, Spider just scowls, rising. SPIDER Just what I thought. Only a smart guy could be that fucking stupid. He starts to turn away, then suddenly LASHES OUT KNOCKING DANNY over BACKWARD in the chair, which hits the floor hard. Then he moves over to the body on the floor by the bed. SPIDER Another smart guy. He KICKS Pruitt’s prone body with sudden rage. SPIDER (continuing) See how fucking smart? He returns to Danny, rights the chair. SPIDER So, wanna hear the plan? Our girl asks you to get some dirt on old Carl over there, which isn’t hard to do. He’s much more interested in pain than women. DANNY What’s the difference? Spider disappears into the ruined apartment’s kitchen. SPIDER (O.S.) But you wind up falling for her, decide you have to have her. He reappears carrying a large kitchen knife. SPIDER (smiling) She brings that out in a man.
74.
DANNY Let me guess. I kill him. SUDDENLY SPIDER crouches down -- and PLUNGES the knife repeatedly into Carl’s prone body. He looks back at Danny, grinning fiercely. See?
SPIDER Those smarts again.
DANNY Why do I kill him if she’s going to leave him anyway? SPIDER Hang on a minute. He disappears again, this time returning with a hammer. HE POSITIONS a THREEPENNY NAIL above Danny’s hand. SPIDER Because he put a fucking nail through your hand! AND HE DRIVES the nail THROUGH Danny’s hand and out the arm of the chair -CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin watches impassively as Danny tells his story. DANNY Of course, I’d been following Pruitt, collecting all this footage, so it had a certain logic. CUT TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM as Danny looks up, dazed.
Spider’s not in the room.
75.
DANNY Hey, Spider. Scorpion, whatever your name is. Arachnid. Spider returns to the room carrying a frying pan. SPIDER You like pain or something? He places the pan on the floor under Danny’s dripping hand. DANNY Maybe smarts has its limitations. But dumb doesn’t get you very far either. SPIDER (sighing) Seriously? DANNY Or do you really see yourself in some island paradise with her? Spider looks down at Danny with true curiosity. SPIDER You really don’t know what’s what, do you? DANNY She’s not real. SPIDER No? DANNY She shows you only what she needs to. SPIDER See, a man like you will never get what she’s about. Upper West Side pussy, think I don’t know you? DANNY You got the wrong cowboy, pardner. SPIDER You walk the line, afraid to give the littlest offense. Tell them what they want to hear, fuck on their schedule. Tiptoeing nine (MORE)
76. SPIDER (CONT'D) paces behind them. You’re right, hoss. She’ll never be real to you. There is a SOUND from behind them and they both turn toward THE DOORWAY as Lexi appears.
She takes in the situation at a glance.
SPIDER Just about done here. She looks at Danny, his hand impaled to the chair. LEXI And you thought the nail was a good idea because...? SPIDER He pisses me off. LEXI So, let me get this straight. He kills Carl, then hammers a nail through his own hand? SPIDER Carl fucks him up with the nail, but he gets himself free. He does Carl with the knife, and Carl has just enough left in him to put a bullet between his eyes. LEXI (sighing) What did I say about improvising? Spider dips the kitchen knife in the pan with Danny’s blood. LEXI (looking around) I want to see him. Spider nods over to Carl, on the floor by the bed. LEXI SQUATS down by Carl’s blood-soaked body.
Looks at him a long beat.
LEXI I’ve waited a long time for --
77.
SUDDENLY Carl GROANS loudly and SITS UP -LEXI JUMPS BACK in shock as Carl’s eyes open wide and focus on her. CARL Who the fuck are you? DANNY STARES in disbelief from across the room as SPIDER JUMPS in and finishes off the badly injured man with the knife. LEXI PLOPS DOWN onto the floor, stunned. LEXI For God’s sake -- ! SPIDER (grinning) Now he’s dead. LEXI Jesus. Danny looks at Lexi in puzzlement. DANNY He didn’t know you.... She regroups, gets back to her feet.
Turns to Spider.
LEXI You have the gun? Spider removes a heavy revolver from his pocket. SPIDER Cold as they come. DANNY (to Lexi) Why didn’t he know you?
78.
He raises the weapon and points it at Danny’s head. No.
LEXI Let me.
SPIDER You sure, babe? LEXI He’s my responsibility. Spider hands her the gun.
