EXT. BEEKMAN PLACE
Leaving his dufflebag with the doorman, who points out the available curbside parking spaces reserved with orange traffic cones, Charlie tips him, and crosses the street to a kiosk ...
He's lighting a cigarette from a new pack of Camels when he hears, then sees a TV News chopper flying low over buildings a couple of blocks south of here. Though it now disappears over rooftops, it can still be heard, together with a surge of crowd noise. He checks the time.
EXT. FIRST AVENUE
Three southbound squad cars pass by on this otherwise deserted avenue as Charlie joins others making their way along the gutter. The sidewalks are clogged, people converging on UN Plaza from all directions as noise from
there swells in response to what's being said over a PA system.
EXT. UNITED NATIONS
The amplified voice is that of former Ambassador Rodriquez who holds forth from a miked podium at the far end of the Plaza. On hand for crowd control is a large contingent of cops in riot gear.
RODRIQUEZ
... which we're to accept as something
beyond our control, a natural disaster,
act of God ...
REPORTER
Senator Rodriquez ...?
Cops move to head off a confrontation between Skinheads and a Chicano gang as the TV helicopter clears the rooftops again. Ignoring the reporter’s attempt at a question, Rodriquez continues ...
RODRIQUEZ
First the blight and then, when those
nations whose economies depend on
coffee start coming apart at the seams,
all of a sudden, everybody's got a gun.
Is this an act of God?
Every so often the text of his speech is translated into Spanish by another man who steps forward to use the same microphone. The translation of this last bit gets a loud response, and he plays to it.
Charlie works his way through the predominantly Latino crowd to where he has a relatively clear view of Rodriquez and the phalanx of TV cameras and crews spread out before him.
REPORTER
You’ve characterized today's meeting
of the General Assembly as window
dressing. Do you mean that it makes
no difference whether they vote for
or against intervention?
RODRIQUEZ
Did it make a difference in Rwanda?
A scuffle breaks out on the far side of the plaza, where Rodriquez can barely be heard above the Spanish-English crossfire.
RODRIQUEZ
How many more dead before we wake
up to what's really going on? Where’s
all the money coming from to finance
this carnage, this slaughter?!
REPORTER
Senator, there are those who say you
play to the Public's fascination with
conspiracy theory to push your own
agenda. How do you respond to that?
RODRIQUEZ
The pilot of that downed helicopter
was a healthy young man, a young
man with no history of heart trouble,
and yet, not one hour after being
examined by Red Cross doctors - who
say he was in excellent condition - he
suffers a massive coronary and dies.
Before Columbian authorities had a
chance to question him. Fact.
SKINHEAD
Fucking spic!
From the elevated spot he has atop a planter box, Charlie can see more cops converging on the Plaza.
RODRIQUEZ
It is also a fact, despite KemCo denials,
that those canisters were in KemCo
canisters containing KemCo gas. Is that
conspiracy theory? Act of God?
REPORTER
Senator, you ...
RODRIQUEZ
Is God to blame for all the dead, close
to three million in Columbia alone? Or
is it somebody playing God, somebody
who's also engaged in the manipulation
of international money markets.
There's a popping noise and the translator, having just then stepped forward to the mike, grabs his shoulder. He's been shot.
The violence ripples outward, Skinheads mixing it up with Latinos, and cops mixing it up with both as the TV helicopter hovers directly overhead, trying to capture it all on video.
A man with a crew-cut and dark glasses, a body builder, works his way against the grain of the still growing crowd, passing within a few feet of Charlie.
RODRIQUEZ
This genocide is no theory!
Charlie's watching Rodriquez get hustled away by his handlers when he spots Maria, a brief glimpse of her in the commotion surrounding the Ambassador before he is himself swept along in the stampede, cops riding herd, trying to turn it north and south along the avenue. He cuts across at 43rd, heading west.
EXT. 2ND & 3RD AVENUES
Once again he spots Maria, this time hurrying across 2nd. He calls out and she turns to look, but doesn't see him. When he fails to make the light, he stands on the bumper of a parked car to keep track of her, watching as she continues west, a slow moving river of traffic between them. There's someone with her, someone too short to see.
At first he means to catch up with her, but when he finally gets the chance, he hangs back. She's with the scar-faced Indian woman who drove the car to the rehearsal studio. He crosses to the other side of the street, intending to keep tabs on them from there, but they’ve disappeared. He’s lost them.
Crossing Lexington, he keeps on for one more block.
