EXT. POST OFFICE - -SPRINGTIME- - DAY
In addition to all the red, white and blue paper bunting that’s been strung up between stanchions out front, there are multiple postings of the date, April 15th, and poster sized versions of Form 1040. A postal employee’s stationed curbside with a couple of canvas carts where passersby can drop off their tax returns.
Charlie, all tucked in and tidy, carrying himself with the flippant ease of money, makes his way just past here to a newstand where he stops to buy a paper.
The above-the-fold front-page photo is of soldiers posing before the wreck-age of a downed helicopter. The headlines:
COFFEE BLIGHT SPREADS TO COLUMBIA-
-CANAL ZONE - US FORCES ON ALERT-
INT. GAINES & FILCHER - TRADING ROOM
Henry's at his desk watching Charlie as he works the computer and phones, unloading coffee contracts ...
Out on the floor, a fax machine comes on line and there's another printout to add to those already in the tray. An office boy collects and distributes these to the appropriate brokers.
Charlie doesn't look at the fax he's just been handed until he’s finished execut-ing a deposit, transfering $435,000 in dealer commission to his personal ac-count. The on-screen display is a balance sheet for Account #1066; it shows multiple debits and credits of six figures and up.
On the way out, he stops off at the shredder and inserts his fax, its message legible as it feeds through: 4 PM Shuttle.Track 2. Just for fun.
INT. BANK - DAY
The teller finishes counting out Charlie’s money and slides a neat stack of it, all hundreds, across the counter. He slips it into an envelope.
EXT. PARK AVENUE
Charlie steps from a cab just north of the Hensley Building.
INT. GRAND CENTRAL STATION
Descending the marble stairway, cutting across the vast, crowded concourse, he enters a tunnel way, following signs for the Cross-Town Shuttle.
There's a train taking on passengers as he heads down the steps to the platform. It's 3:59
INT. SHUTTLE CAR
Standing room only, the sliding doors starting to jerk and jump in their tracks as Charlie slips inside. There’s a garbled announcement on the intercom as he slowly makes his way forward, looking at faces.
A little man in a Yankee baseball cap surrenders his seat to a pregnant Indian girl and grabs hold of Charlie when the train lurches away from the platform. It's Coach.
COACH
You don't know me. Look at some-
thing else.
Charlie does as he's told. He sneaks the envelope out of his pocket.
COACH
Keep it.
The pregnant girl watches her hands as the lights flicker, the train picking up speed, a strobe effect: Coach handing something over - Charlie looking at it ...
COACH
Baggage area, main concourse.
Wary of being overheard, he stares at the girl, scaring her eyes away when she looks up.
CHARLIE
Look, I don't know why you're ...
It goes dark. There's a deafening screech of brakes. And when the lights come back on, the train’s pulling in at Times Square. Coach is no longer where he was just a moment before, and everybody's pressing towards the doors which, following yet another wholly unintelligible announcement, slide open.
INT. SHUTTLE STOP - TIMES SQUARE
Out on the platform, Charlie pockets the numbered locker key he's been given and crosses to another train that’s now boarding for the shuttle back to Grand Central. Coach is nowhere to be seen.
INT. GRAND CENTRAL - MAIN CONCOURSE
Charlie locates the locker and, opening it, finds an envelope inside and, in-side that, a computer diskette in a blue plastic sleeve. Taking this, he deposits two dollars in change and reclaims the key.
EXT. APARTMENT HOUSE - NIGHT
It’s raining. A doorman lets Charlie inside.
INT. PENTHOUSE APARTMENT - NIGHT
Of the furnishings here, only the antiques have survived the move from where he lived before. Pouring himself a whiskey, Charlie settles in on the couch with his laptop and, using an external drive, inserts the diskette from the storage locker. Boots up ...
The transaction that appears on screen is a straddle involving the trading range of a number of Exchange Indexes. There's a complicated formula involving inverse ratios and percentages.
INT. GAINES & FILCHER TRADING ROOM – DAY
Sitting idle in the cubicle workspace next to Charlie’s, Henry overhears his friend on the phone and leans back for a look past the partition.
CHARLIE
(Phone) Right, 3, times 3, but that’s
inverse, okay? Inverse ratio ... Yes.
right. 3 times the exchange rate ... No,
that's it.
With nothing to indicate an awareness of anyone there at his back, he pivots the computer monitor so Henry can't see it.
CHARLIE
(Phone) One hundred even ... Ten-six-
six, right. One, zero, six, six ... Got it.
Thanks. (Hangs up)
HENRY
Ten-Six-Six. What's Ten-Six-Six?
CHARLIE
(BEAT) Battle of Hastings.
He waits for Henry to disappear behind the partition before executing on a large fund transfer: 80 million dollars to a bank in Mexico. He then makes his phone call. There’s a high-pitched signal in the line as it rings through and ...
