EXT. MARINA - DUSK
A red, white and blue 4th of July banner is strung up over the gate. Dropped off here by a cab, Charlie goes directly to the Harbor-Master's Office where the top half of the Dutch door is open. The man inside at the desk is eating a sandwich.
CHARLIE
Excuse me? Somebody drop off a
bag for me here? For Hastings?
The man shakes his head and keeps right on chewing.
CHARLIE
You're open till 6:30, right?
Still chewing, the man nods, and Charlie follows his look to the big wall clock. It's 6:15.
Just inside the fence here by the Office is a restored 1950s vintage phonebooth where Charlie, watching traffic stop and go along the avenue, places a call. It’s picked up by voice mail: Henry’s.
HENRY (PHONE)
Tell me something I don’t already
know.
Charlie leaves no message. Two boys go running past.
EXT. DOCKS
The boys run down to where there's a bait and tackle shop with a ‘Closed’ sign in the window. Hidden behind racks hung with fishing nets, one of them shows off the firecrackers he's got, the other a box of kitchen matches.
INT. SEA CHANGE
All the curtains are drawn, and Charlie leaves them that way when he comes in. Sweating heavily, he strips down, pulls on a pair of shorts. And flip-flops.
The ignition switch, with the key still in it, hangs by wires from the console. It doesn't work, he knows that, but he tries it anyway. And ducks for cover when at that very moment a cherry bomb goes off outside - a ridiculous jump to the wrong conclusion, too many mob movies. Even so, he regains his composure only after the sharp, erratic pop of Chinese firecrackers is followed by little boy laughter, and by the hollowy dock sound of running feet … The security gate clangs shut.
EXT. MARINA
Charlie comes along the dock, pulling on a T-shirt. It's getting darker, and he's jumpy. An umbrella flare illuminates the water. As he cuts across to the phone booth, he skirts the lamplight. The Harbor-Master Office is closed.
Placing another call to Henry, he uses his foot to keep the folding door from unfolding all the way and the interior light from coming on. At the sound of loud music he looks to see his Mercedes going past on the avenue.
INT. MERCEDES - MOVING
Windows down, music blasting from the speakers, Henry slows, looking for the Marina's vehicle entrance in the long run of chainlink fencing. But he's already past it. Charlie’s duffle bag’s in the back seat, along with a bag of golf clubs.
EXT. AVENUE
Charlie calls out, chases after it, but the Mercedes doesn't stop until it’s gone halfway along the next block, almost to the end of the Marina fence. He now sees the door come open and Henry looking back this way, waving ...
INT. MERCEDES
Henry shuts the door, eases the gear shift into reverse …There's a sudden burst of light!
EXT. AVENUE
The Mercedes, engulfed by incandescence, suddenly inflates, there's a great crumping shock, the sheet metal buckling, and then nothing but explosion ... Charlie's blown backwards.
EXT. AVENUE - LATER
A cacophony of horns and angry voices react to the traffic backed up along the avenue, and there’s a face in every window, as well as people gathering on the sidewalks to see what there is to see. A pall of smoke rises from what remains of the Mercedes.
A woman comes to join the man squatting down beside Charlie who lies face up on the sidewalk.
MAN
You touch, you're liable. Don't touch.
A number of cars, most of them parked, have been damaged, and the corner section of chain-link is no longer there. Police divert traffic onto side streets and seal off the avenue as firefighters now hose down a burning Cadillac.
The runoff empties down a storm drain where a patrolman picks up a warped and blistered license plate.
By the time medics lift him onto a stretcher, Charlie’s fading in and out of consciousness, silence alternating with brief snatches of dialogue.
A flashlight plays on his eyes, and there’s a face behind it. Someone's going through his pockets.
MEDIC #1
How you doing?
His partner holds up a pack of Camels and the plastic key card for the dock gate; it's unmarked.
MEDIC #2
That's it. (To Woman) You know him?
MAN
No, we just ...
MEDIC #1
(To CHARLIE) What's your name?
MEDIC #2
He's going ...
Charlie's eyes roll and everything goes to black. Complete silence …
And then, very faintly at first, electronic beepings ...
INT. HOSPITAL WARD ROOM - DAY
Charlie comes to and lies there blinking, trying to get his bearings. Hooked up to monitoring equipment, he’s aware of a TV on behind the curtain separating his bed from the one next to it. Whoever's there keeps changing the channels. At the moment, it's a news broadcast:
TV NEWSMAN (OS)
... reeling from the effects. When the
Fed adjusts rates - up or down – it’s
a quarter or half a point. But a hike of
one and a half points ...
