Night for Day

by Patrick Flanery

  FAYE

  We’re married now.

  ORPH

  So we’ll get an annulment.

  Faye scans the other side of the room for her sister. Ursula is the one she’s worried about, not Jack.

  FAYE

  You could make a girl break her vows.

  ORPH

  So you feel it, too.

  FAYE

  I can’t allow myself to feel it. Ursula would – you don’t understand.

  ORPH

  I’m no dunce.

  FAYE

  She’d kill me, Orph.

  ORPH

  And Jack would kill me. So we run away where the killers can’t get us. They’re the ones made for each other, just like I’m made for you.

  Faye falls into Orph’s eyes. His passion almost convinces her. Her body softens, she leans her weight against his, and then, as though conscience has slapped her awake, she blinks back tears and shakes her head, composing herself before anyone can notice.

  FAYE

  I can’t do it, Orph. Not in this life. Maybe in another.

  BACK TO PRESENT:

  INT. FAYE’S CAR - DAY

  As Orph and Faye approach the outskirts of Palm Springs, the car’s hot interior crackles with the electricity between them. Orph loosens his tie, unbuttons his shirt another notch, runs fingers through his short dark hair. Faye keeps her eyes on the vapors rising from the road.

  ORPH (V.O.)

  It was so hot in that car it felt like it took us a week to get to Palm Springs, but once we were there Faye knew right where to go, almost as if she’d been to Woody’s house before.

  Driving through the western fringes of the town they stop outside a modern house with flat roofs and slab walls, mountains rising hot and sullen behind it. From the street, most of the house is obscured by shrubs and cactuses.

  EXT. WOODY’S HOUSE, PALM SPRINGS - DAY

  Orph and Faye ring the bell. A HOUSEBOY opens the door.

  MONTEZ HOUSEBOY

  I can help you?

  ORPH

  We’re here to see Woody Montez.

  HOUSEBOY

  Mr. Montez is busy.

  ORPH

  Tell him Corporal Orph Patterson wants to see him.

  The houseboy looks anxious and squints at Faye. Her face twitches, perhaps offering the kid a clandestine message, but it’s difficult to tell for certain and Orph fails to notice.

  HOUSEBOY

  Mr. Montez by the pool. I show you.

  INT. WOODY’S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS

  Orph gawps at the interiors: stark and ultra-modern, furnished with slipper chairs and matchbox couches, walls hung with abstract paintings. Irregular ceramic bowls decorate rosewood tables, and a jazzy trumpet wails menacingly from a record player. If this is the future, Orph isn’t sure he likes it.

  EXT. WOODY’S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS

  Outside, a pool surrounded by lawn stretches across the front of the house. At the far end, a gazebo shelters a gathering of MEN who make no concession to the desert climate: they’re a rubble pile of dark suits in a world of white walls and sunshine.

  As Orph and Faye approach the gazebo, the houseboy runs ahead and speaks to WOODY, the tallest of the men, a blond-haired goliath who is all muscle under his charcoal suit. When he sees his visitors he paints a nasty smile under his moustache and comes striding across the lawn.

  WOODY

  Ursula, baby, you finally decide to pay up?

  FAYE

  I’m her sister, Woody.

  WOODY

  Oh, right, right, Jack’s stuff.

  ORPH

  That’s Mrs. Plutone to you, buddy.

  WOODY

  C’mon, friend, don’t get tough.

  ORPH

  I’d take it kindly if you treated my sisterin-law with a little respect.

  As the two men stand next to each other Orph can see just how outmatched he is. Woody is hard and cool as a highball.

  WOODY

  Since you’re back in the picture, Corporal, maybe you can sort out your wife’s debts. She’s into me for a couple of Madisons.

  ORPH

  Speak English why don’t you?

  WOODY

  Ten thousand dollars, friend. Ursula Patterson has a little gambling problem and she made the mistake of taking it outside the family. If she’d done her business at your brother’s joint, maybe it coulda been worked out, but Woody’s not nice like a bank, and when folks forget to pay Woody on time, I don’t take their house and their furniture, I break some legs, or I get my friend there...

