Ringer

by Wiprud, Brian M

Just who was Purity texting? What was she discussing? Perhaps during the previous scene we can scroll Purity’s conversation with Skip down one side of the screen while the rest of the scene plays out in live action. I could not find this technique in the screenplay book, so do not know if it is an innovation, but how else are we to capture on film what she was texting?

  Skip: Working hatchet murder story. Wassup?

  Purity: @ El Rollo w Morty last nite

  Skip: U hook up?

  Purity: LMAO vry fny

  Skip: Out L8?

  Purity: Not 2—Bobbie here w Dixweed whn we got home, Morty w a brunette

  Skip: Get out WTF?

  Purity: I was saved by Morty, grl saved Bobbie, same attacker

  Skip: U dint rel8 this last nite!

  Purity: I dint meet this grl til L8R

  Skip: So this grl came home w Morty n hooked up?

  Purity: YGAGA m9—Morty came 4 a ring from Bobbie, grl involved

  Skip: ??? ring

  Purity: spooky old relic magic ring w a curse

  Purity: If u can bleeve it, Bobbie and Morty r now discussing God vs Devil over bfast

  Skip: Put conv on the phone so I can hear

  Purity: no time—ring went bang smhow

  Skip: I cant follow this—whut?

  Purity: Bobbie had sacred ring, relic, belonged to church in la paz, Morty sent here to get it

  Purity: B gave ring to M but it blew up

  Purity: Hly sht! Taking me to mex rehab! NFW!!!

  Skip: When?

  Skip: Hello?

  Purity: fck—going to Cabo like NOW, Morty 2

  Skip: U, Bob, Dix, Morty?

  Purity: LMAO. Grl coming too, Dix iz pissed!

  Purity: ROTFLMAO grl sez dznt need clothes, Bobbie in heat

  Skip: when do u leave??? I will come down

  Purity: come! Mi8 b big story, catch Bobbie fckg grl Dix freaks

  Purity: Morty joker in deck, and I have a plan

  Skip: grl name?

  Purity: gina, limo driver, actress

  Skip: last name?

  Purity: dunno CUL8R n cabo

  We see Purity’s screen as she exits her messaging center and logs on to her Web browser. In the Google search box she types: INBOARD BOAT ACCIDENTS EXPLOSIONS.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  SKIP’S BOSS AT THE DAILY Post—the wiry balding man in a sweater vest—was perched at his computer in a small, immaculate office with a narrow window view of another office building. He was typing extremely fast, studying the screen intently.

  “Boss?” Skip knocked on the door frame as he stepped into it. “I worked that Mexican story for Bent pretty good, but—”

  The boss kept typing. “Pretty well.”

  “—something has come up with Purity, something big. I need to get to Cabo San Lucas ASAP.”

  “Shut the door, have a seat.”

  When both were accomplished, the boss swiveled mechanically away from his computer and eyed Skip cautiously. “You’ve done well with the Purity story, but circulation thinks the story is wearing thin. Some in the industry are joking that we’re in bed with Purity. Are you?”

  “What? No!”

  “Word around here is that you’re actually sleeping with her.” The boss held up a hand. “Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. That’s a terrific way to stay on top of that story, if you’ll excuse the pun. What’s wrong is that it is beginning to show. Her antics are overexposed. We’re taking a break from bedding with Purity to find something for the readers to panic about. You’ll work the Mexican story, see if we can find us a serial killer. If not, take assignments from Bent until you do find a serial killer that the readers can worry about. Readers don’t worry about Purity.”

  “Work for Bent?”

  “Until you find a story you can sink your teeth into.”

  “Boss, I’m telling you, something big is coming off in Cabo. Grant is there with Purity, and it looks like Papa Bear has found himself some sort of beach bunny. Meanwhile, there’s some sort of business with Grant and a magic ring that’s a holy relic that the church is trying to get back. Anyway, Purity is bound to pull a really big stunt. I just gotta get down there.”

  “Did you hear anything I said, Skip?”

  “Well…”

  “Did you?”

  “I did, yes, but…”

  “Beach bunnies? Magic rings? Purity crashes a Porsche into the Cabo San Lucas marina? That’s TN2.com celebrity gossip. Daily Post is slap and tickle, Skip. We tickled them with Purity for a while, now it’s time to slap them with a hatchet-wielding Mexican immigrant psycho killer. Purity might manage to kill herself somehow a couple months from now. We’ll get back on her then. Get out of my office.”