Again the channel changes, and Charlie, struggling to sit up, bangs his thumb, no longer bandaged. That this doesn't hurt is baffling, as is the plastic bracelet he notices on his wrist.
Because the Patient in the next bed is immobilized by a complicated back-and-neck brace and both arms are in traction, he’s left to work a suspended remote control with his teeth, and when the curtain is yanked back, startling him, he bites down on the wrong button, the power button, killing the TV.
CHARLIE
(BEAT) Henry?
The brace with its padded head clamps make it impossible for Charlie to see the man’s face. And the man, watching the blank TV screen, can see nothing more of Charlie than the hand with half a thumb that’s holding back bunched up folds of curtain.
PATIENT
Well, I'll be damned, you woke up!
Charlie pulls the curtain further back. All the other beds in here are empty.
CHARLIE
The Fed raised the prime?
PATIENT
The what? Oh yeah, right, the prime,
I guess that’s right. Anyhow, welcome
back to the world. I’m Gino. You?
CHARLIE
(Stunned) They raised the prime, the
fucking prime …
PATIENT
I mean, I’m pretty sure that can’t be
your real name.
CHARLIE
Excuse me.
PATIENT
John Doe. That's how they got you
down.
Charlie looks now for the first time at the name on the ID bracelet. He tries to pull it off. Can't.
CHARLIE
How long've I been here?
PATIENT
Dunno. Couple of days anyhow.
CHARLIE
Days?!
He feels his face, the heavy growth of stubble.
PATIENT
Well, that's how long I been here,
and you was already here when ...
CHARLIE
What's today?
PATIENT
Today? Today's Thursday.
Charlie wants to get up, but first has to disentangle himself from a number of wires taped to his skin, as well as an intravenous feeding tube, which starts a trickle of blood down his arm when he pulls the needle. And even then he's held back. By a catheter.
PATIENT
All they'd tell me was you had some
kinda concussion. Musta been a dilly.
CHARLIE
Thursday. So it's what, the 8th?
PATIENT
9th. July the 9th. 8th was yesterday.
Wednesday, July the 8th.
CHARLIE
Don't we have a phone in here?
PATIENT
Gotta put in for one.
An end to the morning’s visiting hours is being announced over the PA system as Charlie lets himself down off the bed. Though wobbly, he makes it across to the wardrobe where the door is labeled JOHN DOE on a piece of masking tape; he finds his things there, stuffed inside a plastic bag.
Apart from what’s right there in front of him, the Patient’s view of the room is limited to the TV’s fish-eye reflection. He can hear Charlie getting changed, but he can’t see him, not until he appears on the vacant TV screen in his T-shirt and shorts and flip-flops, crossing to the door, opening it …
PATIENT
Hey? What’re you doing? Hey?!
INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR
Departing visitors provide cover for Charlie as he follows along to the elevators. A man just ahead of him fails to notice when the little boy he’s carrying pokes free the cigarette he’s got parked behind his ear. Charlie picks it up. Pinches off the filter.
EXT. HOSPITAL - DAY
Charlie stops at a payphone at the corner. But his pockets are empty, he has no money. Not a dime. No matches either for the cigarette that’s stuck jibbering on his lower lip.
EXT. UPTOWN - MONTAGE
Weak and dizzy, he barely makes it to the bus stop shelter where he collapses onto a plastic bench and leans forward with his head down between his knees. A woman, seated across from him with her two children, notices the hospital bracelet and the line of dried blood running down his arm. She decides to wait for the bus outside.
Charlie crosses at the corner where blast scars pit the avenue’s pavement and the marina's 10 foot section of missing chain link has been replaced with new fencing.
EXT. MARINA
Disappearing into the store, he comes back out a seconds later with a book of matches and the unfiltered cigarette, stopping outside the door to light up. He then heads for the docks, smoking, coughing.
INT. SEA CHANGE
The cabin lights are still on and things remain just as he left them, including the wrinkled suit on the bunk. There’s a couple of dollars in a pants pocket, but nothing in his wallet. Only credit cards. Dressing quickly, he’s on his way back out when he remembers he has to shave.
EXT. MARINA STORE
The phone booth's occupied and Charlie, clean shaven, continues on past it, down along the breezeway between the store and harbor-master's to where the ATMs are. Inserting his card, he types in the pin code and selects for a withdrawal ...
