"THE PAPER" (1994)

A big clock on top of a restaurant sign says it’s 12:04 in the morning. The light in the sign CLICKS off, as do the lights in the fast food joint the sign stands above.

The back door of the restaurant opens and TWO KIDS, seventeen and nineteen, black, come out, laughing and joking’ with each other, happy to be off work. The older Kid locks the back door and they set off across the parking lot.

Although we follow them, we aren’t close enough to hear what they’re saying, but they seem like friends. The neighborhood around them is a little rough -- not dangerous, exactly, but not Park Avenue either.

They round a corner, turning down an alley to take a shortcut --

~- and stop in their tracks.

There’s a car in front of them, a late model American one, rental sticker on its bumper, but that’s not what strikes them.

The words "WHITE DEVILS" and "GHOSTS" are spray painted across the side of the car, which has been shot to pieces. And so have the two dead men inside.

He walks forward, amazed. The blood from the dead men’s wounds still flows. Smoke still curls from the bulletholes in the car.

The Second Kid just stares, terrified, frozen in his tracks.

The First Kid looks down, at his feet. An automatic weapon, a long silencer screwed over its barrel, lies on the pavement. The Kid bends down to look at it. He reaches for it.

They hear a SCRAPING sound behind them, shoes on pavement, and they turn, fast. A WOMAN, about sixty, walking a dog, stands in the mouth of the alley, staring at the car, at the

corpses --

-- and at the First Kid, bent over the gun. Her eyes go wide.

¢

()

O

2s 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 1

But the Woman SCREAMS, the Kids jump back, the Woman keeps SCREAMING --

-- and they do, tearing ass out of there as fast as they can, looking for all the world like guilty men.

The HISS of AM radio sneaks in and the unmistakeable CLICKETY-CLACK of a teletype machine drowns out everything else.

cuT TO:

The teletype continues. We’re inside a clock, an old-fashioned, spring-wound model from the looks of the hardware around us. A large, shiny cog CLICKS forward relentlessly, one tick at a time, a spring lever checking its progress.

We glide slowly through the middle of the clockworks as the teletype continues, now background behind a familiar

ANNOUNCER’s voice.

ANNOUNCER

Ten ten WINS. You give us twenty-two minutes, we’ll give you the world. It’s already eighty-three degrees in Central Park, working its way up to a downtown high of ninety-five. At the top of the news this morning, racial tensions flare again, this time in Williamsburg, where two white, out-of-town businessmen were gunned

‘ down outside a restaurant, a racial slur spray-painted on their car --

While he goes on, we move up, through the clock, and follow the track of a long, heavy hammer that rises up out of the top, to where it finally rests between two heavy brass cups, the clock’s alarm.

in twenty-four hours. W-I-N-S news time --

3. ist rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

IN THE HACKETT BEDROOM, 3

we leap suddenly outside the clock and stare at its face. The strong black hands point to 6:59. The radio broadcast BEEPS.

With a TICK as loud as a starting gun, the alarm clock jumps forward to seven a.m. The hammer springs to life, leaping back and forth between the brass cups, filling the bedroom with a splitting RING. HENRY HACKETT, late thirties, is asleep in bed -- or on bed, rather, fully clothed, right on top of the covers, arms crossed against his chest.

He doesn’t even crack his eyes at the sound of the alarm.

MARTHA WARD-HACKETT, a few years younger and eight and a half months pregnant, is asleep on her back next to Henry. She leans over with great difficulty and shuts off the alarm. She puts on her glasses and regards Henry. She sees his clothes and shoes still intact from last night, shakes her head, and gets up.

She shrugs into a robe and leaves the room, SLAMMING the door behind her. Henry jolts awake, looks around, and closes his eyes again. (X)

From the kitchen, a cupboard SLAMS. Henry opens his eyes and sits up.

Dishes CLANK and RATTLE. HENRY (cont/d) (to himself) Seven.

cuT TO:

4. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

A cigarette burns in an ashtray in the window of a Central Park West apartment. This place has a view of the park, but almost nothing else. There’s one comfortable chair, a reading light, several enormous stacks of newspapers and magazines, and a big television that sits on the floor, CNN "Morning Report" blaring.

BERNIE WHITE, sixtyish, with coffee, plops into the chair ina robe. Bernie’s a-commanding man, you’d follow him anywhere, but he’s also the picture of coronary distress, overweight and overworked. He’s got a stack of reading in his lap, two or three newspapers, plus The New Republic, New York, Time.

He lights a second cigarette, although the first is still burning in the ashtray, and starts to wade through the stack. After a moment, he looks up and around the empty apartment.

This spacious house in Sag Harbor is equal parts tasteful decoration and war zone, as it’s torn apart and overrun with CONSTRUCTION WORKERS. ALICIA CLARK, late thirties, in an expensive suit, is in the (X)

kitchen, another stack of newspapers in front of her. She’s talking on a cordless phone.

I’m aware of that. I’m aware of that, I need the money, okay? I need

it yesterday.

Alicia shoves all the papers aside without reading them and finds a copy of People. She flips to the "Star Tracks" section. Behind her, BRUNO, an attractive man in his mid-thirties, argues with the construction workers, pointing to a half-built wall.

5« 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

e 5 CONTINUED: 5 ‘ ALICIA (cont’d)

When I’m seventy-five years old, so I can get a condo closer to the ping-pong room, or now, when I/m showering in’a God damn bucket?

Alicia drops her head into her hands.

She hangs up the phone and finds what she’s looking for in People -- a picture of herself, in an elegant dress, BRUNO on one side, entirely neglected, and Tom Brokaw, whom Alicia is smiling all over, on the other. A partial caption

reads " -- Brokaw, with Alicia Clark of the New York Sun." (X) C) Alicia seems deeply fulfilled. curt TO:

HENRY shaves in his bathroom. A shower radio blares, WINS again, sports now. He stops in mid-stroke, seized by a pain in his abdomen.

He puts one hand on it, the other hand on the sink, to steady himself, and waits while it passes. The pain eases and he jerks the medicine cabinet door open, revealing a wide array of vitamins, prescription pill bottles, Maalox, Stresstabs, practically dripping off the-shelves. He sighs.

He SLAMS the door shut without taking anything and -~

-- takes a Coca-Cola from the refrigerator instead. He sits down at the table with it and the New York Sentinel (picture the New York Times). MARTHA, still angry, is plowing through the New York Daily News on her way to the Sun. A small TV on the counter is tuned to "New York One."

Henry COUGHS to cover the sound of the Coke can popping open, OC but Martha frowns.

O

O

6. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 7

She just stares at him. He lifts the can slowly, taunting her. .

He takes a long drink from it and sets it down.

She shakes her head and raises the Daily News in front of her face, so that Henry can see its headline.

The News front page has a huge picture of the shot-up car from last night and its dead occupants, surrounded by a . headline in type so large one would think it reserved for the Second Coming:

"Welcome to New York -= You’re Dead!"

get it? It happened at midnight out in Williamsburg. Shit, Newsday

got it too! I don’t even want to see the Post.

She picks up the New York Sun, also a tabloid, and looks at its headline.

Really, Henry, can’t McDougal just leave the poor parking commissioner alone?

Martha seems unmoved.

Ts 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

C) 7 CONTINUED: ° 7

a, #8 -MARTHA Sweetie, it’s horseshit.

I know it’s horseshit, I tried to et the Williamsburg thing. That

idiot Wilder wouldn’t answer his (X) beeper. MARTHA So you went to Brooklyn. (X) . HENRY Yeah, I went to Brooklyn, but by the (X) time I got back it-was too late. MARTHA Four a.m. (X) ; HENRY I’m the metro editor, what am I (X) O supposed to do? MARTHA

Four a.m. in the morning. He picks up the remote and starts flipping channels.

Martha SNEEZES, hard. Henry looks at her for a moment, as if the sneeze had special meaning. Martha looks down, at her lap. She sighs.

8. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

O 7 CONTINUED: 7 He picks up still another paper.

Now, if you weren’t making a sacrifice too, that would be different. That would be a lot

different. HENRY

Well, yeah. Call me later? (X) MARTHA

Wear a tie, for the interview. And promise me you won’t torpedo it on

purpose, okay?

He leans over to kiss her goodbye, but she grabs him by the arm and pulls him down, so his face is close to hers.

(MORE)

9. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 7

He just looks at her, taking in the seriousness of her mood for a moment or two.

A faded, greening copper sun is stuck Like a lantern on the side of an old stone building down near Foley Square. There’s a clock in the center of the sun that says it’s now 8:26. A motto curves above and below it: . i

"The New York Sun -- It Shines for A111!"

Below the clock, there is a small but growing crowd watching with some interest as a WOMAN, sobbing, sits on the hood of her car, trying to prevent it from being towed away.

A PARKING COP directs the towing process, listening unmoved to the SHOUTS and JEERS of a growing crowd. One CRAZY GUY shouts at the Cop.

GUY

Parking Fascist! You tell Sandusky we‘re not gonna take it anymore!

Another GUY rants about how nice it must be to have a (X) government job. HENRY passes the scene and grins, amused. He heads into the building underneath the copper sun.

HENRY is alone on an elevator. He rocks on his heels, waiting, while overpleasant MUZAK plays.

He looks almost like a prizefighter before a fight, shaking out his hands, stretching out his neck.

The elevator slows and stops. In that brief moment before the doors open, Henry takes a deep breath, holds it --

-- and then the elevator WHOOSHES open and he is engulfed.

By the newsroom. There are seventy or eighty WORKERS

scattered throughout the place, separated into various departments.

10. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

oe 10 CONTINUED: 10

Metro is in the heart of the room, a bunch of desks separated by low dividers, underneath three TV sets mounted in recesses in the wall.

There used to be six TVs; three are inexplicably missing from their recesses, making the row look like Grandpa’s smile.