She raises it toward Danny’s head.
SPIDER There’s my girl.... DANNY Come on, now, you can do better than that. She looks at him curiously.
He nods down toward his heart.
SHE LOWERS the gun and aims it dead at Danny’s heart. LEXI If it makes a difference, I’m sorry. DANNY (smiling) Can’t blame the scorpion for stinging you. SPIDER (irritably) Again with the scorp -But he is cut off in mid-word as Lexi shifts position -AND AN EXPLOSION ROCKS the room as SPIDER’S HEAD EXPLODES in a SPRAY of BLOOD and BONE.
79.
DANNY STARES in disbelief, his face dappled with Spider’s blood, as LEXI STANDS there with the still-smoking gun in her hand. LEXI (to Spider) For the record -- I never liked it rough. SPIDER TOPPLES slowly to the floor, his expression never changing. DANNY AND LEXI look at each other for a long beat.
She shrugs.
LEXI He pisses me off. DANNY You weren’t what I thought. LEXI You were exactly what I thought. He can’t help smiling.
He nods to her.
DANNY You know the smartest thing you did? LEXI Hmm? FLASH TO: THE HIGH ANGLE from the first scene. Surrounded by the giant web-like architecture of BRIDGES, we could be in timeless space. DANNY Holding out on sex.
80.
LEXI Men are simple. DANNY I would’ve bought any line you were selling. LEXI I did like talking to you. You’re the only man I’ve ever met as smart as me. DANNY Not quite smart enough, though. LEXI We do have a natural advantage. BACK TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM as Lexi squats by Spider’s body. When she straightens she’s holding the St. Jude’s medallion he was wearing. LEXI He won’t be needing it. She comes to the chair and slips it over Danny’s head. DANNY So, where you headed? LEXI Someplace warm. DANNY Who are you going to be when you get there? She looks down at him. LEXI You invented me as much as I invented myself, Danny. The vampire can’t enter without an invitation. DANNY (to himself) I knew he didn’t come up with that one on his own.
81.
She takes a step toward him.
We hear his DRIPPING blood.
LEXI You want me to tell you it was real for me, that I loved you, if only for a moment? That that’s why you’re alive and Spider’s dead? Will it make up for everything? FLASH TO: THE BRIDGES against the impossibly BRIGHT skies and churning waters. LEXI (continuing) Okay. I love you. I always have. Our souls were born together at the beginning of time. Can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. We can still HEAR the sound of Danny’s dripping blood. DANNY (V.O.) Hey.... BACK TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM where Lexi is at the door.
She turns back to Danny.
DANNY (smiling) I believe you. FLASH TO: THE BRIDGES as the two figures look at each other across empty space. LEXI Will you remember me? DANNY Safe bet. And when we look back to where Lexi was standing
82.
NOTHING IS THERE except the webwork of bridge cables, the water far below. And we are left wondering: was she ever there at all? BACK TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM as Danny is left looking at the empty doorway.... DANNY (V.O.) The thing is, even after everything, I wanted to believe. CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny looks at Det. Martin. DANNY (continuing) Duct-taped to a chair, nail through my hand, two dead guys on the floor, I still wanted to believe her. Homo
DET. MARTIN creditus, Man the Believer.
DANNY Pretty fucking stupid, huh? DET. MARTIN Just overmatched. At least you’re not one of the dead guys on the floor. DANNY Does that make me a suspect? DET. MARTIN I don’t think you killed Carl, if that’s what you mean. And I don’t think she ever really thought you’d take the rap for it. My guess is, her plan was always to get rid of Carl and Spider at the same time. DANNY Why use me?
83.
DET. MARTIN Whatever Spider lacked in moral clarity, he made up for in street smarts. He would’ve known someone had to take the fall for Carl. She convinced him it was you, so he wouldn’t know it was him all along. DANNY But why kill Spider? Det. Martin touches the copy of Lexi’s assault PHOTO. DET. MARTIN I guess she had a short fuse on this kind of thing. Danny looks at the photo, back at Det. Martin. FLASH TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM where Spider grins down at Danny. SPIDER She tell you she likes it rough? BACK TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin helps Danny connect the dots. DET. MARTIN She was never married to Carl. DANNY (nodding) He didn’t seem to know her. DET. MARTIN Oh, he knew her. On the detective’s meaningful look at Danny we FLASH TO: LEXI’S CHILDHOOD HOME where her stepfather is assaulting her mother at the kitchen sink. He’s got his hand gripped tightly around her throat.
