In Woody’s living room the blinds are drawn and everything is heavy and silent. Ursula carries a bag over her shoulder.
FAYE
Afraid someone’s going to mug you?
URSULA
No honor among thieves.
FAYE
I’m warning you, Ursula. Leave Jack alone. If you don’t, I’ll go to the cops and tell them just what business Jack’s into. He thinks I’m such an innocent, sweet little Faye, but I listen all right. I know where the bodies are buried, I know how he cooks the accounts, I know names and numbers and times and places. I’ve been watching and remembering since I first realized what Jack really was. And I’ll tell them everything they want to know. I’ll bring all of you down.
URSULA
You wanna watch out, Faye. Talk like that might get you sieved.
Faye begins mixing martinis. She fills two glasses while Ursula removes her shades and drops them into her bag. They clatter against a bottle of pills.
URSULA (CONT’D)
What, no olives?
Faye pouts and leaves the room. While she’s away, Ursula pulls the pill bottle from her bag, crushes up several tablets under a spoon, and stirs the powder into one of the glasses until it dissolves. Ursula picks up the other glass as Faye returns with a jar of olives.
URSULA (CONT’D)
(leaving the room)
Changed my mind.
Faye scowls, opens the jar, and drops an olive into the drink that Ursula has spiked, then follows her sister back outside.
EXT. WOODY MONTEZ HOUSE – DAY
Faye, still holding her martini, steps into the water, puts her drink down at the side of the pool, and climbs onto a floating air mattress.
URSULA (V.O.)
I just wanted to scare her a little, put her to sleep for a few hours and disappear with Jack. I couldn’t have known what would happen. You have to understand that, Orph.
Faye retrieves her martini, drinks it in one long swallow, returns the glass to the side, and pushes herself away from the edge.
As the afternoon dissolves into twilight and Ursula frolics with the other guests in the garden, Faye falls asleep, and sleeps, and continues to sleep. And then, once everyone else has forgotten her, she turns over and slips into the water.
URSULA (V.O.) (CONT’D)
We didn’t find her until it was too late.
Ursula is the first to notice her sister floating face-down in the pool. She takes a long drag on her cigarette, drops it to the concrete, and stubs it out under the toe of her sandal. For a moment her hands rest on her hips, and then, without any sense of urgency, she calls for her dead sister’s husband.
URSULA
Jack, I think your wife had one drink too many.
Jack, Woody, Eddie, Modest Jones, Rose Zapatero, the whole group of them come over and stare at the body. Lillian covers her daughter Nancy Jean’s eyes. Woody and Eddie wade into the pool and pull Faye’s lifeless body onto the patio.
URSULA (V.O.)
I wanted to phone the cops but Jack said he couldn’t have his wife dying right under his nose. We invented a story that she’d gone away, and I carried on as myself until you came back. But for me to become Faye, Ursula had to die. I was going to go on being Faye for the rest of my life.
BACK TO PRESENT:
INT. FAYE’S SECRET HOUSE - NIGHT
Standing on the upstairs landing of the little West Hollywood bungalow Orph looks stricken.
ORPH
Drowned girls don’t run off through the trees.
URSULA
Always trying to save a life, aren’t you, Corporal? Maybe you should have thought more about your own. Now move.
ORPH
Where are we going?
URSULA
Back to the club. Jack’ll know what to do.
Ursula pushes him with the barrel of her gun, nudging him down the stairs.
INT. URSULA’S CAR – NIGHT
Ursula forces Orph into the driver’s seat of her car.
URSULA (CONT’D)
You drive. And if you’ve got any ideas left in that sentimental head of yours, you’d better lose ’em quick.
Orph reverses out the drive, Ursula’s gun still poked in his ribs. He turns a corner, accelerates up San Vicente and turns right on Sunset. Even though it’s the middle of the night the street is pulsing with cars and people on foot coming out of clubs.