Business is shoved off in an alcove, editorial is Upstairs someplace, and sports is a group of desks pushed together at one end of the room, surrounded forbiddingly by file cabinets, making their own private fifedom.

Look, the Sun is no Washington Post. The place is shabby, even, but endearing in its own way. Because everywhere, there is movement, noise, chaos, shit stacked high, mess.

We get the impression this place is desperately understaffed; somewhere a phone always RINGS, unanswered, and everyone seems hot.

HENRY steps off the elevator and plows into the thick of the place. He immediately unbuttons his shirt and strips off his tie. Last we’ll see of that today.

PHIL, fortyish, terrible posture, sees Henry and charges (X) after him.

C) PHIL Henry? Henry!

Henry speeds up, dodging him. He passes GRACE, the gossip columnist, who’s touching up her makeup.

limey hell. BLAISCH, in rewrite, shouts to the newsroom at large.

C) Henry nods to LOU, thirtyish, in rewrite.

10A. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

say ultimatums.

JANET, fiftyish, Henry’s assistant, sees him coming and follows him into a little kitchenette.

C).

‘ die 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

11 IN THE KITCHENETTE, 11

Henry goes to a Coke machine, fishes out enough change, and gets a Coke.

, HENRY What’s Phil want? He looks like he (X) sat on something sharp.

Henry’s office is a glass-walled place that looks out on the mess, sparsely furnished, running down like everything else in the building. HENRY hurries in, JANET hot on his trail. His phone is RINGING, and a POLICE SCANNER in the corner blares more or less constantly.

JANET , See, Phil’s still pissed that you (X) wouldn’t approve his six hundred dollar orthopedic chair --

Henry sits at his desk, answers his phone, and starts flipping through a pile of stuff on the desk.

He hangs up abruptly and smiles at Janet.

12. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED : 12

He hangs up the phone and looks at the glass of Coke he set on top of a ventilator shaft next to his desk. The glass is vibrating, trembling, the cubes inside TINKLING up against one another. Henry looks up at Janet.

enaey notices a GUY on the other side of the office, sleeping on his sofa, his back to them.

He throws a notebook at McDougal, who wakes up and rolls over. McDougal’s fortyish, going on seventy. He squints at the light.

McDOUGAL Sandusky.

couple of lousy columns?

McDOUGAL My columns aren’t lousy.

13. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

eo 12 CONTINUED: 12

McDOUGAL Six thousand dollars. Six thousand dollars damage to a vintage automobile.

McDOUGAL

Hey, I bust my ass to find something fresh, and when I get it, I bang it like a cheap drum. People love this shit, you should read my mail. Turn that scanner down, will ya? How the hell are. you supposed to sleep in here?

He rolls over and goes back to sleep.

He’s staring at a photograph that was in the pile. The phone starts to RING again.

© JANET

From the subway wreck at West 4th Street this morning. Did you find the one with the --

CARMEN ASENCIO, late twenties, Puerto Rican-American, steams (X) into the office.

C).

O

14. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

HENRY

Williamsburg is Wilder’s story; you trying to bigfoot him?

PHIL crowds into the office too.

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

C) ;

O

5... 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 12

She closes the door on him. Henry looks up at her, exhausted already. .

JANET ; What, about the Sentinel’ job? HENRY How do you know about the Sentinel (X) job?! McDougal opens one eye. (X) McDOUGAL Bernie told me. (X) HENRY Bernie knows?! JANET

It’s a newsroom, Henry. Look, it’s

none of my business, but do you

really want to count pencils uptown? (X) Is that you?

cur TO:

Bernie White’s office is another glass-walled room, bigger than Henry’s. Bernie has a two liter jug of orange soda nearby at all times, and a television behind him plays cartoons, the sound turned down.

Through his windows onto the newsroom, we see PHIL and a (X) COLUMNIST having a disagreement. HENRY pokes his head in the door just as BERNIE is ripping through today’s Sun.

O

Bernie holds

the paper up as if it smells.

BERNIE

I got a prostate the size of a bagel.

Henry is taken aback.

cur TO:

5/26/93

BERNIE and HENRY come out on the roof of the building, twenty-five stories above lower Manhattan.

17. 1st rev. 6/22/93

DAY

of the East River.

They stagger

to the railing, breathing hard.

Bernie just stares at him, lighting a cigarette.

Bernie still

stares, waving out the match.

HENRY (cont/’d)

It’s really more sideways than up. A little metro coverage, a lot of administrative. You know me, Bernie, the last thing I wanna be is a bean counter, but --

(still nothing from

Bernie) You can jump in any time here.

The view is mostly

(X)

©

O

18. ist rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

HENRY

No, me too. Every day, I’m behind from the minute I wake up, I think and I walk and I talk as fast as I can just to keep my head above water, I miss every single deadline and somehow we get it out anyway, I go home and fall into bed, get up, fight with my wife --

(and this is the weird

part) ~- and I can’t wait to get back in in the morning and do it again.

on their face -- "It changes your priorities," "you look at the world through new eyes." They’re like Moonies all of a sudden. Gone. Snatched.

BERNIE

Don’t ask marital advice from a guy | with two ex-wives and a daughter that won’t speak to him.

Henry sighs and looks out at the city. Bernie looks at him, trying to come up with advice.

(pause)

You do have a problem, Henry. But it’s your problem.

Henry just nods, contemplating this. Finally:

. 19. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 14

cut TO:

An old dresser sits in the middle of the living room, on top of some newspaper that’s been spread out on the floor. Tools and an unopened can of wood reviver wait on top of the dresser.

Also on the floor, a copy of "Moby Dick," opened to the first or second page, lies face down, abandoned next to an empty bowl of cereal, which is next to a chair.

In the chair is MARTHA, watching television, still in her bathrobe, staring dully at the set.

She holds the remote in one hand and leans on the button, never more than three seconds on a program.

The phone RINGS and she snaps out of it, practically leaping for the thing.

HENRY is on the phone in his office, liberally marking up a printout, the phone jammed onto his shoulder. JANET stands next to him, waiting.

HENRY

Because it’s not for another two hours. What’s up? Janet said you (X) called.

(to Janet) Tell Ray this is gassy, it’s got no color, it, it -- it sucks, is what it does. Do over.

She heads into the newsroom with the printout. HENRY (into phone) You okay? You need anything? Not right away, I mean, but in general?

(INTERCUT AS NEEDED)

20. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CO 16 CONTINUED: 16

Through the windows on the newsroom, Henry watches as Janet shoves the marked-up copy at BLAISCH.

Blaisch goes crazy, waving his arms in the air and snatching the copy.

Blaisch starts to march angrily toward Henry’s office. Henry rolls his eyes.

C).

21. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

. MARTHA

No, wait, stop, stop, stop -- HENRY ,

-- there it goes -- MARTHA

I’11 remember, I will, I will -- ! HENRY

Call me when you get it. See you,

love you -- (he hangs up) You’re nuts.

She sighs, hangs up the phone, and goes back to the TV.

grunts, thinking about something Henry said.

curt TO:

(yellow)

She

The elevator DINGS, the doors open, and ALICIA CLARK steps off, carrying a suit bag in one hand. She’s helping the

PARKING COP that was outside earlier with the other. shirt is torn now and he has a bloody nose.

Alicia deposits him at a GUY’s desk.

She heads off across the newsroom, past two AIR CONDITIONING

His

GUYS who have set up a ladder and are poking into the ceiling.

A sweaty GUY beseeches them.

- A.C. GUY ‘Bout two hours.

LISA, Alicia’s assistant, meets her coming across the room.

; LISA Hi, how was the meeting?

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)}

(X)

‘ 21A. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

As they walk, Alicia unloads her belongings on Lisa and takes C) a sheaf of notes in return. LISA Okay. Your decorator called. (Alicia groans in agony) She said the’ kind of wood Bruno picked for the chair rail wasn’t included in the guaranteed price and you have to approve another six hundred dollars.

22. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

(loud, so they will hear) Oh, Bobby called? - : LISA Well, his office, and said there are two seats left at his table for the benefit tonight --

Alicia’s face falls. She lowers her voice.

Lisa looks up, startled, but Alicia’s not talking to her anymore, she’s talking to HENRY, who’s headed across the newsroom in the same general direction.

23. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 17

© HENRY

What, you mean as a bonus? Great. We’1lli start with Phil here. (X)

PHIL, headed for Bernie’s office also, falls into step with them.

Seven or eight EDITORS are gathered in Bernie’s. office, all of

them talking as HENRY, ALICIA, and PHIL come in. There is a

thick, smoky haze in the air. Phil winces and waves his arms C) in annoyance as soon as he walks in the door.

BERNIE looks up from behind his desk.

The entire room breaks up.

Bernie speaks in a voice that quiets everyone.

C).

24. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

He throws today’s Sun on the table and it lands with a SLAP.

~ BERNIE (cont/’d) -- a parking story..

He looks around the room. It’s silent, except for a SNEEZE from MAX, the photo editor, who has a terrible cold.

Bernie sighs and lets the moment hang. Finally:

MAX, the photo editor with the terrible cold, speaks. MAX Yeah, Eddie picked up some nice spaghetti shots on this one. LOU, thirtyish, an assistant managing editor, offers: LOU

I like that arm shot. "Limbs Akimbo," we could call it.

-Near West 4th Street?

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

: 25. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CO 19 CONTINUED: 19 ‘ ALICIA (correcting his pronunciation) Caribbean. (X) HENRY (one way) Tomato. ; (X) ALICIA (the other way) Tomato. (X) Laughter. BERNIE What about the motorman? ‘They find him yet? HENRY

; (checking his notes) Uh -- yes. In his neighborhood bar, drunk as a skunk.

C) beers?