  Like a machine, the boss swiveled back to his computer and began clacking away.

  Out in the hall, the camera follows Skip as he walks slowly back to his cubicle and slumps down into his chair.

  He wiggled his mouse. The computer screen came back on with one of the police sketches of Paco. Skip stared at the picture a moment, then lurched forward, moved his mouse around, and clicked his way to a Web site called Last Minute Travel.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-THREE

  PAN ACROSS THE SUNNY EAST Hampton airport runways and a small propeller plane taking off. Keep turning the camera until you come to Gina and me behind a fence at the airport’s drop-off, the limo fifty feet behind us. You can see Gina is now wearing a colorful bikini top under her little black dress, and her hair is up and obviously post swim.

  “I checked, the ring was not in his shoes or his shirt,” I whispered.

  “He’s got it on him,” she hissed.

  “On him? He was only wearing swim trunks.”

  “On him.” Gina pointed down at her own lovely groin.

  “There?”

  “He’s got it tucked under his nut sack.”

  Behind us, the limo trunk opens, and we see Grant and Dixie help Paco out of the trunk. El Cabezador was now in black pants, white shirt, and red vest. They stealthily huddle Paco off-screen.

  “Impossible! How do you know this?”

  “How do you think?”

  “You…”

  “I goosed him. Don’t look at me like that! How else were we to make sure he didn’t have it on him?”

  “So it is tied with string, or what?”

  “I didn’t exactly give him a Brazilian, Morty, I’m not sure how it’s held there. String?”

  I laughed. “Gina, I think I love you. That is amazing. You know, you really are fantastically deceptive—and you sure as hell have him on the hook!”

  “I’m deceptive when I need to be.” Gina dropped her sunglasses and favored me with her sapphire eyes, the kind that make men buy diamonds. “How about you?”

  “I think you know me a little bit by now, yes? I am probably one of the more brutally honest people you will ever meet, especially with women. Honesty and trust is what makes me a good lover.”

  She raised her sunglasses, a devilish smile rippling across her most succulent lips. “An awesome lover.”

  Purity appeared next to us in shorts, low moccasins, shirt, and bikini top, her braids jutting out to either side of a Panama hat. Aviator sunglasses and cigarette completed her ensemble. Following her into frame is a nervous young paralegal in suit and tie.

  “Morty! Turn around!” Purity held up a document and a pen. I turned.

  She slapped the Ultravibe Media contract up against my back and began furiously signing page after page. “The paparazzi aren’t here yet, but it’s only AMOT. Let’s roll.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FOUR

  I THINK THE BEST WAY to capture the flight to Cabo would be as a vignette. Screenwriting: Yes You Can! mentions this as a way to accelerate the storytelling without skipping over certain details that may be important or amusing. It is done without dialogue, usually to the accompaniment of music, which we haven’t discussed yet at
all for this movie. There is much for me to relate in this story, and little time, so I have not been able to fully embellish my tale, though I am sure that the choice of music depends on whether you wish to have somebody like John Williams or Lalo Schiffrin write an original musical score or you intend to use Top Forty hits off the shelf. I perhaps am not entirely qualified to choose music, as I am not what you would call a music buff. I do not even own an MP3 player and those little white earplugs. However, when I think about traveling to Mexico, how could I not think of the instrumental music of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass? This is merely a suggestion, but I would think “Tijuana Taxi” or “Spanish Flea” would be ideal for this vignette. If you do not know these songs, they are catchy, and include horns like one would find in a mariachi band. So cue the Herb Alpert.

  The Gulfstream jet ripped down the runway and sliced into the Hamptons summer sky. The jet’s interior was spacious and like a living room that happened to have luxurious swiveling leather seats bolted to the floor. Gina sat at the window on the right side, me next to her, Dixie across the aisle from me, and Grant next to the window on the left. Purity was in the seat behind me, sleeping with her sunglasses on, curled in a fully reclined seat.

  Meanwhile, Paco, in his red vest, braced himself in the jet’s galley. His yellow eyes studied the liquor bottles, the Perrier, the glassware, the wine cabinet and chilling champagne.

