EXT. MARINA (NYC) - DAY
A car with a ticket on the windshield is in a red zone at the curb. The Blond Man comes out the gate, talking on his cell phone.
BLOND MAN
Troy? You mean up by Albany? ... I
don't know, two, three hours. Why?
INT. CAR
As he comes around to the driver's side and gets in, he lets the ticket drop to the street ... He’s still on the phone:
BLOND MAN
Somebody called, so what? Probably
a wrong number ... Yeah? How’d they
figure it was him if he didn't say … I
know, but just because the boat’s not
here …
EXT. CANAL & LOCK - LATE AFTERNOON
The lock is a rectangular enclosure comprised of concrete side walls and hydraulically operated steel gates at either end. Now that the rear gate has come closed behind her, water floods the chamber and the walls drop away, the ‘Sea Change’ riding higher and higher until the level has risen to that of the canal on the western side; then the forward gate opens and she continues on her way.
INT. SEA CHANGE
Maria, sitting with her blistered feet up on the bunk, reads aloud from the fanfold brochure on the New York State Barge Canal.
MARIA
‘The 8 locks of the Welland Canal
overcome a difference of 326 feet
between Lake Erie and Lake Ontar– ‘...
CHARLIE
Not going that way.
EXT. MARINA - TROY, NEW YORK - DUSK
The Blond Man exits the store and comes out to where he's left the car. He's got the brochure.
INT. SEA CHANGE - MOVING - DUSK
With a open packet of over-the-counter diet pills on the console, Charlie pops a couple, washing them down with Coke as he tries to decipher the chart he's got spread out before him.
MARIA
So then they picked you because of
your father?
CHARLIE
Godfather. My father's dead. They
picked me because of Gaines. No
wonder he wasn’t worried. He knew.
From Twombly. He already knew
what the Fed was going to do. And
now that option’s worth about two
billion. Could go high as three by
the time it expires. Maybe four.
Up ahead, beyond a long and curving stretch of canal: City lights. He locates the place on the chart, but can't make out the small print.
CHARLIE
What's this say?
Maria hears scratching noises. Watches the shelf.
MARIA
You need glasses, Charlie.
Still watching the shelf, she comes up behind him. She holds the Beretta down at her side.
CHARLIE
I don't need glasses, my eyes are just
tired What's it say?
MARIA
Rome.
The rat chooses this very moment to venture out onto the shelf and Maria fires, squeezing off three rounds before Charlie can get the gun from her. There are holes in the cabin wall. All that remains of the rat are a few bloody clumps of fur.
CHARLIE
Feel better? Satisfying, isn't it?
Taking the wheel again, he steers the boat back to mid-channel. Maria retreats to the galley.
Returning with salad tongs and a bucket of water, ready to clean, she starts by first removing everything from the shelf. When she comes across the damaged diskette, she shows it to Charlie.
MARIA
You want this?
CHARLIE
No ... Wait, yes! Yes, I do.
He takes it from her and, carefully blowing away the dust, checks the crack in the plastic.
CHARLIE
I left it open! (BEAT) Rome. Let's
hope there's a Kinko's in Rome.
EXT. ROADWAY - NIGHT
A billboard extolling the delights of Buffalo stands in a narrow strip of land between pavement and canal. Illuminated by head-lights. A car goes past. It's the Blond Man.
EXT. DOWNTOWN ROME - NIGHT
A cab is parked outside Kinko's, the only business in this block that’s open. The driver passes the time playing a pocket video game.
INT. KINKO'S
Maria watches the monitor where the option's termination date, together
with a countdown for time remaining, is displayed in blinking highlight. Using a window to call up a running tabulation of exchange rates, Charlie plugs this into the option formula and then looks on as the number to the right of the equal sign, three billion dollars and counting, goes clicking over like a high speed gas pump.
CHARLIE
Making about $10,000 every couple
of seconds. He's letting it ride.
Using the cursor, he selects for ‘Alter’.
CHARLIE
Okay, and now I'm going to fix it so
he can't get off.
EXT. WATERFRONT STREET & PIER
The cab leaves as they make their way back to the boat.
CHARLIE
If they can't access the account and
the option expires, that's it, they can
kiss all that money goodbye.
MARIA
So now what?
CHARLIE
So now I've got the upper hand.
INT. CAR - NIGHT - MOVING
Continuing along the frontage road which runs parallel to the canal, the Blond Man, once he's sure the ‘Sea Change’ is neither of the two boats there to his right, steps on the gas, speeding past the Oswego turnoff ...