HENRY

What do you do after you step over

bodies? ALICIA

Smoke a cigarette and go to sleep. (X) HENRY

(continuing) What else -- we got an above average (X)

bank robbery in the Bronx, an exploding hand grenade in Hoboken --

C) CARL, features editor, is in his early thirties, good looking. Alicia watches him while he speaks. Alicia’s got an eye.

C).

O

: 26. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED : 19

All the men wince. Henry holds up today’s paper, open toa certain page. . .

Florida. There’s Sarasota. I don’t (X) even want to say what the Keys look like. BERNIE Business?

JERRY, the business editor, is one of the few who wears a shirt and tie.

Even though he’s been raising his voice over his last line, Jerry is already drowned out by jeers and thrown paper as everyone reacts as though they’ve heard this from him a dozen times.

Another editor, ANNA, mid-fifties and been at this a hell of a long time, speaks up.

C).

27. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

Several people chip in "None from New York."

Bernie’s SECRETARY sticks her head in the door.

Bernie rolls his eyes. People GRUMBLE their feelings about whoever this guy is.

Everyone OOOHS.

Inexplicably, they all burst into APPLAUSE. EMMETT, mid-thirties, is the only one who stands when he speaks. He looks self-conscious, as if expecting to be cut off at any moment. While he talks, everyone seems to think of something they have to say to whoever’s next to them. ‘

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

C):

28. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

can) Mets are gonna get their clocks cleaned in L-A. again, Yankees are at home but who cares they’re still twelve and a half behind the Brewers and nobody’s really chasing ’em any more --

HENRY

Hey, did Emmett get in yet? JERRY

No, I don’t think so. Why? EMMETT

(ignoring them) -- Stovavich failed his drug test again --

HENRY

She had a boyfriend, it’s okay. LOU

And you’re not that good looking. EMMETT

Hey, saw it off. HENRY

"He explained." JERRY

I’ll take twenty-five on Sabatini.

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(x)

28A. 3rd rev.

7/16/93 (yellow)

(X)

Emmett drops back into his seat, writing down more bets as they come in. Bernie turns and goes into a long, disgusting smoker’s hack. The room is silent by the time he finishes. He looks at Alicia, in whose direction he was coughing.

Alicia shakes her head, disgusted.

Max SNEEZES and holds up the gruesome pictures.

(X)

C).

O

19 CONTINUED:

29. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

ALICIA

The subway is a major story. ANNA

Nobody died! LoU

(hopeful) A bunch got maimed, didn’t they?

There is general approval of this. Bernie drops his head in his hands as people MUTTER, encouraged by head injuries.

early. (MORE)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

305 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 19

Henry rolls his eyes, there are more OOOOHS.

cut TO:

This is the newsroom of The New York Sentinel, and the contrast with the newsroom of the Sun could not be greater. Everything has a burnished, time-worn, expensive feel, ppatuniag the STAFFERS, every one of whom wears a suit and tie.

It’s quieter than the Sun too, the hush of important work

going on. Henry walks across the room, to what looks like it might be a receptionist’s desk. A GUY is on a headset,

talking on the phone in French. (X)

Henry makes a gesture, but the Guy holds him off with a finger and keeps talking.

Henry waits. He looks around. Except for him, everyone in the room is wearing a suit and tie. He pulls his tieless shirt collar together uncomfortably.

Finally, the Guy takes off the headset and stands.

The Guy walks right around him, ignoring him.

THUNK. He hits the wall --

-~ and disappears around a corner. Henry sighs and consults the plastic covered map. “

31. 5/26/93

PAUL BLADDEN, mid-forties, very buttoned-down, sits behind a desk in an office with a window. HENRY sits across from hin. Bladden leans back, hands behind his head. He seems to enjoy interviews.

Bladden looks down disapprovingly at Henry’s open collar. Henry darts a hand to it, uncomfortable.

Henry just stares at him for a moment, taken aback.

But he’s said it with the implication that others don’t. Henry looks at him sideways as Bladden turns to a stack of stuff on his desk.

21 CONTINUED:

32. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

Bladden is lookin for something on his desk.

Henry fights back the urge to punch him in the teeth.

But Henry’s not listening, he’s still burning. over being called a cute little paper.

Bladden sits forward.

33. 5/26/93

Bladden puts his arms on his desk rather awkwardly, and as he does so, he gives everything away.

Because ever so casually, he slides a file folder a foot to the right and covers a legal pad with handwritten notes on the front. Henry can see just the corner of a dark, heavy box that has been drawn around something, but the file covers it.

Henry smiles.

- HENRY The book.

He turns his chair and pulls himself over to a bookcase behind him. He bends down to a lower shelf, to look there.

All in one motion, Henry straightens up, lifts the file, and cranes his head to get a good look at that pencilled box. He

HENRY walks quickly across the Sentinel newsroom, pulling a reporter’s notebook and pen from his jacket pocket. He scribbles: -

"Hanson/MacGregor -- Sedona Savings board."

He grins and SNAPS his notebook shut.

cur TO:

©

34. A1st rev. 6/22/93 (b

DAY

lue)

BERNIE WHITE is in a doctor’s office, in his tee shirt and boxer shorts, getting dressed after an examination. His DOCTOR is washing his hands.

Bernie looks a bit shell-

shocked. DOCTOR

Don’t overreact. If we go after it early, before it metastacizes to a bone, the majority of prostate cancer cases are beatable.

BERNIE

Go after it -- how?

DOCTOR

Irridation therapy.

BERNIE

Well, that’s fantastic. That is, that’s wonderful, because as it turns out that’s exactly the portion of my

anatomy I’d radiation.

like to see exposed to

The Doctor just looks at him, absolutely no reaction.

I’m kidding.

You’11 need

BERNIE (cont/’d)

for each treatment, and we should

start right

away. How’s next Monday?

BERNIE

To burn a hole in my ass? Sounds

good. Then

I still have the weekend.

Again, the Doctor just stares at him.

BERNIE (cont/’d)

Could you possibly be any more humorless about this?

DOCTOR

I don’t believe so, no.

On a TV in the newsroom, GUYS at the airport.

a handsome REPORTER interviews

(X) (X) (X)

TWO

| | (x) (x)

. 35. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 24

_ REPORTER -- racial incidents like this make you think twice about visiting New York?

LOU, who sits next to BLAISCH, shouts from his desk.

JERRY, the business editor, is on the phone at a desk, angry.

BERNIE steams past.

In his office, BERNIE punches a phone number he gets not from his Rolodex, but from a business card he holds in his hand. His wallet is open on the desk in front of him. He waits, . apprehensively, while the phone rings on the other end. When someone answers:

He’s put on hold. While he waits, he turns slowly in his chair and looks out the window on the newsroom. LOU and TWO STAFFERS are gathered outside. Lou has pasted McDougal’s head on a picture of a woman in a bikini and they laugh as he tacks it up on a bulletin board.

Bernie’s still waiting. It’s a long wait, and getting longer. The more he has to wait the more uncomfortable he becomes. Outside the window, Lou draws something on the cutout and Staffers laugh hysterically. Bernie turns away from the window, embarrassed. Then angry. Then --

-- someone picks up on the other end.

(X)

(X)

(X)

36. 5/26/93

CONTINUED: 25

He hangs up, quickly. More than anything, he just feels like an idiot.

MARTHA is eating lunch at a patio restaurant in the Village with SUSAN, a woman in her late thirties. It’s hot, they’re in tee shirts. There is a half-full bottle of wine on the table. Martha has had none, Susan’s had lots and is pouring herself more.

writing fiction --

37. 1st rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

C) 26 CONTINUED: * 26

Susan tops off her glass, which is already full. (X)

SUSAN ~ I had projects. I made lists. (X) Things I always wanted to do but . never had the time? But you know what my hobby turned out to be? C) Living Bob’s life. I hung on his every word, I obsessed about what he was doing at work, who he was talking to, who he had to take crap from --

This is starting to sound uncomfortably familiar to Martha.

She takes a long drink of her wine.

38. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: . 26 MARTHA Susan, can I ask you a personal question? SUSAN Shoot. My life is an open pop-up (X) book. . MARTHA Is it -- I mean, it is worth it, right? SUSAN

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do this to you. Look, it’s all, uh -- Manageable. The physical pain. The loss of adult contact. Less money coming in. Feeling worthless around people who do work. All the

crap -- you | can’t even remember it the first time you see your new baby.

But?

She stops herself, just looking at Martha for a long moment. SUSAN (cont’d) The fact of the matter is that once you have kids, a man’s best work can still be ahead of him, but a woman’s is very definitely in the past. Martha swallows. That off her chest, Susan seems to brighten.

Martha forces a smile.

; MARTHA Me too. She looks at her watch. (X) cuT TO:

ALICIA CLARK is looking at he watch too, or, more (X)

specifically, at the skin around her wrist. ‘She sits on the edge of a bed, her blouse unbuttoned, raising her wrist up and down, staring at her skin.

39. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 - (pink)

27 CONTINUED:

CARL, the features editor, is also getting dressed in what we now see is a hotel room.

-CARL : Age has nothing to do with it. If anybody pushes their skin together, it bunches up.

Your skin is the central preoccupation of my life.

He kisses her as he walks past. She smiles. He is sweet. But then she looks around.

She finishes buttoning her blouse and picks up her bag. ALICIA (cont/’d) I don’t know. Did you ever wonder if one day you’1l just reach the point where --

She stops, looking at him. He is eager to sympathize. Too eager.

cur TO:

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(x)

(X)

(X)

(X)

39A. 2nd rev. 7/12/33 (pink)

As cartoons BLARE in the background, today’s issue of the Daily News sits on a coffee table next to an open pizza box, the picture of the shot-up car screaming out from page one.

The two KIDS from last night, the ones who first stumbled across the car, sit in a very modest Brooklyn apartment,

watching TV and eating pizza.