URSULA (CONT’D)
I was sure you’d forget about me when you thought I was gone. You never loved me, so why stick around? Why not get lost?
ORPH
I didn’t know what was bad for me.
URSULA
Shut up why don’t you?
ORPH
You’re doing a foolish thing, Ursula.
She jabs the barrel of the gun deeper between his ribs.
URSULA
You look a little flushed. Maybe you need some ventilation.
ORPH
Nothing but hot air in here.
Orph pulls to a stop outside Malavita. He and Ursula slide off the car’s front seat together, both exiting on the driver’s side.
EXT. MALAVITA – NIGHT
Doing a double-take over his shoulder, Orph sees a car pull to a stop down the block. There’s a snapbrim hat inside that suggests the G-man Orph met earlier.
INT. MALAVITA BACKSTAGE - NIGHT
Inside the club, the last act finished hours ago and nearly everyone has left for the night. Ursula steers Orph through the deserted hallways, keeping her gun in the small of his back. As they climb stairs and slouch down another long corridor, it starts to feel like a maze, recalling the nightmare Orph had after getting knocked out in Palm Springs: the endless hallways, the door, a disaster waiting on the other side.
At last they stop at a door with light bleeding behind it from the crack along the floor.
URSULA
Go on, open it.
Orph turns the knob. Inside the room, the club’s business office, Jack and Woody are poring over a stack of ledgers. The sound of the door opening startles them, and they pull their guns. When they see Ursula has Orph under control, they crack nasty smiles.
URSULA (CONT’D)
Soldier boy solved the puzzle, Jack.
JACK
Took you long enough, little brother. Maybe all those bombs rattled your brain.
ORPH
I didn’t want to believe you could do it, Jack, neither of you. What would our mother say?
JACK
Ma’s been dead a long time. In this life you have to make your own family.
ORPH
Not the way I learned it.
JACK
Always a choirboy, Orph. Reading the good book.
WOODY
Where I come from, we gag the choirboys. They’re likely to sing.
ORPH
I don’t care anymore. I’ve seen too much to stick around in a world run by men like you, Jack. You don’t know the difference between money and love.
JACK
Aw, you hurt my feelings. Money’s just as important as love. Ain’t that right, Ursula?
Nodding once, Ursula draws close to Jack.
JACK (CONT’D)
Problem is what to do with you now. Put a bullet in you and people start to ask questions. Maybe you write a suicide note and stumble into the river, confess to your wife’s murder, say you found out she was cheating with Eddie. We’ll find someplace nice and quiet where you can wade down into the water...
ORPH
I thought we were brothers, Jack. You promised to look out for me.
JACK
What a little punk.
(to Woody)
Tie him up.
Orph struggles but Woody is bigger and stronger and with help from Jack they quickly bind Orph to a chair.
JACK (CONT’D)
Don’t go anywhere, kid. You got a letter to write.
Jack and Woody leave Ursula alone with Orph. The little pistol in her hand doesn’t look as
though it could do much harm but she keeps it trained on Orph all the same.
ORPH
You don’t wanna do this, Ursula. You’re not rotten like them.
URSULA
I’m snake-bitten, remember. Venom goes straight to the heart.
ORPH
We could leave now and start over.
URSULA
You think you can escape? Jack’s got friends everywhere. He’s the future, sweetheart.
ORPH
Then let me go. I’ll disappear.
URSULA
You’d just snitch to the cops.
ORPH
It’s all over anyway. I’ve told them everything they wanna know.
URSULA
What do you mean?
ORPH
I mean the G-man who gave me the choice that wasn’t a choice. I sang all the notes he wanted to hear, told him everything I knew about Jack. Wasn’t much, but it was enough.
URSULA
You rotten stoolie!
ORPH
There’s two kinds of snitching, Ursula, the right kind and the wrong kind, and what I done is the right kind, the kind that looks out for the little man and rats out the big one. If you think it’s anything different you’re as big a snake as Jack.