84.
YOUNG LEXI cowers in a corner, hearing her mother’s SCREAMS. LEXI (V.O.) And, in that moment, I see what my mother had seen. FLASH TO: THE ROOF TERRACE where Lexi tells Danny of her mother’s abuse. LEXI (continuing) I decided I wasn’t going to end up like her, another broken woman. BACK TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin pulls out a set of CRIME SCENE PHOTOS, dated from the nineties: a woman’s body lying on a kitchen floor. DET. MARTIN But it was her mother who was married to him. FLASH TO: LEXI’S CHILDHOOD HOME as her mother’s SCREAMS grow weak and muffled as Carl’s grip tightens around her throat. SUDDENLY YOUNG LEXI LUNGES forward and grabs a kitchen knife, STABBING at Carl -BUT HE SWIPES at her with one powerful hand -KNOCKING HER to the floor as she lets go of the knife.
85.
DANNY (V.O.) (realizing) He killed her.... BACK TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Det. Martin looks back at Danny. DET. MARTIN D.A. went for manslaughter. Carl claimed she’d come at him with a kitchen knife. He was acquitted. FLASH TO: THE KITCHEN KNIFE skittering across the KITCHEN floor. FLASH TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM as Spider covers the murder weapon -- a kitchen knife -in Danny’s blood. BACK TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny shakes his head, almost smiling. DANNY She never said she was married to him. DET. MARTIN How’s that? DANNY Or that he was the one who beat her. FLASH TO: THE ROOF TERRACE where we hear Lexi’s precise choice of words:
86.
LEXI ...it isn’t only your mother’s eyes you’ve got. It’s the bruises around them. BACK TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny looks back at the detective. DANNY She just let me fill in the blanks. DET. MARTIN I imagine she hooked up with Spider as a way to get to Pruitt. He’d represented him on a couple of drug beefs. Once Spider laid a hand on her, his fate was set too. Danny holds eye contact with Det. Martin a long beat. DANNY Does this mean you believe me? The detective swivels his LAPTOP around to face Danny. ON THE SCREEN we see the FOOTAGE taken by Danny’s camera in the tenement room that night. We see the partial view of Carl’s body. DANNY LOOKS up from the computer screen, back at Det. Martin. DANNY So, you knew all along. DET. MARTIN (noncommittally) Be nice if we could see the rest of the room. DANNY I’ll be more careful next time I drop my camera.
87.
DET. MARTIN You will get me the footage you’ve been collecting? DANNY I’m free to go? DET. MARTIN (a beat) I am curious, though. Earlier you mentioned something about that couple, the Herzmans? Danny looks back at him. DET. MARTIN (continuing) Something you never told her. CUT TO: THE HERZMAN HOME as Danny points his camera at the couple, now sitting on the sofa. They’re dressed differently from the other interview. RINA I didn’t want him to do this.
Never.
THROUGH DANNY’S CAMERA we see both Herzmans, side by side on the sofa. HERMAN I was in the camps, just as I said. RINA And I saw many trains pass by with prisoners. But I never even saw Herman. HERMAN That day on Coney Island was the first time we met. We fell in love and were married. The important parts are true. ACROSS THE ROOM Danny interviews them from behind his camera:
88.
DANNY But the story of the girl with the cross? Your angel? HERMAN That I made up. Rina holds up the little cross. RINA It was just a trinket he was selling. I thought it was so funny, you know, a Jewish boy selling crosses. I’ve worn it ever since. DANNY It’s not even real? RINA Of course it’s real! not real gold.
It’s just BACK TO:
INTERROGATION ROOM where Det. Martin looks at Danny in disbelief. DANNY When the book publisher did its fact checking, it turned out that the dates and places didn’t jibe. Herman came clean, but of course the book and movie deal were gone. DET. MARTIN Why’d he do it? For the money? DANNY Not exactly. CUT TO: THE HERZMAN HOME as Herman tries to explain himself. HERMAN It was a wonderful story. people happy.
It made
89.