BAM! !

40. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 28 The front door explodes open and COPS pour in, guns drawn.

But the Cops are on them, SHOUTING, running, knocking the Kids to the floor and cuffing then.

A fax machine spits out a fax. A YOUNG GUY grabs it and carries it across the newsroom, past a TV, where Gabriela Sabatini whistles an ace right past Steffi Graf.

EMMETT, the sports editor, watches, chewing a nail.

JERRY, the business editor, with whom he has a bet, stands over his shoulder, chuckling.

The Young Guy delivers the fax to ANNA, who sits at a desk under the big clock on the wall. It’s three o’clock.

The Young Guy drops a stack of copies on the desk outside (X) Bernie’s office as Bernie opens his door and SHOUTS to no one in particular.

A few STAFFERS passing by quicken their pace to get out of his eyesight.

OC 29

O

41. 2nd rev. 7/12/93

He turns and walks into his office.

ALICIA is waiting in BERNIE’s office as he comes in.

(pink)

Alicia just looks at him. She makes a face, and both of them seem to immediately know what she’s talking about. Bernie

falls back in his chair.

can’t --

ALICIA

I have other offers. Don’t make me bring up the other offers.

(X)

42. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

. BERNIE Alicia --

Alicia looks at her watch.

dikes nate

O

43. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

BERNIE (cont/d)

In sixty-eight, a bunch of us that were covering the Olympics in Grenoble decided to go to the best restaurant in town. The menu didn’t

. have any prices, but we were on

expense accounts, so we just figured

fuck it and got drunk. Well, somehow

there ended up being, I.don’t know,

fifteen or twenty of us at the table,

and when the check came it was nine (X) thousand dollars. :

(pause)

Because the old guy was Pablo Picasso.

don’t get the money. Never have, never will.

Alicia gets up and goes to the window.

A3A. 1st rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

44, 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 30

On a computer in the newsroom, a GRAPHICS GUY works on a new sketch of a penis. It goes from a map of Florida to a balloon at the end of a hose. He keeps trying.

A COPY EDITOR calls to the YOUNG GUY for last Tuesday’s (X) edition. Meanwhile, BLAISCH shouts.

ALICIA steams out of Bernie’s office, closes the door hard behind her, turns to head for her office --

-- and bumps right into HENRY. She MUMBLES an apology and keeps on, barely pausing.

We stay with Henry, who’s headed the other way.

He heads for his office. Janet’s desk is empty, so he breezes inside.

McDOUGAL is still asleep on the couch. HENRY goes to him, pulls up a chair, and pokes him in the ass with a pencil.

favor. Do you remember Sedona Sa-

‘ 45, 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

O 32 CONTINUED: 32

As McDougal struggles up to a sitting position, Henry sees inside his jacket. McDougal’s packing.

McDOUGAL I told you, Sandusky’s after me. HENRY When did you get so paranoid? McDOUGAL When they started plotting against (X)

me. MARTHA hurries into Henry’s office, distraught.

McDOUGAL (suspicious) Why?

ven Outside the door, Bernie is pacing the halls, his mood not C) getting any better, SHOUTING to the newsroom at large.

MARTHA

No, it cannot wait! This is our marriage here, Henry, okay?!

marriage?!

46. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CO 32 CONTINUED: 32

McDOUGAL I don’t read this newspaper.

Take my word for it, we did a piece. Do you still have that friend in the Justice Department? McDOUGAL Sure, but he hates me now.

C) HENRY (still to McDougal)

Can you get an investor list out of him?

; HENRY

(back to McDougal) A list of major investors, guys who lost the most money, especially from New York. Brooklyn, maybe.

CARMEN, the reporter Henry sent up to Williamsburg earlier in the day, hurries into the office, flushed.

46A. 4th rev. 7/29/93 (green)

MARTHA McDOUGAL Hiya. (to Henry) (to Henry) Bust is no good.

Can we please talk alone?

arresting cops think it’s totally cosmetic.

47. 4th rev. 7/29/93 (green)

WILDER, a reporter, late forties, comes into the office,

furious.

He sees Carmen.

McDOUGAL

Hey, let Martha talk to her husband.

PHIL, the guy with the bad back and no desk or chair, plows in, waving a receipt over his head.

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

O

48. 4th rev. 7/29/93

Phil SLAMS the receipt down on Henry’s desk.

McDOUGAL Let Martha talk to her husband. The hell’s the matter with you people?

THREE-OH-NINE!

JANET, Henry’s assistant, appears in the doorway.

Martha SNEEZES and sits quickly, looking down at her lap.

(green)

(X)

O.

49. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

BANG! !

(X)

(X)

Everyone shuts up immediately as an ear-splitting gun blast RIPS through the office. Some scream, some fall back, all

turn to McDougal in disbelief.

He stands at the edge of the room, his smoking gun pointed down at a tall stack of newspapers with a bullethole through

the top.

McDOUGAL (calmly, as if explaining it to idiots) Let. Martha. Talk to her husband.

They all just stare at him in stunned silence.

McDOUGAL (cont/’d) Please.

They start to clear out.

McDougal pauses as he closes the door behind him. necktie out of his jacket pocket.

McDOUGAL You two take your time. I’m on the Sedona thing.

(X)

(X)

(x)

He pulls a

And he’s gone, off to deal with the BUZZING, curious crowd that is swarming toward Henry’s office to ask about the

gunshot.

50. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

cut TO:

MARTHA follows HENRY into the paper’s tiny kitchenette. HENRY I’ve got like sixty-four seconds. What’s wrong?

He goes to the Coke machine and digs in his pocket for change.

Behind him, BLAISCH, with a Nerf football, motions a guy to (X) go deep. MARTHA Why don’t you let me go to Justice (X)

for you? I’ve got a much better contact than McDougal does.

Henry’s still digging for more change. Blaisch’s phone rings (xX) and he sits down, forgetting the guy who went deep.

Yes, he offered it, but I said I have to think about it. Dime’11i do it.

He takes her purse from her and hunts for change.

33A

51. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 33

A SECURITY GUARD sticks his head in. Henry finds a coin in Martha’s purse and goes to the Coke machine.

GUARD ~ Anybody hear a gunshot?

The Guard nods and leaves. Henry is staring at the Coke machine in disbelief.

HENRY and MARTHA hurry across the newsroom to the other Coke machine.

They pass the two AIR CONDITIONING GUYS, who have pulled a (X) bunch of stuff out of the ceiling and are pointing in opposite directions, arguing about where the problem is.

©:

52. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

334A CONTINUED:

BANG!

Henry gets a Coke from the other machine.

MARTHA : Bullshit. You hate him. I don’t want to hate you.

A GUY walks past, headed for the meeting.

GUY

Henry -- they’re doin’ it now -- HENRY

I gotta go. MARTHA

Fine. Me too. I/11 see you tonight at eight thirty. Gus’s Cafe. Your. parents.

(he groans) Please, don’t be late, please.

(yellow)

33A

(X)

33A

; 53. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 33A

He kisses her. She elbows him.

cur TO:

The EDITORS are all assembled in Bernie’s office and the staff meeting is underway when HENRY hurries in, embarrassed. Bernie refers to a dictionary that is open in front of him.

ALICIA comes in.

Laughter. As Alicia passes, Henry turns and looks out the glass windows on the newsroom. He watches Martha as she comes out of the ladies’ room and walks across the room, leaving.

He looks a little sad.

CO 34 CONTINUED:

They laugh.

54. 5th rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

Everyone sits up and takes notice. Henry refers to his notes.

They look at

_, HENRY (cont’d) Two black kids, in Fort Greene. One (X) of ‘em has a record.

ALICIA

So we get ‘em at the perpwalk. What’s the wood?

Uh, something simple. "Caught," something like that? _

ANNA

Oh yeah. God forbid this paper runs anything without an exclamation point.

54A. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

Henry darts a look out the windows on the newsroom. WILDER is on the phone next to the window. Henry throws a pencil at the window, but Wilder doesn’t hear it.

He throws another pencil at the window. Wilder still doesn’t hear it.

C):

The room breaks up.

55. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

They called us cute, I was there --

Henry looks back to Wilder. He picks up a coffee decides against throwing it. He gets up and goes

Henry leans out the door and looks desperately to

Somebody CLAPS Henry on the back.

(X)

mug, but to the door.

(X) (X)

Wilder.

(X)

Oo

56. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

34 CONTINUED:

. ALICIA Fine, good lead, let’s follow it up for tomorrow, but without a confirmation we still run "Gotcha."

Laughter.

While others debate the issue, Emmett gets beeped and Bernie leans back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, and Alicia moves on, reading from the printed skeds. The meeting dissolves into chaos for a moment.

BERNIE

Race wars, subway

wrecks, dying people, maimed people, people coming back from the dead --

Hey. These aren’t some publicity hounds who crawled into the cage and deserve whatever happens to ‘em. These are two teenagers who might not exactly enjoy the whole

prison experience.

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(x)

(X)

C).

34 CONTINUED:

S7s 3rd rev. 7/16/93

Everyone turns to Bernie, who is getting a headache.

Me

BERNIE

What time are they gonna walk ‘em? HENRY

Seven thirty. LOU

Seven thirty?! Do the cops do that to annoy us?

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

Bernie holds the sternest

58. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

one finger out to Henry, a warning, and this is we‘ve ever seen hin.

Henry shuts up, surprised.

BERNIE (cont/’d)

You don’t have it, and you know it. (X) You wanna run the story? You’ve got five hours until eight o’clock, go

et the story. Do your job, don’t just take a position because it’s the opposite --

(gestures to Alicia)

-- of what she says. It’s like watching a bunch of sixth graders, for Christ’s sake.

The room is absolutely silent. Bernie looks around, still pissed, but now mostly with himself. for losing his temper. He looks around.

the perpwalk.