  In the passenger cabin, we all unbuckled our seat belts. Dixie got up and went to the galley. She gave Paco instructions, pointing to the same features of the galley that he had been studying. The task of waiter did not seem to faze him, but he lifted his Santa Muerte amulet from his shirt and said a quick prayer that he perform the task of making cocktails adequately.

  Dixie returned to her seat, making pleasantries across the aisle to me while Grant flipped pages in the Wall Street Journal. Gina studied the terrain below the jet with interest.

  Paco strode purposefully down the aisle and bowed to Dixie. He listened to her order, Grant’s, mine, and then Gina’s. Purity declined any beverage and rolled over and went back to sleep.

  In the galley, Paco found the ice, but the cubes were frozen into a mass. Out came his blood-rusted beheading hatchet, and ice chunks flew about the galley as he hacked away to free the cubes.

  In the main cabin, I was politely listening to Dixie, but looked down when an ice cube came bouncing up the aisle.

  In the galley, the cocktail steward hacked limes to pieces, cramming the wedges and ice into three large water glasses. Then he picked a bottle at random and sloshed a cup of dark liquor into each glass.

  I continued to listen politely to Dixie when a champagne cork zipped up the aisle, bounced off the fuselage, and landed in my lap. Nobody saw this but me.

  Paco appeared with a rolling drink cart, the champagne bottle overflowing. He handed Grant, me, and Gina the gargantuan cocktails, which he’d chosen to garnish with a tree-sized stalk of celery. Wiping out the champagne glass with the corner of his vest, he poured Dixie a glass of bubbly before retreating to the galley.

  Dixie smiled apologetically and explained that Paco was new.

  We all tasted our drinks with interest.

  There seemed to be some unique flavor that we could not identify.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FIVE

  OUR CAMERA PROVIDES US WITH a wide shot out over a sea of tourists. They are standing in a serpentine line for Mexican customs at the cavernous Cabo San Lucas International Airport.

  Zoom in on our troop: Grant and Dixie, me and Gina, Purity last and by herself. We are flanked by luggage.

  Medium close-up of Grant and Dixie—she whispers to him, “I’ve got it, sugar.”

  “Hm?” Grant’s mind is elsewhere, probably on Gina and how she cupped his balls in the pool.

  “We send Morty a note from Purity asking him to meet her at the Ramparts, at night. We send her a note from Morty asking her to meet him at the Ramparts, same time. This puts them together. We just have to adjust the timing so that Paco arrives first, Morty second, and Purity third. When Morty arrives, I’ll be dressed as Purity and lure him into the shadows, where Paco will be waiting to club Morty, knock him out, and plant evidence on him once Purity comes. I will hide up on the path to the villa and wait for Purity to pass me, to make sure she’s headed to the Ramparts. Once she passes me, I’ll come meet you on the yacht, while Paco does the dirty deed, makes it look like Morty did it, and joins us on the yacht, where we’ll set sail, pay Paco, and drop him off somewhere else. Morty will awake and go back to the villa and report the murder but try to claim he didn’t do it, yet all the evidence will implicate him. Case closed!”

  “I like it!” Grant particularly liked it for his own reasons. “The timing is crucial, though. We’d better say we’re going on an after-dinner boat ride in the speedboat, and that’s how I’ll transport you to the beach at the Ramparts. That way I’ll be able to get back to the yacht quickly and get her ready to go.”

  Grant quickly imagines a scene in the yacht bedroom, Gina naked and straddling him. The door opens, and Dixie rages into the room with a gun. Cut to a newspaper spinning out toward our audience, and when it stops the Daily Post headline reads: GRANT MURDERED IN BOATY LOVE MEX-NEST. Skip Baker, reporting from Mexico. There is a picture of Dixie on the cover being led away in handcuffs by Mexican Federal Police.

  “How long do you think all this will take?” Grant asked.

  “I think from the time you drop me off maybe an hour? Purity is often late, as we know.”

  “An hour should do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Hm? Oh, should do it to warm up the yacht’s diesel engine. You know how it stalls.”

  “Brilliant, sugar pie!”

  Track the camera back in the customs line to a medium close-up of Gina and me. Men in the background crane their necks to sneak a look at Gina.

  “I’ve got it, Morty.”

  “Hm? What is it you have?”