DANNY But it wasn’t true. HERMAN (dismissively) Ach! It made them feel good. Do you care when you read a novel that it didn’t really happen? Are you angry at Shakespeare because Juliet never said those words? Our love is real -- fifty years -- that part is real. So what’s more important? THROUGH DANNY CAMERA Mr. Herzman’s face is filled with intensity. HERMAN (DIGITAL) (continuing) I gave them something beautiful, and now it’s gone. Is there too much beauty in the world? Believe me, where I was, there wasn’t so much beauty. A story like this would have given those poor souls more hope than a hundred gold crosses. BACK TO: INTERROGATION ROOM as Danny looks back at Det. Martin. DANNY That was why I was on the train when I saw Lexi that second time. I was going up to do my follow-up interview with the Herzmans. DET. MARTIN (nodding) You be sure to get me that footage. DANNY You’re welcome to it. But she never let me shoot her. DET. MARTIN Maybe she was right after all. Danny looks at the detective quizzically.
90.
DET. MARTIN About it capturing your soul. On the two men’s look at each other we CUT TO: DANNY’S OFFICE in the MORNING, as Danny ENTERS, goes to his desk carrying a bundle of mail, and sits down. DANNY (V.O.) She’d asked me if I’d choose the great love or the great story. But is there a difference, really? FLASH TO: DIGITAL FOOTAGE from Danny’s CAMERA. We see the huge girth of the big man Danny encountered in the tenement -- but this time it doesn’t go to the Herzman footage. This time we find ourselves INSIDE A TAXICAB looking THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD at NIGHT...as we FOLLOW another cab making its way downtown. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) In the end, you aren’t who you think you are; you’re who I perceive you to be. The other cab PULLS OVER -- and Lexi gets out. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) In the world of matter, you are uncontrollable, unpredictable, a babble of random motion. I capture you in a net of words and you are known, if only for a moment. Lexi seems to be waiting impatiently, checks her cell phone. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) We imagine we create words, but what if they create us? This is (MORE)
91. DANNY (V.O.) (CONT'D) the secret poets know: words are incantations, weaving magic spells. Finally, she looks up -- as Spider saunters down the street. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) If the Word initiated the universe into existence, what will close it? Lexi and Spider kiss, and go off together into a building. DANNY SITS in the backseat of the cab, watching everything through his camera.... DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Why didn’t I tell Det. Martin? FLASH TO: THE TENEMENT ROOM as Lexi squats close to Spider’s body. DANNY (V.O.) I guess I was never purely victim or suspect. But you could say I was an accomplice of sorts. She gets up, puts the St. Jude medallion around Danny’s neck. DANNY Better check my heart.... She looks at him curiously and he nods down to THE BREAST POCKET of his shirt...where she finds the small plastic memory card. DANNY (V.O.) Why did I go back there, knowing? CUT TO: A FREEZE FRAME of Lexi and Spider about to enter the building together.
92.
DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Sometimes, you just have to find out how the story ends. PULL BACK TO REVEAL we are now INSIDE DANNY’S OFFICE -- and the image is ON the MONITOR in his EDITING BAY. DANNY (V.O.) (continuing) Of course, I did back it up to my hard drive.... DANNY SITS in front of his monitor.
The phone RINGS.
ON THE MONITOR we watch as he finally drags the ICON for this bit of footage into the TRASH BIN -- and it DISAPPEARS forever. DANNY GRABS the phone, looks down at the pile of mail on his desk. He notices a small envelope, with no return address. DANNY (on phone) Hello? DET. MARTIN (FILTERED) She wasn’t lying about the warm weather. INTERCUT WITH: DET. MARTIN’S OFFICE where the detective sits at his cluttered desk. DET. MARTIN Turns out her mother insisted Carl set up a blind trust for Lexi before she’d marry him. FLASH TO:
93.
THE ROOF TERRACE and Lexi saying: LEXI She always wanted me to be provided for, so he agreed to put something aside for me. BACK TO: THE CONVERSATION INTERCUT between DANNY’S OFFICE and DET. MARTIN’S OFFICE. DET. MARTIN He stipulated it wouldn’t take effect unless both of them died. And he is most certainly dead. DANNY Where? DET. MARTIN Costa Rica. She knew we wouldn’t get to that piece of the puzzle for a while. She cleared out the trust two days ago. Danny looks at the small envelope with no return address. DANNY Good talking to you, Detective. DET. MARTIN You have a good day. Danny can’t help smiling as he hits the OFF on his cell. HE OPENS the small envelope -- and a blue plastic rectangle falls out: a memory card. He inserts it into a reader in his computer. ON THE MONITOR FOOTAGE comes up: we know by the silhouette that it’s Lexi, but she’s standing in front of a window looking out on an ocean, and her face is in deep SHADOW against the brightness.