He leaves the room, leaving everyone else in stunned silence. Finally, JERRY, the business editor, speaks.

What else?

O

O

59. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

GRACE, the gossip columnist, is on the phone. : (X) GRACE Darling, I’m not saying you slept (X) with him. (pause)

But everyone else is.

HENRY stalks across the newsroom, ticked. He passes the two AIR CONDITIONING GUYS, who are moving their ladder.

The same GUY that talked to them earlier now begs them.

GUY

So how much longer? (X) A.C. GUY

‘Bout two hours. (X)

Henry walks under a sign that says "Photo," goes between some file cabinets, and comes into a smallish area jammed with photography equipment and pasted-up pictures.

Sensing Henry’s mood, the Guy just points to the far corner. Henry keeps on.

In the corner, ROBIN, a young woman barely out of college, is bent over a desk, looking at proof sheets with a loup.

iat HENRY (cont’d) Robin?

Robin, startled, straightens up quickly, bumping her head on a shelf above her. She turns around, rubbing it.

Robin nods and tries to force a smile so she doesn’t look quite so scared shitless.

By)

59A. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

HENRY ‘ Yes. It’s big, Robin. If you miss this shot, Alicia can’t run the page one she wants. Do you understand?

cut TO:

(yellow)

©

60. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

PHIL smiles, taking the plastic off a six hundred dollar orthopedic office chair and taping a "DO NOT TOUCH" sign to the back. HENRY walks past him, passing BERNIE.

He goes into his office. Bernie follows and leans against the door frame.

Henry just nods. Bernie looks intently at the door frame, lost in his own thoughts.

Bernie thinks for a second. He smiles.

@ 36 CONTINUED:

“ck

6l. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

cur

Not any more.

The clock on the wall says it’s ten

and the newsroom is noticeably more crowded, PHIL the same COLUMNIST he argued with this morning.

C) HENRY walks quickly, digging through a pocket. He

JANET, who is on the phone, fielding a complaint. HENRY Wilder back? JANET No. HENRY

Damn. Got any change?

after six, argues with

passes

He flinches and heads for the Coke machine anyway, counting the little change he’s got.

On a TV in the background in the newsroom, Gabriela Sabatini holds a huge trophy over her head triumphantly at the U.S. Open. EMMETT sits next to the TV, hanging his head, as

- STAFFERS drift by and collect their bets from his emptying

wallet.

Henry passes rewrite.

oversized computer screen next to BLAISCH.

LOU calls out to him from behind an

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

62. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 37

On his screen, a picture of the subway wreck is prominently displayed, with a shot of the motorman and-a splashy,

single-word headline -- "SMASHED!" (X) ce ” HENRY

Sure. It fits. Blaisch, you got any

change? BLAISCH

If you got another word for

"mangled." LOU

(to Henry)

The thing is it implies he was drunk while he was driving the train. He could have got drunk afterwards.

ANNA, passing, hears Lou’s comment.

Blaisch flips him a coin and Henry counts his change anew.

Blaisch zooms back in his chair. It’s a very nice chair, by the way. ,

HENRY

Ray, I can think of another word for all of ‘en.

cuT TO:

HENRY: types the subway story, sitting at Blaisch’s desk.

BLAISCH himself just stares morosely over his shoulder. WILDER hurries up to Henry.

63. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

C— 38 CONTINUED: 38

HENRY

Where’d you go? WILDER

Police headquarters. (X) HENRY

Michael ~- you gotta go to the precinct on this stuff! Of course nobody’s talkin’ at DCPI, if they were givin’ it out at DCPI, even Newsweek could get it, for God’s sakes.

Behind them, a GUY trying to talk on the phone shouts in annoyance.

Another GUY leaps up, mocking him.

LOU leans in.

HENRY

It’s not gonna matter.

EMMETT walks past quickly, looking over his shoulder. He bumps into JANET, who walks over to Henry.

Emmett! Hey, Emmett! Janet dumps a handful of change in front of Henry.

, JANET O You can never ask anybody again. (X)

C).

, 64, 3rd rev. 7/16/93

HENRY

Hey, did McDougal call in?

: JANET

No. HENRY

No message at all from McDougal? JANET

I have no motive for lying, Henry. LOU

Henry, hang on, I’1l make a proof of

"Smashed." HENRY

I’m going down to composing to see some early pages, I’ll see it there.

He scoops up his change and gets up.

Henry takes off toward the Coke machine, passing a desk PHIL returns to, with a bag of coffee.

There is no new chair at the desk, just a wooden stool.

Henry passes another television, where a TV REPORTER is outside One Police Plaza, in front of a growing crowd.

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

that

(X)

(X)

(X)

Henry passes CARMEN, who is on the phone at another desk.

(X)

65. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 38

He looks at the clock. The minutes actually tick off as he watches.

KA-CHUNK! He gets his Coke.

cuT TO:

PoW! The clock’s hands jump forward to 7:21. HENRY is in the composing room now, a long, narrow room full of composing tables where the pages of the paper are actually cut and

pasted together. Every thirty seconds or so, a big camera mounted on a rotating easel FLASHES and takes a picture ofa

pasted up page. One by one, the pages become official.

HENRY and LOU are looking at a composing board that has the "Smashed?" page one with the art of the subway.

ALICIA walks past and stops at the board.

HENRY

The art’s not back yet. Bernie wants a back-up. This is it.

A CAMERA OPERATOR takes the board and mounts it on the rotating easel.

C)

66. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 39

Alicia moves on.

FOOM! The Operator photographs the "Smashed?" paste-up. (X) cur TO: .

BERNIE stands in the lobby of the Federal Building, downtown.

The ceiling is huge, vaulted, and the place is filled with the

noise and bustle of ATTORNEYS and OTHERS headed home at the end of the day.

Bernie is leaning against a wall, watching the elevators. A door DINGS, opens, and spills its contents. Bernie checks out the PASSENGERS as they file out.

He freezes when he sees one person in particular --

-- DEANNE WHITE, late twenties, in a business suit, headed swiftly for the revolving doors at the front of the building.

Bernie moves fast and intercepts her.

7 BERNIE Deanne --

She stops, staring at him. BERNIE (cont’d) Just give me a second. It won’t kill you. .

She looks both ways and steps out of the flow of traffic. He looks at her, nervous, and he’s breathing hard.

67. 5/26/93

CONTINUED: 40

She scratches her face with her left hand and he sees a gold wedding band.

Bernie’s breathing harder now, can’t seem to catch his breath.

He sits down on a-bench and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. She pauses, concerned.

I’ve made it very clear I don’t wish to --

68. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

Deanne flushes. She turns and walks away. Bernie gets up and hurries after her.

ran on the Murray Hill trial. I was proud. I just wanted to tell you that.

She nods, just looking at him.

This midtown fern bar is crowded with BUSINESS TYPES having a drink before their commute. MARTHA is at a table with TOM, fortyish, gray suit, gray face.

He’s been telling a story. He likes Martha. MARTHA

(laughing politely) That’s funny. That’s so funny.

69. 5/26/93

CO 41 CONTINUED: 41

MARTHA

They would, I bet they would. TOM

So where’s Henry tonight? MARTHA

Working. TOM

(pause)

Well, give him my regards. Sure you don’t want some juice or something?

So did you bring the list, Tom? His face falls. He just looks at her for a long moment.

He looks both ways, reaches down into his briefcase, and comes up with a thin manila file. He puts it on the table.

Martha studies the list. Tom studies Martha. A long moment passes.

O

70. 2nd rev. 7/12/93

. TOM (cont’d)

Hey, Martha. Tell me something. Did you honestly find even one of ny stories funny?

Martha looks him in the eye.

She goes back to the list and stops, suddenly, seeing something there.

(pink)

“421

There is a mass of PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS jammed outside the side door of the Brooklyn criminal court building. They jockey for position, shouting and bitching, as a couple of UNIFORM COPS

struggle to make a corridor through them, a clear way from the

doorway to a squad car that waits in the driveway.

ROBIN, the young photographer we saw earlier, is at the back of the throng, camera in hand, trying to push her way to the

front. But she’s too polite --

fault --

~~ and she ends up shoved to the back again. She plows

forward, resolute, and actually bulls her way into the middle

of the pack, but the side door opens, the crowd shifts,

stampedes forward, and Robin is squeezed out like a watermelon

seed.

(xX)

71. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 - (pink)

CONTINUED: 42

Nobedy’s listening. Stuck at the back of the crowd, Robin jumps, to get a view over the others. The TWO KIDS, their heads hung to escape the strobing cameras, are brought out the side door of the building and escorted by the Cops to the waiting car.

Robin, seeing she has no shot from here, turns and runs toward the car, trying to beat the rest of the crowd there.

She stakes out her ground near the car door, turns for the shot, and --

-- the crowd is upon her.

She barely has time to open her eyes in shock when they swarm over her, sending her reeling. She SHOUTS as she goes down and instinctively presses the shutter button on her camera. The autowinder WHIRRS, snapping off eight or nine shots at a bizarre angle as Robin hits the pavement and the Kids are whisked past her, into the back of the car, and driven away at top speed.

The crowd of Photographers dissipates, those who got their shots headed back to their papers, those who didn’t chasing after the car.

Robin, alone, sits up in the middle of the street. She sighs. curt TO:

HENRY is in his office, at the computer. JANET yells from her desk.

Henry whirls, grabs the phone and punches a button.

CARMEN is at a phone booth outside a Brooklyn precinct house.

The phone on

72. and rev. 7/12/93

NEEDED)

his desk rings. Janet SHOUTS. JANET Wifeline!

” HENRY Hang on, Carmen. . (punching a button) I’m not late yet!

MARTHA is on

Pause.

the phone in a booth, very excited.

