by Woody Allen
Come in.
BARBARA
What? What's going on?
FRED
Tell her, Jim.
BARBARA
Tell me what?
JIM
Fred—leave us alone.
FRED
I'm afraid you'll pussyfoot.
BARBARA
Jim, is something wrong?
FRED
The best way is to be direct.
JIM
Get out of here, Fred.
FRED
Barbara, Jim has something to tell you.
BARBARA
About what? What is this?
FRED
About your extramarital affair.
JIM
Fred's crazy—he's a street lunatic.
FRED
Tell her, Jim, or I will.
BARBARA
What's going on here?
JIM
This is none of your business.
BARBARA
I didn't know you had a writing partner.
JIM
I don't.
FRED
I'm the idea man, Jim handles the construction and dialogue. Although I'm not bad at dialogue. I wrote a great copy line once for these wonderful Japanese air conditioners—
JIM
Fred—
FRED
“They're sleek, they're silent, they'll freeze your ass off.” Company would not go for it.
JIM
Let's go someplace where we can be alone.
FRED
He can't go to the Caribbean, Barbara—too attached to his wife.
BARBARA
Jim—
FRED
He wanted to tell Lola but when it came time to confront her the boy lost his resolve.
BARBARA
I don't believe this.
JIM
Barbara, try and understand.
BARBARA
Is this true? Is everything off?
JIM
I can't do it, Barbara, I've made a decision.
BARBARA
One minute you're all over me, making plans, talking big—
JIM
It was your idea. I never wanted to go away.
BARBARA
So you're through using me and now it's back to Lola.
JIM
I wasn't using you. We both knew what we were doing every step of the way.
BARBARA
You think you can just manipulate me like one of those characters in your scripts?
JIM
I sensed it was becoming too hot and heavy, so before it got totally out of control—
BARBARA
I'm sorry, Jim—it is out of control. I want to talk to Lola.
JIM
Talk to Lola?
BARBARA
Yes. I think once she hears it from me she'll get the picture.
(Pauses, looks around hopelessly.)
JIM
(calling off)
Come in.
BARBARA
I don't believe you love her more than me. I'm going to meet with her and have this out.
JIM
(to Fred)
Say something, you're my collaborator!
FRED
I'm just the idea man, you do the dialogue.
JIM
I need a fresh concept.
FRED
Look, Barbara—may I call you Barbara?
BARBARA
I don't know who the hell you are but take a hike.
FRED
My name is Frederick R. Savage and although it does not appear on the screen or the products, I coauthored Jim's first movie and am also the inventor of the cordless phone and instant coffee.
JIM
FRED
—for Christ's sake!
FRED
(calling off)
Yes? Come in.
BARBARA
Promises were made to me.
JIM
Never—just the opposite—
FRED
Try and empathize, Barbara—a weak individual—a domestic crisis—a sexual impasse—suddenly an alluring creature such as yourself—the boy is of course swept away—he has fantasies, he gets lost—then one night he sees his family and is overcome by a flood of memories—guilt pervades his every pore—that same night a small spacecraft from the star Vega sends out magnetic rays which lodge inside his skull—
JIM
Fred, you're not helping me.
BARBARA
I'm sorry, Jim—it wasn't Lola you were thinking of all those nights we were locked in each other's arms.
JIM
You misread the situation—or I did—I've made a terrible mistake, I'd like to undo it—
BARBARA
I'm all shaken up—I have to rethink my plans. One thing is for certain though—I'm not some patsy who's going to roll over and play dead. You're gonna have to make this up to me somehow.
JIM
What does that mean?
BARBARA
I need time to think—but you're not walking out of this scot-free. You know what they say—if you can't get love, get money.
JIM
That's blackmail.
BARBARA
You should've thought of that when you first checked us into that fleabag hotel—now I'm calling the shots. You'll hear from me.
(Barbara exits.)
FRED
I know what you're thinking—it all worked so great in the shower.
JIM
Fred—Fred—what do I do?
FRED
One thing is for sure—you can't pay her anything.
JIM
No?
FRED
You'd never be rid of her—she'd come back for more and more—she'd bleed you white—your kids might even have to go to public school.
JIM
I have to tell Lola—I have to—it's the only way—
FRED
It is?
JIM
It's better coming from me than from a malicious stranger.
FRED
Really?
JIM
Plus it puts an end to her threat of blackmail.
FRED
You can't tell Lola you've been having an affair for six months.
JIM
Why not? If I bring her flowers—
FRED
There's not enough flowers in the Botanical Gardens.
JIM
People have affairs and then realize they did wrong.