  (he motions to an even bigger and broader THUG in the gazebo)

  ...to break some legs, and other things too, and maybe go pay a visit to the elderly parents and little nieces and nephews and whatnot.

  ORPH

  I’ll call the cops!

  WOODY

  They’ll be glad to hear from you. Every cop in California is a friend of Woody Montez. You can’t touch me, soldado. Pony up or get an appointment with the bonesetter.

  Orph moves to swing at Woody but the men in the gazebo are on their feet and holding Orph back before his fist can connect.

  WOODY (CONT’D)

  Don’t be a dummy, baby. Let’s talk about this nice and quiet. Come inside. Have a drink on me.

  Woody points toward the house. They have no choice, so Orph and Faye walk back up the steps into the house as Woody, his men, and the houseboy follow.

  ORPH (V.O.)

  Sure they were tough but something wasn’t right about the set-up. I knew I oughta feel like I was walking to my own execution but instead I had the idea I’d wandered into the middle of a play without I learned my lines or even knew what character I was.

  INT. WOODY’S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS

  Inside, the long vertical shades are angled against the sun’s blast. At a bar in the corner of the room the houseboy mixes a pitcher of martinis. As he pours the cocktails he slips a powder into one of the glasses, taking care to place it in Orph’s hand.

  FAYE

  Haven’t you seen Ursula, Woody? We thought you might know where she is.

  WOODY

  Seen her? No, but I’ve been looking for her all right. Jack doesn’t know where she is?

  Orph sits on the edge of a couch. He sips his martini and within seconds the world begins to blur. Another mouthful to steady himself and then another, but the conversation splinters and the house seems to be tilting on its axes, furniture rising up at impossible angles and the men around him laughing, faces flashing in gruesome detail: sharp teeth and hairy nostrils, gold caps and bleary eyes.

  WOODY (CONT’D)

  – you know our Ursula, nothing but trouble –

  FAYE

  – oh yeah, my sister, she can sure get into it –

  THUG

  – but once you’re in, you’re in –

  FAYE

  – and when you’re in it with Woody –

  WOODY

  – or when you’re in it with Jack –

  Hyena laughter shakes the room and Orph reels at the faces around him. He drops the glass and slumps over, falling to the floor.

  WOODY (O.S.) (CONT’D)

  Aw, that was too easy.

  THUG (O.S.)

  He’s ruining all our fun.

  WOODY (O.S.)

  What a sucker.

  THUG (O.S.)

  What a softy.

  WOODY (O.S.)

  A first-rate punk.

  FAYE (O.S.)

  Come on, Woody, don’t be rough. Leave him alone.

  From where he lies on the carpet, Orph can see Faye’s ghostly white heels walking away from him and disappearing into a blur of darkness.

  FAYE (O.S.) (CONT’D)

  Let go of me, Woody, or Jack’ll put you in traction!

  Just before Orph is about to black out, mammoth boots approach his face. His eyes focus long enough to see one of them pull back and aim before kicking him hard in the gut as the lights go out.
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  DREAM SEQUENCE:

  INT. MALAVITA – NIGHT

  Orph wakes in a dim hallway lit by a distant glow. As he begins walking towards the light, the walls lengthen, stretching to tower above him. The more he walks, the farther away the light seems to be. Shadowy fists begin to reach out from the darkness to batter him, his face exploding in bruises and gashes. He starts to run and keeps running until his legs wobble and he almost collapses.

  A door appears before him, light bleeding around its edges. It swings open and he steps onto the stage, stumbles to the spot-lit piano, and sits down to play. Drops of blood from the gashes on his face hit the keys as he strikes the first notes. He begins to sing ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered’. At the chorus, Faye appears from stage left, singing along with him.

  Halfway through the song, from the opposite side of the stage, Ursula steps from the shadows. All three are singing: Orph at the piano, the two sisters to his right and left. At the end of the song, Orph hits a few jarring notes, single strikes of the keys that echo through the room as the two women stare at each other.