(pink)

(X)

45 (X)

(X)

O

T3s 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 45

ALICIA has changed into the rather formal dress she hung on

the back of her door this morning. Packing up to leave, she looks up at the clock on her wall. It’s 8:25. She rests one (xX) hand on the ventilator shaft, feeling for something.

She frowns and shakes her head, ticked off.

HENRY is still on the phone, thinking fast.

e 47 CONTINUED:

Janet shouts

74. 2nd rev. 7/12/93

again.

HENRY

Shit, hold on.

(punch, now very calm) Paul. 1/11 be with you in just one second. Thanks.

(punch) Marty. God, you’re good, I’m running this tonight.

- HENRY No! Today! Today! Today! Today!

ALICIA storms in.

. Gotta go, see you, bye.

(punch) Carmen? Just write up what you got, I’1l get the quote myself.

(punch) Paul? What can I say, I’m gonna owe you one. Ninety seconds more.

Henry turns his attention to Alicia.

(X)

(X)

(X)

©

75. 1st rev. 6/22/93

ALICIA

You sent Robin to cover the Williamsburg perpwalk?!

(MORE)

(blue)

(x)

(X)

76. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 47

She storms out. Janet sticks her head in the doorway immediately.

Henry takes a deep breath and picks up the phone.

HENRY : Sorry about that, Paul. Listen, I thought I had until tomorrow morn-

PAUL BLADDEN is on the phone in his office. (INTERCUT AS NEEDED)

Henry sits back in his chair. This is a tricky one.

are working on a Sedona story, how did you find out about it? Do you guys have .a mole over here at our paper?

‘o

77. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

you not take the item?

Pause. Henry thinks. Bladden waits. Henry clears his throat. Finally:

Janet sticks her head in.

Henry waves her off.

He summons himself for one last try.

(yellow)

(X)

(X)

(xX)

(X)

(X)

O

And he SLAMS

Pause.

78. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

the phone down.

MARTHA waits She’s alone,

outside Gus’s Cafe, a small restaurant downtown. and she’s annoyed.

Henry’s MOTHER and FATHER come down the street. They’re in their late sixties, small town. They beam when they see Martha. She forces a smile.

HENRY’S MOTHER Oh my God, you’re going to explode! .

(X)

(x)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

‘ 78A. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

HENRY’S FATHER Where’s Henry?

She looks at her watch. It’s 8:35.

PoW! The clock in the newsroom leaps ahead again, and now it’s 8:50.

In contrast to earlier, the place has thinned out a bit, PEOPLE are either leaving or envying those who are. EMMETT leaves dejectedly, comforted by JERRY. :

HENRY is standing over Blaisch’s shoulder, reading from the notes he took from Martha. People who pass them pause to chat but move on quickly when they realize the hour and the lack of front page.

: 79. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

C 50 CONTINUED: 50

He looks up at the clock.

He grabs his jacket and charges across the newsroom. McDOUGAL is coming the other way.

McDOUGAL Hey! I couldn’t get squat out of Justice, I told you my friend hates me. Why don’t you send Marty, she

knows that --

nine-one hate you too? (X)

McDOUGAL. (thinks) ;

Not for good reason. Why?

HENRY

Gotta talk to him. Pick me up in front of Gus’s in ten minutes, okay?

McDOUGAL What’s with all the grunt work, Henry? I’m a columnist.

Henry jumps into an open elevator and hits a button.

McDOUGAL

(grumbling, walking away) What is this bullshit with picking up and going places and clipboards and -- why don’t you pick up a God . damn phone instead of sending people

C) all over fucking town on wild -- (he trails off)

O

80. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 50 JANET catches up to him just as the doors are closing. JANET Henry! You can’t leave till you okay page one!

The doors close and he’s gone. The doors of the other elevator open a second later, revealing --

-- ROBIN, the photographer.

; CUT TO:

The Bear’s Head is a bastion of New York journalism, a smoky, (X) dark place with a lot of framed book jackets on the wall from books written by the guys at the bar. A TV over the bar is tuned to New York One news. A REPORTER narrates tape from the perpwalk earlier.

TONY, the bartender, ageless, slides a drink in front of BERNIE, who’s seated at the bar.

81. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: ‘ 51

There is a SAD GUY at the end of the bar, small, baldish, despondent. Bernie gestures to Tony and points to the Sad Guy.

me & TONY

(shrugs) Never seen him before. Says he’s waitin’ for a fight.

’ BERNIE (to the Sad Guy) A fight? A fight with who?

Bernie looks back to Tony, who shrugs. On the television, the Reporter wraps up and they cut back to the ANCHOR.

Tony does. - curt TO:

HENRY skids around a corner and into the dining room of Gus’s. (X)

A few DINERS look up, but he slows to a walk and strides quickly over to the table where MARTHA and his PARENTS are sitting. A few tables away, a COUPLE has two KIDS with them. The noisy kind. z

oe)

82. 5/26/93

CONTINUED: 52 Henry kisses his mother.

HENRY’S FATHER Made it in an hour forty-five.

HENRY’S MOTHER It was two hours, it’s a two hour drive. Nobody can make it in an hour forty-five.

HENRY’S FATHER Well, nobody but me, because I had my watch and I timed it. (quickly, to have the last word) So how's work?

Henry kisses Martha and sits.

. HENRY Work is okay.

HENRY’S MOTHER Oh, you liar! Martha told us about the Sentinel job. Congratulations. Let’s get some champagne!

Henry gives Martha a dirty look. She smiles sweetly.

HENRY’S FATHER The New York Sentinel! Now that’s what I call a newspaper!

Henry shoots a brief, annoyed look at his father, then nervously checks his watch. Martha looks at him sharply and he shoots his cuff over it, trying to look innocent.

The WAITER, a thick-set guy of sixty or so, comes to the table.

As Henry’s mother starts to order, the sound seems to drain away for Henry, and for us, as a bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face.

Behind him, the two Kids are out of their chairs, making a racket, and their high-pitched voices seem to fill Henry’s whole head.

83. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: , 52

The Waiter moves on, taking Martha’s order. Henry sneaks a look at his watch. It’s eight fifty-eight. (X)

The Waiter turns his attention to Henry’s father. Martha, noticing Henry’s distress, puts her hand on his.

Henry nods and looks down again. He shifts his wrist slightly, to pull his watch out from under her hand so he can see it.

It’s eight fifty-nine. (X)

The Waiter turns to Henry, and all the sound of the restaurant returns, including the Kids, who are even louder.

Henry looks over at them, annoyed.

Henry looks around the table. He swallows. He manages to force a sickly smile.

He looks at Martha, who is just about ready to draw a gun.

HENRY (cont’d)

-- you in particular, I have a feeling, might get a real kick out of it. I, uh --

He looks around the table. All eyes are on him. He just plows through this next all at once.

They just look at him for a long moment.

HENRY’S FATHER It was a two hour drive!

84. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 52

HENRY’S MOTHER | They don’t even let you eat dinner now?

They look at him, dumbfounded. The Waiter SNAPS his book shut. :

. WAITER I can see you need a few minutes.

HENRY and MARTHA are in front of the restaurant, arguing.

She laughs at his unintentional joke. She just looks at him for a moment, and she seems to shrink into herself. Her eyes moisten.

She starts to cry. He goes to her and puts his arms around her, comforting. She cries into his shoulder.

O

85. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 53

Lee MARTHA A guy with a gun breaks into the house and holds it to my head. He says, "Either I blow your wife’s brains out or I blow up the Sun building. Choose. Now." What do you say?

MARTHA

That’s my point, Henry. It’s never one big, dramatic choice, it’s little, vague situations every single day and you’re either there or you’re not. If you keep waiting for the guy with the gun, you’1l1 look up one day and it’ll be too late.

A car SCREECHES to a stop at the curb. The driver leans over and shouts out the window. It’s McDOUGAL.

McDOUGAL Henry! ‘Nine o’clock! Let’s go!

He throws open the passenger door. Henry looks from it to Martha. *

She just looks at him.

(X)

(X)

86. 1st rev. 6/22/93

53 CONTINUED:

McDOUGAL Henry!

Henry just looks at her.

* HENRY (pause)

I’1l see you at home. Two hours, tops. .

She just looks at him.

(blue)

©

87. 1st rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

CONTINUED: 53

McDougal BLASTS the horn.

He turns, jumps in the car, SLAMS the door, and they take off.

A contact sheet floats in a fixer bath, bathed in reddish light.

ROBIN, in the paper’s darkroom, takes a pair of tongs and pulls the contact sheet out. She rinses it quickly in a water tank, drops it on a hard board, and squeegies it dry.

She puts one hand on the light switch and closes her eyes in prayer.

She flicks the light and grabs a loup, a small eyepiece for viewing contact sheets. She bends over and checks out what she’s got.

THROUGH THE LOUP,

she sees plenty of bad pictures. Shot after shot of people’s backs, their knees, cracks in the sidewalk.

She stops in the middle of her sentence. The loup stops too, freezing on one picture.

The edges of the shot are somebody’s legs, as Robin went down, but by some miracle, through the legs, there is a clear, perfect shot --

88. 5/26/93

CONTINUED: 54

-- of the guys. They’re just being shoved into the back of the squad car, and they’re both turned, looking down at Robin in sympathy as she falls, their faces staring right into the lens and full of real concern.

Robin looks up, eyes wide.

A door marked "Darkroom" SLAPS open and ROBIN steps out, shouting to anybody within earshot.

BERNIE is still at the bar, making his way through another drink. He talks to TONY, the bartender.

O

57A

89. 5th rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

CONTINUED: 56

Tony just looks at him for a long moment. There doesn’t seem to be much to say.

This is a very upscale hotel ballroom, or rather the back of one. A benefit is going on, from the front we hear the drone of speeches and polite applause.

CHARLES KEIGHLEY, an impressive man in his fifties, works the (xX) tables at the rear of the room, headed for the back.