EXT. CANAL - NIGHT
The ‘Sea Change’ passes from the straight line of this manmade watercourse into the wide spread of Lake Oneida.
INT. SEA CHANGE - MOVING
Charlie fiddles the ignition wires, and Maria, who's trying to get some sleep, is surprised when the engines quit.
CHARLIE
I'm going in.
MARIA
I thought we had to get there.
EXT. LAKE ONEIDA - NIGHT
Charlie, dropping anchor, waits for it to bite before making his way aft where he hooks a ladder over the transom and dives in, resurfacing as Maria emerges from the cabin.
CHARLIE
You said you were hot.
He treads water, watching as she disappears from view. And now a splash on the far side of the boat …
Maria swims to the ladder and hangs on, watching the smooth, moonlit surface of the water, expecting Charlie to show himself any second now, but when he doesn’t, she begins to worry that he might not be playing around. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. And then, just as she’s starting up the ladder, he pops up behind her, grabbing a foot, pulling her back down.
MARIA
Charlie!
CHARLIE
Cold! Jesus! But I guess I don't have to
tell you that.
He's looking at her breasts which she does nothing to hide. When she drops back into the water, he moves closer.
MARIA
You know, you look like a little boy
without your beard.
CHARLIE
But you like little boys.
MARIA
Not too little.
Both hanging onto the ladder, they kiss ...
A phone's ringing …
INT. GAINES BEDROOM - NIGHT
A hand feels for the cordless receiver on the bedside table, Gaines answering it on the second ring. He's got his back to his wife, Bunny, who's also awake now, listening.
GAINES
(On phone) Hold on a second.
He gets up, Bunny switching on her bedside lamp as he starts across the room.
GAINES
Business, dear. Go back to sleep.
BUNNY
Business? At this time of night?
GAINES
It's not night in Dubai.
BUNNY
Dubai?
GAINES
Yes, dear, Dubai.
BUNNY
Randolph?
But he's already gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
INT. BAT HROOM
Gaines runs the sink taps and sits down on the toilet. He holds the phone in both hands, cupping the mouthpiece.
GAINES
Okay, go ahead ... What things don't
add up? ... But that's according to the
moron security guard. Charlie couldn't
have left the building when he says he
did because the transfer posted at 7:51.
How’s it going to post at 7:51 if he left
at 6:42?! … What? …Call it?!
He's got to keep his voice down. He flushes the toilet.
GAINES
Two days left to run on this and the
dollar going through the roof, you’re
telling me to call it? ... Let me speak
to him then … No. I want to speak to
Tom ... So wake him up ...
He's been disconnected. Tries calling back, but can’t get through. For a while
he just sits there, unable to move. And then, when he does move, getting up, turning off the faucets, he catches an unwelcome glimpse of himself in the mirror. He takes a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet,
INT. SEA CHANGE - MOVING - NIGHT
Charlie guides the boat from the lake along to the next leg of the canal which before long branches off in two directions, one heading west, the other, posted as the Oswego Canal, bending north. He's going north.
EXT. ERIE CANAL LOCK - NIGHT
The Lock Operator, looking down from where he stands at the rear door to the control booth, shrugs off the question just put to him and points east. The Blond Man down below hurries back to his car and, making a U-turn, heads back along the frontage road the way he's just come.
EXT. OSWEGO CANAL - NIGHT
The ‘Sea Change’ continues on in the moonlight.
INT. CAR - MOVING
Slowing as he comes to an intersection with a signpost for the Oswego Canal, the Blond Man turns left.
INT. SEA CHANGE - MOVING
Maria's at the wheel, Charlie in the galley, splashing his face with water. He's exhausted, wired.
POV THROUGH LENS - NIGHT
Seen at a distance, the ‘Sea Change’ follows the canal north.
EXT. OSWEGO CANAL
The Blond Man lowers his binoculars, high-tech field glasses with night vision
capability, and gets back in the car.
EXT. OSWEGO CANAL LOCK - NIGHT
The control booth here is brightly lit by arc lamps for painters cutting in the exterior trim. The Blond Man's car drives slowly past along the access road, then accelerates, following signs for Lake Ontario.
INT. GAINES & FILCHER – LOBBY – NIGHT
Deaf to the friendly greetings of the guard, Gaines crosses to the elevators. The guard flips him off.
INT. EXECUTIVE SUITE OFFICE - NIGHT
The wall safe stands open, Gaines at the computer entering the access code as it’s printed on the flap of the envelope. Startled by a warning beep and the monitor's response: ‘Error/Enter Access Code’, he checks to make sure he’s copied it right and tries the code a second time, typing carefully. When the same thing happens again, he grabs the phone and uses speed dial, keying in an extension.