The on-screen response:: ‘Your transaction cannot be processed at this time. Check with your branch office. Please remove your card.’
He wipes the card clean and tries it again. And again it's rejected. The same thing happens when he tries the other machine here.
A careful looking older man in a captain’s hat now stands in the breezeway, waiting for Charlie to give up on the machines and be gone before daring to show his own card. Even so, he remains wary and keeps checking back over his shoulder.
INT. PHONE BOOTH
Charlie holds the ATM card backside up where the bank's hotline number is printed in red.
CHARLIE
... a 45 day hold and you can't tell me
why? That’s some hotline ... Yeah? How
the hell am I supposed to do that now?
The bank's closed!
He hangs up, his mind racing. Leaves the booth, then stops there just outside, and comes back. Places another call.
CHARLIE
Mr. Gaines, please ... So he’s there,
he’s not available, but he’s there …
Well, is he or isn’t he? ... Okay, so
he's in conference. He’s there. Right?
Okay. If he’s there, I … Shit!
Placed on hold, he slams the cancel bar. Checks his watch. And tries another number. It's busy.
INT. JACOBS DETECTIVE AGENCY
The phone's off the hook, and there’s a Detective sitting on one corner of the desk where a haggard and worn out Sylvie sits slumped over a cup of coffee. Another Detective stands by the door, picking his nose.
DETECTIVE #1
So he ran away from school.
SYLVIE
Boarding school. Long time ago. So
anyhow, his mother died, and he ran
away. I was hired to find him.
DETECTIVE #1
By Gaines.
SYLVIE
His father was out of the country.
DETECTIVE #1
And you've been close ever since.
SYLVIE
Look, we did this already.
DETECTIVE #2
Yeah, well now we're doing it again.
DETECTIVE #1
We recovered a couple of teeth from
the blast site, but they don't match up
with dental records.
Sylvie looks up, her expression giving nothing away.
DETECTIVE #1
Doing very well, wasn't he? Making a
shit load of money.
SYLVIE
I told you, we never talked money.
DETECTIVE #1
No? So what did you talk?
EXT. GAINES & FILCHER
Quitting time: the revolving doors are millwheels turning on a steady stream of gray suits.
Across the street where the rush-hour is no less intense, Charlie’s watching the building's entrance from the steps of another brokerage. The moment he spots Gaines coming out a side exit, he starts this way, dodging traffic.
Talking on a cell phone, Gaines stays focused on the lobby's revolving doors where both he and Charlie, catching sight of Maria at the same time, lose her coming down the steps.
Now Gaines is no longer where he was just a second ago, and Charlie, by the newsstand, gives up on trying to pick him out of the crowd when he sees the Blond Man, also on a cell phone, putting it away as he heads for the subway entrance at the corner.
INT. SUBWAY STATION
On his way down the stairway to the platform, Charlie has no trouble spotting the Blond Man as he forces his way through the crush of commuters to where Maria can be seen waiting trackside.
A couple of transit cops are at the foot of the stairs where a group of Japanese tourists with digital cameras keep taking photos, even when Charlie gets in the way. The cops look off to where he's pointing.
CHARLIE
I don't know what he's on, but he's
on something. And he's got a gun.
A train's coming. The Blond Man, already close to Maria, now moves closer still, ready to shove her onto the tracks, when the transit cops seize him from behind, one on each arm. The train screeches past, braking …
Maria turns to see two cops leading the Blond Man away as the train pulls to a stop behind her, the doors hissing open. She gets on. Charlie does the same
two cars back.
INT. SUBWAY CARS - MOVING
Charlie works his way forward into the next car where Maria stands facing the doors. He comes up behind her.
CHARLIE
That man back there at the station,
he meant to kill you.
Maria sees him reflected there in the window, looking at her, but she doesn't recognize him until she turns around.
MARIA
Charlie? (BEAT) Oh my God!
INT. SUBWAY STATION
The doors slide open, and they get off, Charlie covering his nose, hanging onto Maria as they make for the exit.
MARIA
But if you don't know who he is, how
do you know he ...
CHARLIE
Air. Gotta get some air.
EXT. MIDTOWN
Charlie emerges from the underground steps lightheaded. Sits on the hood of a parked car. Maria watches him.
MARIA
My place is just a couple of blocks
if you want to ...