Keighley’s in a beautiful tuxedo, huge cigar in his mouth,

eyes at half mast from drink or disinterest.

ALICIA is at a bar in the back, her eyes following Keighley keenly. She screws up her courage, knocks back her drink in one gulp, and sets off after hin.

ALICIA follows KEIGHLEY into a beautiful anteroom, where a bored ATTENDANT sits at a table counting tips.

C).

57A CONTINUED:

He stops and

90. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

S7A

turns.

Keighley offers no encouragement, but, then again, he’s not

walking away

either. Alicia goes on.

The Attendant looks up. Alicia turns bright red.

Alicia melts

. KEIGHLEY

Alicia.

ALICIA

Oh. Yeah, of course. That was -- very funny. That was good.

yor

OC)

91. 5/26/93

The Attendant is staring, just as interested in his reply as Alicia is.

Keighley just stares at Alicia for a moment.

, . KEIGHLEY Didn’t we just renegotiate your contract? ALICIA

Recently, yes, but my deal is up ina little under a year and --

Alicia looks at him, stunned by the swiftness of his rebuke. She barely manages a nod. Keighley continues, rounding a corner in a cloud of cigar smoke.

Alicia rounds the corner too, and finds she’s looking down --

-- an enormous row of urinals. She stops in her tracks. Keighley has stepped up to one of the urinals, next to another POWERFUL TYPE. Keighley turns.

Alicia turns, humiliated, and nearly bumps into the Attendant, who just looks at her. She fumbles in her pocket for a tip, comes up with a bill, and offers it.

©

57A

92. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

CONTINUED: 57A ATTENDANT (kindly) You keep it. cur TO:

HENRY and McDOUGAL pull up in front of the 91st Precinct in Brooklyn in McDougal’s car.

McDOUGAL Here’s your God damn clipboard, and the next time you need office supplies you might consider asking --

HENRY

Clipboard. Confident wave. Get you (X)

into any building in the world.

A COP walks past the DESK SERGEANT, flipping through arrest reports on a clipboard. He heads back into the station. HENRY and McDOUGAL come in and head immediately for the back. McDougal has the clipboard. Henry has the confident wave.

; HENRY Hi. How are ya.

The Desk Sergeant GRUNTS and _they pass into the back of the station.

Some of the fluorescents are out in this hallway, and the others waver uncertainly, so it’s not exactly well-lit. RICHIE, a detective, fortyish, heads down the hallway with a newspaper. He stops, hearing something behind him.

He turns. Nothing. He turns back, and bumps directly (X) into -- :

-- HENRY and McDOUGAL. Richie jumps, startled.

McDOUGAL Hey, Richie. (X) RICHIE Jesus, you scared the shit out of (X) me. Everybody’s on edge around here! McDOUGAL We gotta talk about Williamsburg. (X)

Richie is ‘pissed off. He looks around anxiously and gestures to McDougal to follow him.

61 INT

© RICHIE shoves HENRY and McDOUGAL into this men’s room and

MEN’S ROOM

93. 5th rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

NIGHT

locks the door behind them.

Richie looks

RICHIE

At home, I told you a million times, you wanna talk to me, you talk

to me at home!

McDOUGAL We think we know what happened. Nick D’Onofrio wanted to settle a

debt, right, but his

made it look like a race war.

guys went and Now

they got the neighborhoods all

stirred up.

RICHIE

You know what’d happen to me if somebody saw us talking?

McDOUGAL

So what’s goin’ on? lookin’

HENRY

at D’Onofrio?

Are you guys

Hey, the dead guys lost his five

million bucks. What’

s he gonna do,

give ‘em Giants tickets?

RICHIE

I ain’t goin’ on the (to McDougal)

Who the fuck is this

at him suspciously.

You have a firm

him, why are

record.

guy?

what you think. arrest, what

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

©

61 CONTINUED:

94. 5th rev. 8/11/93

McDOUGAL Henry.

McDOUGAL Over a picture of the kids.

Hey, what do you want from us?! I’m not locked in a God damn toilet with a cop because it’s such a good time. You want to see some truth, give me some truth. Or if you don’t give a damn, admit it. But don’t blame us for running what you give us, because that’s all we got.

95. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

McDOUGAL (another tack) These are nice kids, Richie. They’re good kids you guys threw in jail.

McDOUGAL Other one’s a pretty good ball player.

McDOUGAL Is that right?

RICHIE

God, this just makes me sick.

He walks to the sink. He runs some water, and splashes it on his face. McDougal turns, muttering to Henry under the running water.

McDOUGAL Penn State, huh?

Richie dries his face and turns around. Finally: RICHIE

You guys use my name on this and I (X) will fucking find you, understand?

96. 5th rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

© HENRY i

"Police department source." RICHIE | These kids -- (X) (pause) -- they didn’t do it.

HENRY and McDOUGAL are in McDougal’s car, racing back uptown. McDougal is scribbling frantically in a notebook on his: knee,

Henry drives like a madman. McDOUGAL

This is great, it’s great, it writes

like butter, there is actual butter

coming out of my pen.

_ HENRY (checking his watch) Ten o’clock. I/’11 have us there by (X)

quarter after.

He SQUEALS around a corner.

C) McDOUGAL

HEY! I just had this repainted!

97. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 62

Oo 62

McDOUGAL You got an honest-to-God exclusive, (X) Henry, now they all gotta quote us, we'll nail every lousy paper in town to the wall!

_ CUT TO:

conrad

BERNIE is way ahead of them on that the bar, drinking with the SAD GUY. personal friends and. are both three wind.

BERNIE

63 (X)

score, now at the end of They’ve become close. or more sheets to the

I just gotta know if she hates me.

If she hates me, there’

s no point.

She’s your daughter!

What could you have done she’d hate

you? BERNIE

I kept fucking my reporters.

her mother’s heart. SAD GUY (pause) Yep, that’1ll do it.

He signals to the Bartender.

Broke

Past is past! You

know where she lives, break in, apologize, make her Listen to you!

98. 3rd rev. 7/16/93

CONTINUED :

The Sad Guy shakes hands with hin.

The big green clock on the Sun building says ten fifteen.

(yellow)

McDougal’s car SCREECHES to a halt, double parked in front.

HENRY and McDOUGAL leap out and run into the building.

The elevator doors DING open. HENRY and McDOUGAL hurry out.

McDOUGAL I need four.

They reach rewrite and clear a GUY off the computer.

He stops. He looks around, sensing something.

McDOUGAL What’s the matter?

(X)

(X)

(X) (X)

(X)

99. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

McDougal just stares at him for a moment, but then his face goes white, as he is struck by a terrible, terrible thought.

McDOUGAL No.

Henry looks over at a ventilator shaft a few feet away. There’s a glass on it, filled with ice and Coke --

-- and the cubes are TINKLING. OMITTED ‘ 66

HENRY and McDOUGAL fly through a door and burst out into a huge, high-ceilinged room where the sound is almost deafening. They stop and stare in amazement --

-- at the ROARING presses.

If you haven’t seen presses running in person, ya oughta check it out. Huge rolls of paper spin and feed into a complex web of spindles and catchers and paper paths.

Henry and McDougal race over and stare at the paper as it SLAMS through the presses, unstoppable. They run along the length of the room, to the end, where page one after page one drops into place at the end of the run.

The headline is easy to read. "GOTCHA!", it says.

The photo is a huge blowup of Robin’s shot of the suspects. Their faces stare into the lens, concerned, seeming to scream out their innocence in spite of the condemning word overhead.

McDOUGAL Oh, my God.

and thousands of wrong headlines fly past them. Henry looks

They just stand there, totally defeated, watching as thousands up, determined. | |

McDOUGAL What?! | |

He turns and walks quickly back the way they came.

100. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

; McDOUGAL (loving this) Hey, Henry, aren’t you gonna say it? You gotta say..it! , HENRY -- we’ll use the same art they used for "Gotcha" -—

Henry hits a metal staircase at the end of the room and climbs it, fast, toward a platform at the end, a few steps higher than the rest of the press room.

McDOUGAL How often do you get the chance? Come on, you can’t do it and not say it!

68 UP ON THE PLATFORM, 68

A PRESS OPERATOR is at the top, feet on his desk, reading a magazine.

. HENRY How do we stop the run?

HENRY : If we had to. If a guy breaks in here with a gun and holds it to your head, how do you stop the run?

Henry looks across the room. Behind a square metal cage, there are two large buttons, one red, one green. Simple enough.

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(X)

O

101. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: : 68

He marches over to it. The Press Operator practically falls out of his chair.

the floor like carpet.

Henry goes into the neighboring stall, jumps up on the toilet, and looks down into the occupied stall. CHUCK looks up,

surprised as hell, dropping his magazine into his lap to cover himself.

ALICIA is back in her office. - She looks up, hearing something, and goes to her door.

She sees-a lot of activity in the newsroom. McDOUGAL is ata monitor, typing furiously, PEOPLE swarming around hin,

| | PRESS OPERATOR (X) helping.

O

O

Ti

102. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 70

Alicia goes out into the newsroom. As she gets closer, she (X) notices a paste-up of a new page one, Henry’s page one, on the computer screen in front of LOU.

HENRY and CHUCK hurry across the press room, back toward the glass booth. Chuck has a big ring of keys that he’s sorting through, which are connected to his belt by a tug chain.

HENRY

I’ve ig authorization. How long will it take to get it started again once we have the new plate in?

The door to the stairwell SLAPS open right in front of then, spilling ALICIA and McDOUGAL into the press room.

Chuck immediately lets go of his keys, and they ZING back into his belt.

_ headline?! ALICIA You’re God damn right I did! I gota desperate call at nine thirty saying (X)

we were two hours past our deadline and nobody knew where the hell you were!