GAINES
(Phone) I can't access it! He must’ve
changed the goddamned code ... How
the Hell do I know! …We've got to
find him!
Stunned by what he's now being told, he's short of breath and has to speak in short bursts.
GAINES
Here, I'm here. You've got to call it
Off! You've ... Hello? ...
The line's dead.
EXT. CANAL - ONTARIO LOCK - NIGHT
Driving past another control booth, the Blond Man pulls to a stop on the side of the road and gets out. He leaves his cell phone on the front seat.
INT. SEA CHANGE - MOVING - NIGHT
Up ahead is the lock where painters are still at work outside the brightly lit control booth. Maria covers her nose against the smell and goes to lie down, burying her face in a pillow.
CHARLIE
What's wrong with you?
MARIA
Paint. Feel sick. (BEAT) Hope you
didn't make me pregnant, Charlie.
INT. CONTROL BOOTH
The man at the controls waits for the ‘Sea Change’ to be tied off inside the lock before activating the hydraulics. Coming slowly down along the canal behind her is a houseboat.
EXT. OSWEGO CANAL LOCK
As water releases from the chamber, Charlie, watching the downward suck of submerged debris, notices the scuppers, fluted vents two feet across, at the base of the sidewalls. Before long, the water’s dropped as far as it’s going to, and the forward gate opens. The ‘Sea Change’ continues north.
EXT. FRONTAGE ROAD
The cell phone left in the car, ringing now to the tune of the ‘William Tell Overture’, is audible for only a second or two before being swallowed up in the rumble of a coming truck. As it blows past the control booth, the Blond Man materializes on the other side of the road, stepping from the shadows.
INT. CONTROL BOOTH - ONTARIO LOCK
The Lock Operator watches the many pressure and level guages as the water water rises to the Full line marked on the facing side wall. He then flicks a switch, opening the rear gate, allowing the ‘Sea Change’ to enter.
EXT. OSWEGO CANAL - ONTARIO LOCK
After Charlie’s secured all lines and signaled to the booth, lights on the rear gate change from green to red and start to flash. There's the hiss of pumps kicking in. He rejoins Maria on the aft deck as the water level starts to drop.
INT. CONTROL BOOTH
The Operator yawns as the ‘Sea Change’ sinks out of sight past the sill of the observation window. Suddenly, a glass pane in the door behind him pops and his eyes go wide, a gaping hole there between them where the bullet tore through.
The Blond Man, moving quickly as he crosses from the doorway, dumps the Operator out of his chair and takes over at the controls. When the needle in the level gauge drops past the halfway mark, he turns a key, and the signal lights outside go from red to green. At negative 20 feet, he flips a toggle for the rear gate.
EXT. ONTARIO LOCK
Reacting to the deep bass of the hydraulics, Charlie looks behind him to see the gate’s overlapped lips of steel starting pull apart. He calls out as loud as he can to the man up in the booth, and just now recognizes who that is at the window looking back down at him..
INT. CONTROL BOOTH
Watching as the massive gate opens wider and canal waters, no longer held in check, come pouring through, the Blond Man waves goodbye to Charlie.
EXT. ONTARIO LOCK
All her lines snapping under this avalanche of water, the ‘Sea Change’ rolls, capsizing …
EXT. ONTARIO LOCK - UNDERWATER
In all the turbulence, the only way to distinguish up from down is the green lit surface which Maria's frantically trying to get back to, but can’t because Charlie's got her by the hair, and he's pulling her the other way, using ladder rungs to descend to the floor of the lock, where he locates a scupper. But the bottom end of this downward curving pipe is sealed with a retractable metal flue which, despite desperate effort, he can't budge.
A panic stricken Maria, upsidedown and unable to turn, is trying to wriggle back the other way when suddenly the flue opens and they're both sucked through in a high velocity flush that propels them down and out.
EXT. LAKE ONTARIO
The lock's forward gate releases a torrent of water, along with the wreckage of the ‘Sea Change’, her battered hull sinking, making bubbles, as she goes down.
EXT. OVERLOOK
Here at a railing where the bluff affords an unobstructed view of the lake, the Blond Man uses his binoculars to pan out from lock to where flotsam bobs on a slowing outflow.
EXT. LAKESHORE
Carrying Maria through the reed thick shallows, Charlie gets her up the bank to a clearing where moonlight shines through. She's not breathing. He slaps her, shakes her.
CHARLIE
Breathe, Maria, breathe!
He’s giving her mouth to mouth when she's convulsed, rolling away from him to vomit water.