VOICE RECORDING
Longevity Institute. If you know your
Party’s extension, you may enter...
Charlie keys in the numbers and gets connected to voice-mail.
CHARLIE
Charlie Hastings, Sir. Contracts are all
in place. Also the fund transfer, as indi-
cated. Thank you.
The high-pitched signal quits only when he's hit the cancel button. Shaking the receiver, he whacks the earpiece on the heel of his hand.
EXT. MANHATTAN MARINA - DAY
Following a yacht salesman out along the docks, Charlie stops to admire the ‘Sea Change’, a somewhat decrepit 40 foot Matthews that's more African Queen than yacht.
SALESMAN
Afraid she's not for sale, Mr. Hastings.
CHARLIE
(BEAT) Everything's for sale.
INT. PENTHOUSE - -WINTER- - MORNING
Just beyond the bedroom’s French doors which open out onto the terrace, a potted Birch tree stands naked with a cruciform of blinking Christmas lights twined about its trunk and branches. Charlie wakes to fax sounds in the living room.
INT. GRAND CENTRAL - DAY
He retrieves another diskette from the storage locker, again keeping the key.
EXT. GRAND CENTRAL - DAY
Guttered, sooty snow. When Charlie comes back to the Mercedes, which he's left double-parked, there's a ticket on the windshield.
HENRY (OS)
(Calling out) Charlie.
Henry, foregoing the cab he’s about to get into halfway up the block on Vander-bilt, comes this way.
HENRY
(Re: Car) How much this set you back?
CHARLIE
Week, two weeks. Hard to say. Drop
you somewhere?
He unlocks the car and they both climb in, Charlie filing the parking ticket away in the glove compartment.
INT. MERCEDES – MOVING
Henry plays with the electronic seat controls while waiting for the call he's just keyed in on his cell phone to go through.
HENRY
Sunday brunch at the Yale Club. You
ought to join me sometime. Your old
man was at Yale, wasn’t he?
The call’s answered and there's a recording for exact time. The dashboard clock is ten minutes fast. He resets it.
HENRY
11:O9. Exactly! (Re: cell phone) Still
won’t break down and get yourself one
of these, will you?
CHARLIE
Brain cancer.
HENRY
Bullshit, that’s just bullshit and you.
know it. You won’t get one because
everybody’s got one and you don’t
want to be part of the crowd.
EXT. 81ST STREET
The Mercedes pulls up opposite the entrance of an apartment building where Henry gets out, holding onto the open door as another car pulls in behind.
HENRY
What I'd really like to know is where
you got all this inverse ratio shit from.
CHARLIE
Fifth form math. I’m blocking traffic,
Henry.
Henry closes the door and waves as the Mercedes pulls away.
HENRY
Fifth form math, my ass.
INT. PENTHOUSE APARTMENT - NIGHT
Charlie studies the pretty girl passed out in bed here next to him and knocks back another shot of whiskey. He tries to wake her up, pats her cheeks, peels back an eyelid.
CHARLIE
Come on, I mean it, you gotta tell me,
okay?, I'm serious. Just tell me. What
it is you like. About me. S’important.
I just wanna know.
GIRL
Oh, Charlie, Charlie, I dunno, Charlie.
You're funny.
CHARLIE
My what?
No answer. She's out again. And now he’s slipping off to sleep, mumbling to himself ...
CHARLIE
Money? S’at what you said?
EXT. WALL STREET - -SPRINGTIME- - DAY
It’s lunchtime and the sidewalks are teeming with office workers as Charlie, attaché case and shopping bag in one hand, take-out coffee in the other, looks to escape the heavy foot-traffic by ducking into an alleyway. Where he trips over a bearded Vagrant squatting in the shadows. He's got no teeth and holds out his very dirty hands to catch coffee dripping from Charlie’s cup
VAGRANT
Spare change, Bro?
Charlie can’t escape fast enough. Handing over the coffee and a crumpled wad of pocket money, he backs away. Doesn’t want to be touched.
INT. TRADING ROOM
Charlie's trying, without success, to fit his shopping bag into one of the desk drawers when he notices a janitor with a handcart and a load of boxes exiting an office near the File Room. A Secretary sits at a desk just outside the doorway, doing her nails. She sees him coming.
SECRETARY
Transferred. Need a secretary, Charlie?
INT. OFFICE
The room's been stripped of all personal effects and Charlie's at the window, looking out across New York Harbor.
EXT. RESTAURANT & AVENUE - NIGHT
Charlie exits. Starts walking ... Further on, sensing that he's being followed, he checks behind him, even stops and takes a few steps back in the opposite direction as though he’s just realized he might be going the wrong way, but nobody’s there, and he continues on, turning right at the next corner where he comes within sight of his building.