EXT. PARK AVENUE
It's only now that he realizes how close he is to Grand Central, less than a block. Too close. And yet, though repelled by the proximity, there’s also a strong attraction … He hesitates, starts back the other way. Stops again ...
INT. GRAND CENTRAL STATION
Entering through a side door, Charlie halts at the top of the steps, brought up short at the sight of all the people down below. He can't stay where he is for long, however. He's blocking the way for others coming behind him, trying to get past. He starts down.
Crossing the crowded storage area, coming to within a few feet of the locker, he’s suddenly he’s short of breath: the key's there. So is a young woman with a knapsack.
His eyes are on the door, waiting for her to open it, and when she does and he can plainly see that the locker’s empty, that’s it, that’s what he came to find out. Now he wants to get out of there, and quickly. But he’s too dizzy to do anything quickly.
EXT. VANDERBILT AVENUE
Just outside here, Charlie stops to catch his breath. There’s a lineup of taxis at the curb.
INT. CAB
The Cabby watches the rearview as Charlie climbs in back.
CHARLIE
21 Beekman. Place.
With the meter flagged, the cab pulls away, but it doesn't get very far. A tow-truck’s blocking traffic up ahead, the driver operating a forklift hoist to extricate a ticketed car from a tight parking space and then load it onto its flatbed.
CABBY
Look how easy. Like that. 1-2-3.
Charlie's not paying attention. He's looking out the side window at the entrance to the Yale Club here at 50 Vanderbilt, still looking when the cab starts forward again and he sees Henry coming down the steps there with a suitcase.
CHARLIE
Henry!
But Henry can’t hear him, and Charlie can’t roll his window down. There's no crank!
EXT. VANDERBILT AVENUE
The cab stops at the far end of the block, and Charlie comes running back this way, calling out to Henry who’s on a cell-phone and doesn't hear him. There's a loud skirl of under-ground trains,.
HENRY
I can't be there by 8. I told you, the
train doesn't get in till 9:15 ... Look,
are you going to come pick me up or
what? ... Can't or won't? ...
Henry doesn't recognize Charlie when he catches up with him, not right away. In any case, he’s still on the phone.
HENRY
Hello? … Can you hear me? Hello?
CHARLIE
Henry, it's me.
The connection’s failed. Henry slaps the phone shut.
HENRY
He shaved it off, I don't believe it.
CHARLIE
Look, Henry ...
Uncomfortable at being here right outside the busy station, he keeps ducking the eyes of people coming and going. But this is all lost on Henry who just can't get over how different he looks.
HENRY
Un-fucking-believable. Hey, what'd
you do to your hand?
CHARLIE
Nothing. Henry, I need a favor.
INT. GRAND CENTRAL
Not at all happy to be back inside, Charlie stays close, making like a cornerback as he goes backwards down the stairs ahead of Henry who tries to get by him.
HENRY
Because I've got a train to catch. That
big bash I told you about up in Lyme.
Change at Stamford. Any idea how
long that's going to take? Very, very
depressing.
He's heading for the track gates when Charlie grabs his arm.
HENRY
I thought I’d just rent something and
drive, but it's fucking 4th of July and
there's not one goddamn car and …
CHARLIE
Take mine. Really. Here.
He shows him his car keys ...
EXT. VANDERBILT AVENUE
From Grand Central to the Yale Club it's a short walk.
CHARLIE
It'll be parked out front.
HENRY
What can I say? You're a fucking life
saver, Charlie. Really.
INT. YALE CLUB
Leaving his bag with the hatcheck girl, Henry shows Charlie into the taproom where he signals the bartender.
HENRY
Twombly. At the Fed, right? Gaines
said he didn't know him?! Maybe not
in any Biblical sense, but he knows
him. Of course, he knows him.
Charlie shakes out a Camel and looks around the oak paneled room where talk is muted, club members absorbed in their reading, or backgammon. The bartender brings two beers.
CHARLIE
So this is where time stands still.
HENRY
Didn't you ever come here with your
old man? State Department, wasn't he?
CHARLIE
Never did. So, where do they hide the
yearbooks?
INT. YALE CLUB LIBRARY
Here it’s mostly older men in leather armchairs, reading, dozing off. Over at the bookshelves, Henry keeps his voice down.
HENRY
Got it.