Ursula swings an open palm across Orph’s face, drawing blood with her fingernails. Orph winces, head bending forward, hair falling into his eyes. When he looks up again his wife leans over to kiss him.
URSULA
Why do you have to be so damned good?
She starts unknotting Orph’s restraints.
URSULA (CONT’D)
Now get out of here.
ORPH
Come with me. I won’t leave you.
URSULA
How can I? I owe Jack more than you could ever guess.
ORPH
Money can be paid back.
URSULA
Not only money. It’s true I was in debt to Woody. I went to Jack and Jack bought him out, made Woody part of the family, turned my debt into his... The debt I owed Woody I now owe to Jack.
ORPH
No honor among thieves.
URSULA
It’s all I have left. Now get out of here before they come back.
At that moment the door opens and Jack and Woody enter, guns drawn.
JACK
What’s the idea?
URSULA
I went to powder my nose and when I came back he’d got loose. Can’t you mugs tie a knot?
WOODY
He couldn’t have got free. I like that she let him go.
URSULA
It’s not true!
ORPH
Leave her out of this.
Orph tries to push past Jack and Woody but Woody’s gun goes off, hitting the lamp and shooting out the window. The lamp falls to the floor, exploding in a cloud of sparks that catch along the curtains.
A fire starts to crackle and smoke fills the room. From the street there’s a ripple of static and then a voice comes across on a bullhorn.
FEDERAL AGENT (O.S.)
This is the FBI. We know you’re in there, Plutone.
In the shadows Jack looks wildly at his brother and sister-in-law.
JACK
What is this? What have you done? Who’s the rat?
ORPH AND URSULA (IN UNISON)
I am!
The fire spreads up the drapes and along the wall. In a minute the whole office will go up and all four of them with it.
ORPH
She had nothing to do with it, Jack. You want a stoolie, well I’m the one, and I’d do it again because it was the right thing to do. All you want is to get rich no matter how many lives you ruin. I don’t care if you wanna kill me, just do it quick. I got nothing to live for. You took my wife and you took Faye. You even took the brother I loved. You took away everything that kept me alive.
Woody and Jack might have their guns trained on Orph and Ursula, but no one has noticed Ursula’s hand reaching for her pistol.
FEDERAL AGENT (O.S.)
You’ve got one minute to give yourselves up and then we’re coming in!
Ursula raises the gun and dumps a slug into Woody’s chest. As he falls backward his own gun goes off twice, shooting Ursula in the shoulder and Jack in the leg. Ursula’s own shot was true, and Woody slumps to the floor, dead, Jack sprawling next to him.
EXT. MALAVITA - NIGHT
On the street outside Malavita, half a dozen cars have stopped traffic. FEDERAL AGENTS are poised, guns drawn, as the shots ring out inside the club.
The Agent who interviewed Orph is at the back, and alongside him is the Times reporter, Noah Roy. Smoke billows from the top floor window of the club.
AGENT (CONT’D)
Good thing you followed him.
NOAH
Newsman’s hunch. What now?
AGENT
I’m taking Plutone out of there dead or alive.
NOAH
Look out for Patterson. He’s on the level.
AGENT
(to the other agents)
Okay boys, we’re going in.
Another shot fires inside the building, and the agents rush the stage door.
INT. MALAVITA - NIGHT
Ursula holds her pistol, barrel still smoking while across the room Jack is clutching his stomach where she’s just shot him. Orph scrambles to get the gun away from his brother.
JACK
They’ll put you inside, baby. Send you to the gas chamber.
URSULA
I don’t care what happens to me.
A line of flame shoots across the floor, dividing Jack and Ursula from Orph.
ORPH
We’ve gotta go, Ursula.
Orph fights through smoke to the door, opens it, and when he does the fire triples in height.
URSULA
I’m right behind you!
Orph leans into the flames, pulling Ursula off the floor and into the corridor. She’s bleeding badly from the shoulder and they can already hear the slamming doors and pounding feet of FEDERAL AGENTS.