CHARLIE
Wind up dead?
He spots a cab. In his hurry to flag it down, however, he gets up too fast and his legs buckle. Maria only just manages to pull him back out of the way of oncoming traffic.
EXT. WESTSIDE AVENUE
A cab pulls up across the avenue from the marina and they get out, first Maria, and then Charlie, who needs help.
CHARLIE
Over there ... My boat. I'm living on
my boat.
EXT. MARINA
Maria, keying in a number on her cell phone as she waits outside the store, cancels the call as it’s ringing through and drops the phone into her handbag when Charlie exits, eating a candybar. When she offers her arm for support, he waves it off. He’s okay now, doesn’t need any help.
INT. SEA CHANGE
The first thing to catch her eye when she comes inside is the framed photo of JFK shaking hands with Thomas Hastings. She reads the inscription:
MARIA
Hastings. Is this your father?
CHARLIE
Was.
MARIA
Can't tell if he really looks like you
or not. Except for the beard.
She runs a finger over the photograph’s hot spot.
MARIA
What's this?
CHARLIE
Flashbulb. He had a glass eye. (BEAT)
What else do you want to know?
The shift in his tone of voice has her turning around. They lock eyes, and he comes closer. Maria doesn't move.
CHARLIE
You're part of it, aren't you? (BEAT)
I saw you there at the UN, I followed
you. You and that woman.
MARIA
(BEAT) It's not what you think.
CHARLIE
That's how they knew so much about
me. They got it from you, the summer
hiree with a job in the filing room.
She makes a sudden move towards the door, and he grabs her and pushes her backwards onto one of the bunks. A couple of buttons on her blouse pop free and she has to hold it closed as she sits there, scared, watching him.
MARIA
You were waiting for me.
CHARLIE
No, he was waiting for you. Me, I was
waiting for somebody else.
MARIA
But decided to save my life instead. Or
was that staged?
There's a sexual tension between them. He holds up his thumb.
CHARLIE
See this? They cut it off. Feel.
She doesn't flinch when he touches it to her cheek.
CHARLIE
Henry's dead. You remember Henry. He
borrowed my car.
When he reaches for the purse behind him on the chart table, she snatches the silver frame off the shelf and throws it, just missing him, and then tries to get away, hitting her head against the bunk railing. She’s knocked cold.
She lies there, slumped over sideways, the skirt hiked up high on her legs, and Charlie admires her for a few seconds before going forward to the foc'sle. He comes back with rope and a roll of duct tape. He doesn't like the idea of tying her up, but it's the only thing he can think of. So he ties her up.
When she starts to come around, moaning, he uses the tape to gag her. There's somebody passing by on the dock outside. Her eyelids flutter. She tries to call out. He tells her to shutup. And turns on a small, gimbal-mounted TV, upping the sound to out-volume her.
Maria, breathing hard, can do nothing but watch as he dumps her purse on the chart table. He pockets the cell phone, takes out all the cash in her wallet, looks at her driver's license.
CHARLIE
I'll pay you back. (Re: Date of birth)
November 11th, 1977. Just half past
24, and already a corporate mole.
He picks the frame up off the floor where it lies face down in broken glass. The backing plate's come off, and he can make out the faded imprint of some photo studio on the print's backside. Turning it over, he looks at the big house that’s pictured there.
CHARLIE
To finance my education. (To Maria)
How about you, who financed yours?
Rodriquez?
He checks his knots, one end of the rope going from her wrists to a stout center post of the headboard, the other from her ankles to the captain's chair where it's lashed around the base.
CHARLIE
The Coffee Wars. That's what this is
all about, isn't it?
Maria stares at him, unblinking. He stares back.
CHARLIE
Too good to be true. (BEAT) Better
blink, Maria. They'll dry up.
Her eyes bore holes in the back of his head as he crosses now to the cabin door. When he goes out, he locks it after him, and the boat rocks when he steps off onto the dock. Maria struggles, trying to free herself.
EXT. MARINA
In the phone booth, Charlie remembers he has a cellphone in his pocket, but he can’t get it to work, and so winds up using the payphone after all. In any case, he gets a busy signal and hangs up, hurrying out to the avenue.
INT. SEA CHANGE
Maria strains towards a box of kitchen matches there on the shelf, just beyond the reach of her fingers.
EXT. DOCKS - DUSK
The television is barely audible in the rope straining, cowbell wind that whips through the rigging and makes the water slap.
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