94.
LEXI (MONITOR) I really do miss our conversations, Danny, but this time I’m just going to have to imagine your side. In a way, it’s just as well, since we can’t ever really know each other, can we? Men and women, people and people? We’re all alone, in the end, but maybe that’s okay; it’s what makes us hope and fear and sometimes love each other. DANNY WATCHES from his seat at the EDITING BAY. LEXI (MONITOR) (continuing) It’s what keeps us awake at night and makes us pull the blankets over our head against the glare of morning. It’s the throbbing in your brain at four a.m. as you look for the bathroom in some stranger’s apartment to piss out the chemicals of the night before. It’s fingers scratching across tiles, it’s my knees pointed at the ceiling, my back arched like a cat’s. CUT TO: DET. MARTIN’S OFFICE in the AFTERNOON, where the detective is looking at his LAPTOP SCREEN watching Danny’s DIGITAL FOOTAGE from Grand Central Station. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) Love is a religion, a denial of death, a descent into fiction and improbability, a lighting of candles, our only chance of salvation, a bridge to the impossible, a creeping madness, a coiled snake, a fathomless pit, a lunatic babbling on the uptown IRT.
95.
DANNY’S FOOTAGE shows the MORNING commute, as passengers crowd the PLATFORM. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) It is this tenement basement with its stink of cockroach and death, it is Jesus above Rio, it is hope and the death of hope, it is sex and its withering, it is blood on the floor. AT HIS DESK a slow smile creeps across Det. Martin’s face. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) You will kill for it and die for it; you will open its shroud and see your face etched in dirt and sweat. It fills you and empties you in the same heartbeat. ON THE LAPTOP SCREEN Det. Martin plays with the IMAGE:
FORWARD...PAUSE...BACK....
LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) What it most certainly is not is sentiment, flowers on Valentine’s Day, holding hands on a spring walk in the park. Those are its funhouse projections, the sad earthbound kitsch of love: love without danger, without accident. THE IMAGE FREEZES on LEXI’s FACE just as she’s about to get on the train. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) Better to throw yourself under the train for that girl you’ll never see again, better to incinerate in (MORE)
96. LEXI (V.O.) (CONT'D) a supernova of futility than hand her that Valentine’s bouquet. AT HIS DESK Debt. Martin smiles...having found the girl on the train. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) Love without sex is life without death; sex without danger is God without the devil. If you can’t risk being damned, don’t imagine you can ever love. CUT TO: A TRAIN BARRELING north along the Hudson River on a bright MORNING. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) Love straps your arms to the cross, drives nails through your hands and feet. It is the spear that pierces your side and the blood and gall that splashes to the ground. INSIDE THE TRAIN we FIND Danny looking contemplatively out the window. LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) It is the rag of vinegar pressed to your lips and the thorn pushed into your scalp. It is the heavens darkening and your last seven words spilling across the horizon. CUT TO: THE MONITOR in Danny’s EDITING BAY, where we see Lexi’s silhouetted face against an impossibly bright glare of OCEAN and SKY.
97.
LEXI (V.O.) (continuing) It is a desert mirage, an echo in a cave, your own words returning to mock you. It’s every great painting you’ve ever seen and the way we know art from the scratchings an elephant can make with his trunk. CUT TO: THE TRAIN STATION at Westport, as Danny steps down onto the platform. He looks up at the clear blue MORNING sky. CUT TO: THE GROUNDS OUTSIDE the ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY.
LATE MORNING.
WE FIND DANNY sitting on a bench alongside a wheelchair. The old man from the earlier scene sits beside him, staring off into space. THE TWO MEN look at each other, though it’s unclear what the old man is registering. Then Danny reaches down and we notice THE PLASTIC BAG sitting at his feet. He reaches in and pulls out a box of chocolates. He opens the box and holds it out and THE OLD MAN reaches a shaky hand to grab a chocolate.
He nods.
DANNY NODS BACK and begins to turn away -- then notices something.