FRED
You're being too rational. Lola's got zero tolerance for infidelity. It was the bane of her childhood.
JIM
How do you know?
FRED
My dog told me.
JIM
I'll tell her it meant nothing. A little sexual fling.
FRED
Great. Wives love to hear that—she'll smile warmly and then serve you with papers.
JIM
What if I denied it? It'd be my word against some hysterical stranger. Who'd Lola believe?
FRED
Come in!
JIM
I'm dead—it's over. There is no way out of this. I sinned and I'm going to hell.
FRED
Hold on a second—I'm starting to pick up a radio signal … I feel the rays entering my head.
JIM
I don't need rays—I need a creative idea. For Christ's sake, we're both writers—
FRED
So much damn static …
JIM
Unless I just pay her off.
FRED
This weather is bad for transmission.
JIM
What have I done? The sins of the father are visited on the children.
FRED
It's so annoying.
JIM
We could move—get a motor home—we could travel around— she'd never find us.
FRED
Someone must be cooking with a microwave.
JIM
No, that's not going to work—I'm damned no matter what I do.
FRED
Wait, wait—got it! Got it!
JIM
Got what, Fred?
FRED
The solution to your problem has registered on my cortex on Gamma Channel 2000.
JIM
Great—my head doesn't get cable.
FRED
You have to get rid of her.
JIM
Uh-huh—that's your insight?
FRED
No. I mean, get rid of her definitively.
JIM
What do you mean?
FRED
My voice says, permanent elimination.
JIM
Fine—but how, short of killing her? I can't think of any other way—I—
(realizes that's what Fred means)
Fred—I'm trying to have a serious discussion here.
FRED
I'm very serious.
JIM
What serious? Kill her?
FRED
It's the only way you can keep your family from coming apart.
JIM
You've been off your medication too long.
FRED
I'm getting a green signal which is the go-ahead.
JIM
Fred, I'm not going to kill her.
FRED
No?
JIM
It's psychotic—you're a psychotic.
FRED
And you're just neurotic—so there's a lot I can teach you. I outrank you.
JIM
It's no solution—and if it was a solution I couldn't do it and if I could do it, I wouldn't do it.
FRED
Why not? It's a stroke of creative genius.
JIM
It's psychologically, morally, and intellectually wrong. It's madness.
FRED
It's a leap into the unthinkable.
JIM
Let it remain unthought.
FRED
The question is how to best do it.
JIM
That's not the question.
FRED
I wouldn't want you to get caught. New York has the death penalty now. I don't think it would help your cause much to be on the receiving end of one of those lethal injections.
JIM
No, I'd like to avoid that too. Fred—
FRED
We've got to act fast. This woman is an alien—she may even be computerized.
JIM
I don't want to discuss this.
FRED
If you don't give in to all her demands she'll tell Lola every detail. Lola loves you, trusts you—so she had a little postpartum obsession with the twins—I'm sure it'll pass and you'll be back having sex every Thanksgiving.
JIM
It's too radical—you're too radical.
FRED
And you're too reasonable. See, when all avenues lead to a dead end, I make the leap.
JIM
Yes—you make the leap but I get the injection.
FRED
You won't get caught. We'll plan it perfectly.
JIM
Caught or not, I don't want to do it. It's wrong. Thou Shalt Not Kill.
FRED
What is that, from one of your yuppie books on etiquette?
JIM
I gotta go home.
FRED
You're not going to have a home after tomorrow.
JIM
How could I have not seen that she'd be capable of this?
FRED
Because you're a lamb—a sweet middle-class lamb with no imagination.
JIM
I betrayed my wife.
FRED
That's right. Not to mention the effect of divorce on innocent kids. Twins yet—as if each doesn't have enough trouble going through life with an exact duplicate.
JIM
But killing her is out of the question.
FRED
How else are you going to stop her from telling Lola? How else?
JIM
I don't know—I got such a migraine.
FRED
Try acupuncture. But don't let them put the needles too close to the medulla, that's what they did with me.
JIM
Fred, please.
FRED
Where does she live?
JIM
Near Columbia. Fred—
FRED
Apartment house? Is there a doorman who'd recognize you?
JIM
Yes, there is.
FRED
What floor?
JIM
Eleven.
FRED
What about an elevator operator?
JIM
No—just a doorman.
FRED
Twenty-four hours? Probably not—
JIM
The doorman takes a break every now and then to get coffee.
FRED
If you take the back stairs …
JIM
He's only away about ten minutes. It's not enough time to take the stairs eleven flights, kill her and come down before he gets back.