ORPH
You never did nothing, Ursula, you hear me?
Ursula, gasping as they struggle along the corridor, flames licking out of the office and into the hallway, pauses and looks steadily into Orph’s face.
URSULA
The thing is, baby, I did. Jack and me, we’re two of a kind.
From the office, Jack screams in agony. Ursula turns and starts stumbling back towards the fire.
ORPH
Ursula! Let him go!
Ursula looks back over her shoulder at Orph. She shakes her head.
JACK (O.S.)
Ursula! Don’t leave me! Ursula!
URSULA
I can’t do it, Orph. Not in this life. Maybe in another.
Ursula disappears into the office as a ball of flame explodes into the hall. Orph turns away, running down the stairs and into the drawn guns of a group of federal agents. The Agent who interrogated Orph steps forward.
AGENT
He’s okay, boys. Where’s your brother, Corporal?
ORPH
Upstairs in the office with my wife.
AGENT
Police think your wife’s in the morgue.
ORPH
They’ve got the wrong sister.
(a beat)
So did I.
The Agent leads Orph out of the building as sirens whine in the distance.
EXT. MALAVITA - DAWN
At the stage door, Noah Roy is waiting, notebook in hand. When he sees Orph, his face shines. The sun is starting to rise.
NOAH
Am I glad to see you, Patterson.
Orph smiles, but his expression quickly twists into sadness.
The two men walk across the parking lot as an ambulance and fire engines arrive.
NOAH (CONT’D)
What’ll happen to them?
ORPH
Nothing, they’re already dead.
&nbs
p; NOAH
Maybe you could tell me your story, from the beginning... I have a feeling people will want to know.
ORPH (V.O.)
And that’s how we ended up here, me all alone, spilling my guts with my whole family laid out in the morgue.
INT. THE TIMES - DAY
Orph sits in the newsroom of the Times as Noah Roy writes down everything he’s said. The notebook is full and both men look shaken by Orph’s story.
ORPH
Sure, I was a chump, but I was a chump who wanted to believe people were good, who wanted to think that when a G-man knocked on the door it was a soldier’s patriotic duty to help. I don’t regret that. My brother got what he deserved.
NOAH
And your wife?
ORPH
I’m not so sure about Ursula. She fell into Jack’s world without realizing there was no way out.
NOAH
Will you go to her funeral?
ORPH
Sure, I’ll be there. I’ll always be there. I wouldn’t know any other way. Funny thing is, I still feel loyal to her, and I don’t think that will ever change.
FADE OUT.
Kay
In the kitchen in the apartment above the Smiths’ garage in the dark of the evening under a naked incandescent bulb, because it’s that kind of place and that kind of story, Kay is standing at the stove staring at the frying pan and holding a spatula in one hand and the other hand’s fingers tapping her teeth and the elbow of the arm of that hand tucked into her waist and her hair a limp mess in the steam of the kitchen and the boy sitting behind her, at the table, and the two of them wondering, for the boy must be wondering – was, she knew, always wondering – where Hank was and when he would come home. The hamburger patty was black on the outside and red on the inside and the smell of char filled her nostrils but she was not going to waste good food so scraped it out of the pan and onto an enamel dish, sliding it next to a spoonful of green peas and a slice of bread. If the boy was not so insubordinate she would have made shirred eggs because of him loving that dish better than anything else she could cook never mind it being dinner instead of breakfast, or chipped beef, or creamed tuna, never mind that Hank called both of those shit on a shingle, but tonight it was a hamburger patty and peas and for dessert half a canned peach, never mind that the boy did not deserve to eat after what he had done. There was still a lesson to be learned, always a lesson to be learned, and different modes of instruction to be employed. She had learned about pedagogy in teachers’ training and knew that the stick, as opposed to the carrot, was often more immediate in its results even if it required greater reinforcement over the longer term.
Night for Day Page 43