EXT. SIDE STREET & APARTMENT BUILDING
Just across the street, Stiletto, a tall, dark-skinned man with a fragile, volatile intensity, keeps to the shadow of a lamppost. He’s standing there, watching as Charlie comes this way, when a UPS truck suddenly blocks his view.
Before heading inside, Charlie glances back over his shoulder as the UPS truck pulls forward, clearing the lamppost where only its shadow remains. Stiletto’s gone.
.
INT. GAINES & FILCHER - TRADING ROOM - DAY
Henry feigns disinterest as the boxes on Charlie's desk get carted off to his new office. All that remains, other than the shopping bag, is an open cardboard box that’s piled high with paperwork and a silver frame that rides on top. When the Janitor comes back for this, he sticks the frame inside the shopping bag.
INT. OFFICE
Charlie's rearranging his attaché case, trying to make room for the shopping bag, when the Secretary sails in with a number of fax transmissions. But there’s no time to look at these right now. He's in a hurry. He adds them to the case which is already crammed full, pressing down hard to get it to click shut.
INT. DELICATESSAN - DAY
Charlie makes his way to a booth where he sits down opposite Sylvie, an older woman with loud jewelry and red hair. She leans across to kiss him.
SYLVIE
Get a load of Mr. Bigshot-All-Of-A-
Sudden. Hardly know you anymore.
Hardly ever get to see you.
Charlie sets the attaché case down on the table, frees the snaps, and the top flies open, spilling faxes. Sylvie retrieves one that's come to rest, print-side up, on her lap. She reads it, hands it back.
SYLVIE
‘Just for fun?’ Got yourself a girl?
CHARLIE
You're the detective, you tell me.
He's lifting the shopping bag out of the case when a gift-wrapped package, as well as the silver picture frame, drops out through a rip in the bottom. Sylvie picks up the frame. The silver's tarnished, the photograph obscured by dust she wipes clear.
SYLVIE
What's this? (Reading) Edencroft ...
CHARLIE
Place we had up in Canada.
It's a lakefront view of a country estate, the name ‘Edencroft’chiseled into the stone archway in the foreground.
SYLVIE
Oh right, that's right. Oughta polish
this, Charlie.
CHARLIE
I kind of like it that way.
SYLVIE
Yeah? Like your teeth that way, too?
Still smoking?
She keeps the frame away from Charlie when he reaches for it. He cheats a look at his reflection in the napkin dispenser, checking his teeth.
SYLVIE
(Re: Photo) Too bad Gaines was execu-
tor. Think I would've hung onto this.
CHARLIE
Had to finance my education somehow.
SYLVIE
That's some expensive education.
CHARLIE
But worth every penny, right?
SYLVIE
And it’s finally paid off, is that what
you’re telling me. You think I was born
yesterday?
CHARLIE
Yesteryear. Happy Birthday, Sylvie.
Exchanging her birthday gift for the frame, which he puts back in the attaché case, he watches as she unwraps a hardbound edition of Chandler's ‘The Long Goodbye’.
CHARLIE
I know you've already read it, but it’s
a first edition. Signed.
He notices a Fat Man just beyond the deli's plate-glass window, cupping his eyes against the glare to see inside.
CHARLIE
Anyhow, I'm sorry about not keeping
in touch, Sylvie. Just been so damn busy.
Sylvie follows his look to the entrance where the Fat Man’s come in. He takes a seat at the counter.
SYLVIE
Busy doing what? Can't be you're count-
ing your money all day long.
EXT. DELICATESSAN - LATER
Stiletto, at the wheel of a car parked up the block, checks the rear-view where people going in at the deli entrance make way for Sylvie and Charlie coming out.
Sylvie decides she’d rather walk, leaving Charlie to drive off on his own in the cab he’s just flagged down. The Fat Man follows Sylvie.
INT. GRAND CENTRAL
Following him downstairs to the crowded concourse, Stiletto temporarily loses sight of Charlie and has to really push himself to catch up when finally he spots him on the other side of the information kiosk.
INT. GRAND CENTRAL - STORAGE AREA
Sticking close as Charlie makes his way to the lockers, Stiletto lets him go once he’s retrieved the envelope he’s come for. He crosses to the locker and checks it out. There's no key ...
At the far end of the room, a man on a scaffold is squeegeeing the glass-bricked ceiling through which another man, suspended by harness from the truss-work, can be seen doing the same thing on the other side. Stiletto watches them.
INT. PENTHOUSE BEDROOM - NIGHT
The wind-tossed Birch scratches at the glass of the terrace window. All but one of its Christmas lights have burned out, and it blinks, lending a red pulse to the room. Charlie lies awake in bed, watching the ceiling.
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