  “Shrinkage.”

  “Shrinkage?”

  “A man’s package. In cold water, it shrinks.”

  I knit my brow. Penis abuse in any form is an instant affront to all men. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “Well, if I were to lure Grant into some cold water, his package would shrink. The Li’l Guy goes schwermp.” Gina illustrated with her fingers. “Don’t the testicles also run for the hills, bunch back up into the body?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “Schwermp?”

  “Exactly! Then the ring will fall off. I scoop it up and drop the fake in its place. That way I don’t have to get close to his Li’l Guy. I mean, let’s face it, if he thinks he’s going to actually screw me he’s got another thing coming, and there’s a line I won’t cross to get that thing out from under his nut sack.”

  “I am glad to hear you say that, querida, because I would not ask you to do such a thing and would think less of you if you would.”

  “Well, if the roles were reversed, and the ring were up inside Dixie’s kitten, would you do whatever was necessary to get it?”

  Women’s capacity to ask men questions they must lie to answer never ceases to astound me.

  “If you are clever and play upon someone’s appetite and charm them, it is usually sufficient to gain whatever advantage you seek.”

  “So you think if you were going to boink her she’d pull it out in advance.”

  “Precisely so. Which is why you must arrange for this shrinkage to be a surprise, so that he does not have time to remove the ring.”

  “You don’t think he’d be tempted to mambo with the ring tied around his nut sack?”

  I shifted uncomfortably again. “Having not tried a stunt such as that, I can only speculate that it would indeed be possible to achieve. However, constricting the package at the place where it attaches like that might have unintended consequences.”

  Gina raised an eyebrow. “Do tell?”

  “As I said, I have not attempted this st
unt, so I do not know. Restricting blood flow in that region at critical junctures could prolong, delay, or even defer the culmination.”

  “Really?”

  I eyed her suspiciously and directed the conversation elsewhere. “In any case, yes, I like your plan. Surely he is so smitten with you that you could lure him into a vat of molten lava, much less arctic waters.”

  “And you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah.” Gina shifted her weight to one marvelously curved hip and squirmed seductively. A man behind her lost his balance and fell down.

  I returned her gesture with smoldering eyes and a jaunty jut of my jaw. “I would add Tabasco to the lava, and icebergs to the icy water.”

  “See, this is why I like you so much.” She smiled. “Unlike any man I have ever met, you’re not smitten. You’re just unbelievably charming, and unlike most men, you lie and flatter like you really mean it. Women really like that in a man. And you’re from Brooklyn?”

  “East Brooklyn.”

  Track the camera back in the customs line to a medium close-up of Purity, who glances in the direction of Gina and me and mumbles, “Get a room.”

  Her attention returns to her phone, where her thumbs peck away like angry chickens.

  I guess we must write the text of what she is texting and scroll it down the screen. Can you imagine if you made a movie entirely about the youth of today? The entire dialogue of the movie would have to be scrolled down the screen, because I honestly do not think they speak directly with one another at all anymore, except for the intermittent “awesome” or “dude.”

  Skip: arrive 2nite

  Purity: 2day!

  Skip: no r-lier flts

  Purity: time?

  Skip: 6

  Purity: Better hurry or u miss the show

  Skip: show?

  Purity: FYSBIGTBABN

  Better put the translation on the screen, because even the most ardent and jaded texters may not know that one: Fasten your seat belts it’s going to be a bumpy night.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-SIX

  CABO SAN LUCAS IS MANHATTAN to La Paz’s Brooklyn. Both are worthy seaside towns, yet people mostly visit one rather than the other. True, the terrains are similar: dry coastal town on a gentle slope leading to a wide bay, mountains in the background. Yet unlike La Paz, Cabo’s downtown marina and the ocean beaches are mostly glitzy hotels and resorts. At the southern end of the town is a thin peninsula called Land’s End that angles into the Pacific Ocean from the southern tip of Baja Sur. One finds various small beaches on this peninsula with a natural rock arch near the very end. People whale watch, Jet Ski, parasail, shop, eat, drink, and basically vacation in Cabo. So maybe we should do a montage like on the opening credits of the hit TV show Hawaii Five-O or possibly Baywatch. We show all the local attractions quickly so we can turn the camera across the bay to Grant’s Italian villa on a cliff east of town.