FRED
Did she tell anyone about your affair? A friend?
JIM
It was our secret. That I know.
FRED
You'd have to stop off and buy gloves.
JIM
Naturally. All I need's my prints all over the place—I—Fred, what are we talking about here?! I'm not going to kill her.
FRED
You have to, old buddy. It's either that or bye-bye Lola and the kids.
JIM
But it's inhuman. What, I sneak up to her place?
FRED
Right.
JIM
Ring the bell.
FRED
She'll be expecting you. You'll have phoned first.
JIM
And what, strangle her?
FRED
What would you like to do, it's your choice. Strangle, smother, kitchen knife …
JIM
Telephone wire around the neck?
FRED
If you prefer.
JIM
Or plastic bag over the head.
FRED
Make it look like a suicide—or a robbery.
JIM
That's right—I could forge a note or better yet, get her to write one using some clever ruse. She recently lost her job at a magazine. A woman alone, depressed.
FRED
Y'know what I'm thinking—if you can get some blood that's her type, you buy a gun and bullets, you take pliers and pull the lead out of one of the bullets—you freeze her blood into a slug and force it into the cartridge shell—you enter her apartment, shoot her once in the chest—she's killed with a bullet of frozen blood—it melts in her system—same type— the cops find her dead but there's no bullet to be found. Just a hole in her body with no exit wound.
(calling off)
Come in.
JIM
I could drop some item in the street, get a stranger to pick it up, get his fingerprints on it. Then I could take her to one of our hotels, check in as Sam and Felicity Arbogast, kill her in the room, leave the item and sneak down the fire staircase.
FRED
I don't like the name Felicity—it's too offbeat.
JIM
It's an easy switch. Jane Arbogast.
FRED
Plus you'd be leaving a paper trail. They got these handwriting experts.
JIM
I can sign the register with my left hand.
FRED
Wait a minute—wait a minute—no, it'd never work.
JIM
What?
FRED
I was thinking if you locked her in the closet and ran a rubber tube through the keyhole and sucked the air out.
JIM
I read a story once where the guy beat someone to death with
a leg of lamb and then ate the murder weapon. That is a funny one. (laughs)
He ate the weapon.
FRED
This is no joking matter, Jim. You're going to have to eliminate that woman and soon.
JIM
I'm not doing it, Fred. I can't.
FRED
Maybe in the end the best thing would be to call her to meet for a drink, kill her on a dark street, rob her—make it look like a mugging.
JIM
I won't do it.
FRED
On the other hand, maybe you really want your marriage to break up.
JIM
What are you saying?
FRED
Yes—get that hamster of a wife off your back and be rid of those eerie look-alike sons and all the while you can keep insisting you didn't dump them. It was out of your control— a jealous woman wrecked your home.
JIM
Please spare me those pseudo-Freudian insights.
FRED
Of course—you wind up a free man. A divorceé—a new life— actresses, models, discos.
JIM
That's enough.
FRED
Am I hitting on a truth?
JIM
Look, I'm not saying I'm not in a terrible predicament. I'm not saying I wouldn't be lucky if Barbara was—was—
FRED
You can say it.
JIM
Deceased. But she's a human being.
FRED
You say that like it's a good thing.
JIM
Isn't it?
FRED
I don't know. Have you ever gone to a tenants' meeting in a co-op?
JIM
Maybe I led her on without intending to. It's possible. I may be more responsible than I realize.
FRED
But you acted out of bumbling stupidity. You're starved for a little attention at home, a little passion, so you blunder into an affair where you get some pampering and some illicit sex and you go with it. Eventually you come to your senses but it's too late. A scheming woman won't let go. You're pathetic. But that's OK, most people are pathetic. See, now, I, on the other hand, am tragic.
JIM
I'm pathetic and you're tragic?
FRED
Oh yeah. I had greatness in me. A different roll of the dice and I could have been Shakespeare or Milton.
JIM
Are you kidding? With the eight whores and a Volkswagen?
FRED
You have a chance to redeem yourself. To prevent the destruction of your family by a vindictive bitch whose rage at not getting what she wants decays into blackmail.
JIM
It's morally unacceptable.
FRED
What you've done is already morally unacceptable. You've cheated on your wife, you've lied, you've broken your marriage vows.
JIM
OK—it was wrong—but it's not murder.
FRED
You say murder like it was the ultimate act. To a more creative mind like mine it's—another option.
JIM
That's the difference between us, Fred. You have delusions of grandeur. I'm more earthbound. I don't get my instructions from rays coming from the Empire State Building or a hovering spacecraft.