  FAYE

  Don’t trust her, Orph!

  URSULA

  Don’t trust her, darling!

  URSULA AND FAYE TOGETHER

  She’s lying!

  Dazed, Orph glances back and forth between the two sisters. The lights come up, revealing other versions of Faye and Ursula at tables around the room, emerging from the wings, and dancing on the revolving stage. There are dozens of them, all shouting at Orph.

  WOMEN IN CHORUS

  She’s lying!

  They’re lying, Orph. They’re all lying!

  She’s lying!

  No, she is.

  She is.

  No, it’s Faye, Orph.

  It’s Ursula. It isn’t me, it’s not me.

  It’s her! She’s lying!

  Be careful, Orph!

  It’s your fault!

  Can’t you see, Orph, you did this! It’s your fault, all your fault!

  She’s lying!

  Orph stands, holding his head as the stage spins faster and faster. Three of the women close in, fingers pointing at him.

  WOMEN (CONT’D)

  You left me to die!

  You left us to die!

  You let us drown!

  You should have saved us!

  You killed us! It was your fault, Orph!

  Your fault!

  Orph breaks through the circle of women and flees into the wings, running past the woman who seems to be Faye.

  FAYE

  Wait, Orph, wait! Don’t go! You can’t trust her! You can never trust Ursula!

  Orph runs through the dark backstage area searching for a door. One of the women is behind him, calling his name.

  FAYE (CONT’D)

  Orph! Wait! I’m coming, wait!

  EXT. MALAVITA – DAY

  Orph bursts from the club into the bright daylight of the parking lot. As he turns around, one of the sisters is standing in Malavita’s open stage door, her hands reaching out into the light, but she seems unable to step beyond the shadowy threshold of the club.

  FAYE/URSULA

  You can’t leave me, Orph. Don’t you see it was always me?

  (her voice softens, warms, begins to steam)

  It was always going to be me, Orph.

  Unable to see her face or what she’s wearing, Orph cannot tell which sister it really is.

  FAYE/URSULA (CONT’D)

  It will always be me.

  The door slams shut and Orph looks around at the empty parking lot, the empty street, empty skies. No one else is around, no cars, no birds, the air is still, the sky a white shell. Out of the silence he begins to hear a dragging gait and the tap of a cane echoing off the buildings. He spins, holding his head, squinting into the sun, but cannot locate the source of the noise.

  Once again, Orph begins to run. He runs faster and faster but always finds himself back in the Malavita parking lot. Out of breath, he can’t run anymore. As he stumbles into his own shadow, the sound of the dragging gait and tapping cane grows louder in his ears.

  Beside his own, another shadow appears: the outline of a smartly dressed man with a snap-brim hat and a cane. As the shadow of the man draws closer, Orph stops, standing still, waiting, his breath ragged. The cane swings into the air and comes down hard against Orph’s head. He falls to the pavement and blacks out.

  EXT. BATTLE LANDSCAPE – DAY FOR NIGHT

  A burned-out panorama of broken trees. It could be a landscape of dream, or a waking nightmare: a warzone, a battlefield, one of the incinerated territories of the Asian continent.

  Orph is dressed in his military uniform, carrying a stretcher behind his back. As he trudges across the charcoal sand, the stretcher becomes too heavy to carry and at last he has to drop it.

  He wipes his brow and turns to find three women dressed in black feather dresses sitting on the stretcher and reaching out to grab him. They rise from the ground, silent but threatening as Orph runs away through the trees. As he slips down an embankment he turns back to see the women pursuing him.

  When Orph falls, he reaches up to a tree for support, but every branch and limb he touches breaks away from its trunk, and at the point of the ruptures, faces appear, trapped within the trees. These are the faces of SOLDIERS, American and Japanese, bleeding and crying out to him.

  SOLDIERS

  Why did you leave me behind, Corporal? Come back, Orph. Don’t let me die here, Patterson. You have to come back. You said you wouldn’t leave me to die alone!