Reacting to the loud wail of an siren, he goes crawling off, Maria losing him as she tries to follow.
The siren continues as Charlie, waist-deep in water, looks from the edge of the reeds to the lock where the lakeside gate remains open. Something else catches his eye, something all but submerged as it goes floating past close to shore.
EXT. LOCK
The houseboat’s within a few feet of going over the edge when someone comes racing along the embankment, making for the control booth. The siren here is deafening and it's hard to make out the screams of the elderly couple on board, the man losing his footing as he tries to lay hold of a spring loaded stop sign that extends from a bank piling like a semaphore. In any case the houseboat’s already past the point of no return, and over it goes, the gate then closing, staunching further loss of water.
EXT. LAKESHORE
A searchlight probes the lake waters by the lock, then makes a wide sweep as the alarm falls silent. Maria draws back.
The sailbag, still tangled up in fishline attached to the bulky life preserver, has fetched up in the muck where Charlie finds it, and where Maria finds him, fighting the zipper open to get at the bank bag and all the waterlogged money inside. Dragging this up into the reeds, he upends it to drain.
MARIA
Still think we've got the upper hand?
CHARLIE
Doesn't make any sense.
MARIA
Maybe they don't need you. Maybe
they figured it out on their own.
She’s trying to button the shirt she's got on, but there's only one button left, and now this too comes off.
CHARLIE
Looks great. You always look great.
Come on.
He gets to his feet, picks up the bag.
CHARLIE
Used to be a place somewhere round
here where you could rent boats.
MARIA
I don't like boats anymore.
EXT. LAKESHORE - LATER
It’s no longer quite so dark by the time they emerge from the reeds. Maria wants to stop here and rest, but Charlie just keeps on going, sticking to the shoreline.
MARIA
I thought you said it wasn't far.
CHARLIE
It was a long time ago, alright?
EXT. LAKE CABIN - DAWN
Sound asleep inside a sorry looking wooden skiff that’s up on blocks here in the back yard of an unoccupied vacation house, an Old Man wakes to the sound of approaching voices. Peeking out over the side, he sees Charlie and Maria coming this way and makes quick work of stuffing his bedding into a garbage and stowing it under the aft seat. He then busies himself sanding the interior with a scrap of cardboard, and looks up from this work as if taken completely by surprise when he realizes he has visitors.
CHARLIE
Mornin’. We're looking for this place,
somewhere around here - used to be,
anyway - where you can rent boats?
OLD MAN
Boats, uh? Where you rent boats …
Scratching his beard as he studies on it, his eyes stray to Maria, her breasts showing through the damp shirt she holds closed.
OLD MAN
Nope. Not round here.
CHARLIE
Somewhere else? ...
The Old Man shrugs. Charlie needs a cigarette. He’s got an unopened pack in one of his pockets, but there’s a tear in the cellophane, the whole thing’s soggy.
CHARLIE
Wouldn't happen to have a smoke,
would you?
OLD MAN
Would if I smoked 'em. Just never
smoked ‘em. Nope, never ever did.
So, lookin’ to rent you a boat, uh?
What you got in mind? Big boat,
little boat? Motorboat? This here’s
a motorboat. Goes like a top, too.
CHARLIE
What would you want for her?
The Old Man just smiles and lets his eyes drift back to Maria.
OLD MAN
A friggin' top. (Patting the motor)
This here’s a Merc. Me, I gotta say,
I prefer Mercs.
Charlie pulls a packet of money out of the bag, breaks the plastic-wrap seal, and begins counting off hundreds, watching the Old Man fight a smile.
EXT. LAKE - DAY
As Charlie rows away from shore and the Old Man can be seen making off in the opposite direction, Maria spots flagged buoys just beyond a bend in the shoreline a couple of hundred yards further on. A big billboard, ‘Boats For Rent’, is visible even at this distance, and now the dock fingers and all the boats, lots of boats, come into view.
MARIA
(Mimicking) Nope, not round here.
Charlie moves aft to let the antique out-board down into the water. But he can’t find the release and Maria has to show him. But then she goes back to her seat, leaving him to deal with the motor, yanking the pull-cord over and over as the boat drifts.
MARIA
Maybe if you opened the gas valve …
Once more she shows him what to do, and the Mercury coughs and catches hold. Charlie throttles up, the skiff slowly coming about, trailing smoke as she makes for the far shore.
EXT. LAKE - DAY
Two sailboats slice across the water, closing fast. Beyond the point where their opposite headings cross, the skiff can be seen and heard as she putters north down the widening wedge of water that opens between them.