Yearbook in hand, he leads the way to the only unoccupied table where he sits down next to Charlie, looking over his shoulder as he opens the book and starts flipping past all the photographs of graduating seniors … Until he comes across the one he’s after: the haughty, handsome face of his father: Thomas Hastings.
HENRY
Didn't you tell me he got killed in the
war or something?
Charlie doesn't answer. There on the same page, below the photo, is a cartoon of Thomas Hastings as Pharaoh, standing in front of a pyramid like the one depicted on the back of a dollar bill. Henry reads the text aloud.
HENRY
Egyptologist, Lamb Chemistry Prize,
Chess club, Deathshead ...
CHARLIE
You don't have to stick around for my
sake, you know. Or can't I stay without
your being here?
HENRY
No, you can. You don't mind?
When a man at the next table shushes them, Henry shifts into pantomime to express to Charlie his undying gratitude as he backs away towards the doors. He's got his hand on the knob before Charlie remembers something and has to hurry after him.
CHARLIE
Almost forgot. I left my duffle bag
with the doorman there. Can you get
that for me? Also there's something I
need in the trunk. A small box.
HENRY
So what, you want me to drop them
off at your place?
Charlie writes an address on a matchbook and hands it to him.
HENRY
(Reading) Marina?
CHARLIE
Harbor-master's office is just inside
the main gate. You can leave it for
me there.
HENRY
You've got a boat? I didn't know you
had a boat.
CHARLIE
No boat, I'm just meeting somebody
there. Appreciate you doing this.
HENRY
No problem, my pleasure, hey, are you
kidding me?!
Taking his seat again at the table, Charlie turns a couple of pages back from the photo of his father to one of Gaines, and then forward to the section on fraternities and clubs ...
Where he finds what he's looking for.
CHARLIE
Deathshead ...
There’s a photograph that shows Deathshead members ranged about a long banquet table, a Last Supper tableau. But for the small man with a serving tray at one end of the table, Thomas Hastings, who stands before the middle place setting, is the only one not seated. Charlie reads the roster of names.
CHARLIE
Bostick, Kerr, Hallaby, Twombly ...
(BEAT) Twombly ...
The future Reserve Board Governor is seated at the far left, but now Charlie's interest in him is deflected by the man with the tray who’s standing just behind him. Instead of being identified by a proper name like the others listed here, his name - in brackets – is given simply as ‘Coach’. Charlie lifts his hands off the book as if it were too hot, and then just sits there a while, staring into a middle distance …
Until gas escaping from a fat old man at the next table finds its way up his nose. He gets up quickly and, moving away from the stink, circles back around to the bookshelves.
There’s a magnifying glass hanging from a hook here, and Charlie takes it with him when he returns to the table with half a dozen more yearbooks. All of these feature a group photo for Deathshead, and the man with the serving tray is there in each one, looking just the same year after year, except for his retreating hair-line. Enlarged by the glass, the birthmark on his scalp is clearly defined.
CHARLIE
Jesus Christ!
The same man as before shushes him, but Charlie doesn’t react. He's in a state of shock, and this time his eyes don't snap back into focus until someone has intruded upon their vacancy: a well-oiled Yalie in his 70s, holding onto the chairback opposite, swaying slightly.
YALIE
Tooling down Memory Lane.
CHARLIE
Excuse me?
YALIE
Bee-beep. Class of '55.
Taking a seat, he points to the '55 yearbook, and Charlie, who’s in no mood for company right now, let alone drunken company, slides it across. The older man opens it to the senior class photos and, finding one of himself, turns the book so Charlie can see.
YALIE
Unravaged by time, of course.
Charlie pushes back in his chair and stands up, and then, as the Yalie looks on in some confusion, sits down again.
CHARLIE
Sorry, I, I don’t mean to be rude, I ...
He points to the Deathshead photo in the 1953 yearbook, which remains open be-fore him.
CHARLIE
You wouldn't by any chance happen
to remember this, would you, Sir?
YALIE
Deathshead? (BEAT) Oh sure. Sure, I
remember Deathshead. Secret Society.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... Hush hush.
CHARLIE
You know anything about it?
YALIE
About it? Scuttlebutt was they were a
bunch of Utopians, I know that much.
CHARLIE
Utopians?
YALIE
Dreamers. Going make their dreams
come true, too. Paradise. Right here,
right now. Utopia. You know how
that translates? Utopia?
Charlie sees the shushing man coming this way, angry, and he gets up and starts for the door, the Yalie calling after him.
YALIE
It's Greek. Means nowhere.
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