  A pack of black greyhounds appears on the horizon, baying and gnashing their teeth. The largest of the dogs raises its nose, sniffs the air, growls, and plunges down the bank as the other dogs follow.

  Orph runs but the dogs are quickly upon him, tearing at his limbs. He struggles to fight them off, and just as one of the dogs leans in to devour his face, he wakes.

  BACK TO PRESENT:

  EXT. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DESERT – NIGHT

  Night has fallen. Orph opens his eyes, rubs his head, shudders, and shakes himself fully awake. His face is almost as ravaged as it was in his dream, clothes ripped, but his wallet is still in his pocket, emptied of money although his driver’s license remains, as if Montez and his men wanted to be sure he could still be identified. His watch is on his wrist, keys in his other pocket. He struggles to stand but steadies himself, planting his feet wide.

  In the distance he sees car lights and begins walking in their direction. At the side of the road his thumb sticks out, catching the light of a truck that wails past, choking him with dust.

  Tumbleweeds sweep across the asphalt. Cars and trucks speed in either direction, never slowing. Orph might as well be invisible. After a dozen vehicles pass, an old truck limps to the shoulder. A RADIO plays a honkytonk melody from inside the cab. The driver, an OLD MAN, cranks down the window.

  OLD MAN

  Gotcha gun?

  ORPH

  Nope.

  OLD MAN

  Knife maybe?

  ORPH

  You can search me, Mister. I’m all cleared out.

  OLD MAN

  Going to the city?

  ORPH

  If you take me.

  OLD MAN

  Get in.

  INT. OLD MAN’S TRUCK – NIGHT

  Inside the cab the driver turns over the engine a few times before it starts again. When it catches he smiles, shining a flashlight into Orph’s face.

  OLD MAN (CONT’D)

  Been a mite unlucky.

  When the man reaches out to finger a cut Orph flinches.

  ORPH

  Could be worse.

  OLD MAN

  Where you bound?

  ORPH

  You know that club called Malavita? On Sunset between Vine and El Centro?

  The man whistles through his teeth, shakes his head, and pushes the hat back from his brow.

  OLD MAN

  Jack Plutone’s joint? What
you wanna go there fer?

  ORPH

  Jack’s my brother.

  This time it’s the old man who flinches. He looks at Orph as though he wishes he had made sure his passenger was unarmed.

  OLD MAN

  If Jack Plutone’s your brother and you still don’t think you’re unlucky, I guess you got more luck than sense.

  Orph avoids the Old Man’s gaze as the truck slides through the desert night and back into the city.

  EXT. MALAVITA – NIGHT

  Malavita is a great white box lit like paradise. A woman’s head is picked out in lights on the stucco façade, her right eye winking mechanically.

  INT. MALAVITA BACKSTAGE – NIGHT

  Orph enters the club through the stage door and watches the performance from the wings. Modest Jones is at the piano accompanying the Fury Girls on their first number of the evening. The stage spins at the rate of a second-hand and the three singers are in the same feathery black gowns they wore in Orph’s nightmare. It’s enough to give him the shivers.

  INT. FAYE’S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT

  Without knocking, Orph opens the door to Faye’s private room. He finds her sitting before the vanity, surrounded by bunches of white lilies, a gardenia in her hair. Autographed photos from Montgomery Clift, Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and Clifton Webb decorate her table.

  Startled by Orph’s arrival, Faye turns around, pulling closed her dressing gown.

  FAYE

  Oh, Orph, I’m so relieved. I didn’t know what to do. Montez threatened to kill you if I called the police or told Jack. He said I should just come back and act as if nothing –

  ORPH

  Shut up, Faye. You and Montez are in bed, aren’t you? That was the lick, wasn’t it?

  FAYE

  What a way to talk to a nice girl.

  ORPH

  I never met one. You and your sister least of all. Nice girls. I don’t believe they exist.

  FAYE

  He must have hit you on the head harder than I thought if that’s what you believe.

  ORPH

  Maybe he knocked some sense into me.

  FAYE

  I’d say he knocked you blind.