OC 71 CONTINUED:

She turns and heads for the door.

Henry

103. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

V1

got. Henry intercepts her.

ALICIA

Not today it’s not. Tomorrow it’s wrong. We only have to be right for a day.

steps back, trying to control himself, now practically

begging with Alicia.

HENRY

Not tomorrow. Today.

C ) Alicia just looks at Henry with contempt.

104. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

degree. HENRY Hey. ALICIA You couldn’t take the shit I put up with, Henry. You assholes think I (X)

don’t know you wait until I leave before you sneak off to the Bear’s Head? Can’t even invite me for a lousy beer.

She moves past Henry and heads for the door.

Henry wastes no time. He turns, rips the keys off Chuck’s belt, and heads for the glass booth.

Alicia whirls, but Henry’s already marching off across the press roon. Alicia catches ier grabs Henry by the shoulder, and spins him around.

Henry just shrugs her off and keeps moving, picking a key from the ring. Alicia races ahead and cuts him off at the metal stairs.

O

105. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

Henry tries to step around her, but she shoves him back.

He tries to go around her again, but she grabs him. Henry shrugs her off, a little too hard, and Alicia stumbles and falls.

A small crowd is starting to form.

He reaches out to pull Alicia up by an arm, but she grabs (X) hold of him and pulls him down instead. He BANGS his knee, crunching into her hand. Both SHOUT in pain.

He gets up and heads for the stairs again, but Alicia lunges and tackles him, SLAMMING both of them into the metal steps.

ALICIA —_ Henry.

Henry bends to pick up the keys, just as Alicia presses the button on a can of -Mace.

The thin stream just misses him -- -- and hits the GUY behind him.

The Guy SHOUTS in pain and falls to his knees. Alicia GASPS and drops the mace, horrified.

106. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: 71

Henry moves for the stairs again. Alicia steps forward and takes a huge, swiping kick at him --

-- but misses. Alicia’s foot swings wildly up in the air and over her own head, and she goes down on her back, OOOFING hard, knocking the wind out of herself. McDOUGAL | These idiots couldn’t hurt each other if they wanted to. Alicia lies flat on her back, GASPING for air. (X)

He heads up the stairs. She follows. ON THE PLATFORM, 72

Henry BANGS open the protective metal grill with the key from Chuck”s ring.

But Alicia’s back. She’s all over him, trying to pull him * (X) away, and in trying to shrug her off, his arm gets away from him and he accidentally --

-- elbows her in the face. (X) Alicia goes down. For a moment, everyone is shocked, including Henry. Alicia just looks up at him, one hand to » (X)

her cheek, stunned.

107. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

Henry takes one last look out at the ROARING presses, turns back to the metal cage --

-- and PUNCHES the big red kill button.

Immediately, the sound of the presses changes, their ROAR winding down, and down, and down, into a low HUM, and then, finally, silence as they are stilled.

Henry turns back to Alicia, who gets back on her feet. ~ (X)

Henry just looks at her.

Henry turns to leave as Chuck goes to the start button and hits it. As the low WHINE starts up again from downstairs, Henry turns back.

She turns and looks at hin.

He leaves. McDougal stays, just standing there, staring at her like a judge. Alicia shifts, uncomfortable under McDougal’s gaze.

Henry walks out, past the presses as they GROAN slowly back to life. He pauses, watching as those headlines start to move past him, faster and faster until they are a blur.

108. 2nd rev. 7/12/93 (pink)

CONTINUED: . 73 He closes his eyes.

cuT TO:

Row by row, the harsh fluorescents in this detention center (X) CLUNK off, plunging the cell blocks into near-darkness. It’s lights out.

In a crowded cell, the TWO BLACK KIDS who were arrested stand at the bars, scared.

It’s quiet in here, except for the CLUNKING of the lights and the SLAMMING of cell doors somewhere far away as the next - block is put to bed.

McDOUGAL comes out of the Sun building, pissed off. He takes his keys out of his pocket, goes to where his car was double-parked --

-~ and finds it gone.

He hears a ROAR down the block, turns, and sees his car being towed away by a city tow truck. The truck reaches the end of the block and turns right, too close to the street light.

McDougal hears the GROAN of metal and the flash of sparks as the whole right side of his car is caved in again, and then the truck is gone.

McDougal just stares, his mouth hanging a He sits on the curb, totally defeated.

ALICIA comes out of the building behind him and sees him sitting on the curb.

O

75 CONTINUED:

109. ist rev. 6/22/93

McDOUGAL (too tired to fight) Car got towed.

McDOUGAL Yep.

ALICIA

You want a ride?

McDougal doesn’t answer.

INT

HACKETT KITCHEN NIGHT

MARTHA is at the kitchen table, typing furiously at a typewriter, muttering to herself.

(blue)

“76

She pauses and reaches for a bottle of water to her right, but sees it’s empty. She gets up. She reels a tiny bit, a hand

to the side of her head, as if she got up too fast. to the refrigerator, opens it, and hunts around for something

else.

She goes

She settles on a bottle of apple juice, opens it, turns back to the table --

-- and GASPS.

The bottle of juice slips through her fingers and SMASHES into a million pieces on the tile floor.

The chair where she was sitting is covered in blood.

Martha, woozy now, staggers up against the telephone

claws the receiver out of its cradle.

She punches 911.

table and

(X)

110. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

77° «INT BEAR’S HEAD NIGHT 77 (X)_

The Bear’s Head is filling up as the night wears on. BERNIE and SANDUSKY are still at the bar, another round in front of them, even tipsier than before.

It’s a common name.

He gets up. ACROSS THE BAR,

the front door opens and McDOUGAL comes in, extremely annoyed. ALICIA is just a few steps behind him.

McDOUGAL What do you want me to say? You want me to say "Good job?" You want me to say you struck a blow for journalistic integrity today? can’t do it. You abused your position to settle a personal score. It is what it is. Live with it. Henry was right.

As they cross to the bar, it looks as though McDougal and Sandusky are going to bump right into each other --

-- but at the last moment Sandusky turns to go into the bathroom. He doesn’t see McDougal.

AT THE BAR,

McDougal and Alicia take stools at the bar and nod to the BARTENDER.

O

77+ CONTINUED:

111. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

we’re not exactly the Washington Post, okay? ,

McDOUGAL No, we’re not. We run stupid headlines because we think they’re funny, we run maimings on the front page because we got good art, and I spend three weeks bitching about my car because it sells papers -- but at least it’s the truth. As far as I can remember, we never, ever, ever knowingly got a story wrong. Until tonight. Alicia, you’re a (X) post-Watergate American journalist, you became a reporter because two unknown guys from the Post metro desk busted the extra ball and brought down a corrupt president’s entire administration. You used to . remember how fuckin’ great it felt to find the truth and tell everybody. Now you could give a shit. That’s what Henry meant.

112. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

CONTINUED: 77 Alicia just stares at hin. ACROSS THE ROOM,

Sandusky comes out of the bathroom and is heading back to the bar when he freezes in his tracks, staring at --

-- McDougal.

cur TO:

HENRY walks down a sidewalk in the Village, head down, nose swelling, hand probably broken, not exactly on top of the world. Up ahead, he sees an ambulance parked in front of an apartment building, its lights flashing. He fishes out his keys and heads for the building. A police car pulls up in front and stops, next to another one. The DOORMAN gestures for the cops to go inside. Henry walks up to the Doorman.

The doorman looks at him, concerned.

All at once, Henry realizes. He races inside. OMITTED ; “79

“HENRY bursts through the stairway door on the ninth floor. He

heads for the end of the hall, where the last door on the left is wide open, light spilling from the apartment inside.

113. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

O 80 CONTINUED: 80

He races to the open door, which has been splintered right off its hinges, but immediately has to jump out of the way as TWO PARAMEDICS hustle out of the apartment, fast, wheeling a stretcher between them.

MARTHA is on the stretcher.

But Martha is unconscious, an oxygen mask over her face. The Paramedics are all business, wheeling her for the elevator as fast as they can.

Henry, in shock, pulls himself together as much as he can as

C) they hurry onto the elevator and ride down.

HENRY Uh -- uh -- two weeks! (X) PARAMEDIC 1

Does she have any existing health problems or allergies?

Martha, tending to her, starting an IV, getting blood pressure, working fast, talking quickly between themselves.

cUT TO:

81 81

C) THRU OMITTED THRU 82 82

114. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

The Bear’s Head is almost full to capacity now. IN A LITTLE HALLWAY, ALICIA is on the phone, plugging one ear, trying to hear. ALICIA

Yeah, who’s this? It’s Alicia (X).

Clark. Get me the press room. OVER AT THE BAR, The BARTENDER puts a shot of tequila on the bar in front of SANDUSKY, who picks it up with a shaking hand. BERNIE, next to him, suddenly snaps his fingers.

Sandusky tosses back the shot, shivers, and stands up. Bernie follows his gaze across the corner of the bar. Sandusky is staring at McDougal.

Sandusky vaults himself across the corner of the bar, right at McDougal.

And all hell breaks loose.

©

245 « 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 83

McDougal SHOUTS, but Sandusky hits him full in the chest and the two of them topple over backwards. PEOPLE leap to their feet, Sandusky and McDougal hit the floor with a huge THUD, and McDougal’s gun tumbles out of his jacket and skitters across the floor.

IN THE LITTLE HALLWAY, Alicia strains to hear over the uproar.

BACK IN THE BAR,

there is a momentary lull in the fight as everyone sort of stares at the gun on the floor --

-- and then Sandusky rolls quickly off of McDougal, picks up the gun, and scrambles to his feet.

He stands there, pointing the gun at McDougal with shaking, @runken hands. Things get real quiet.

McDOUGAL You should have returned my calls.

McDOUGAL ‘ You should have paid for the damage.

McDOUGAL Well, at least she bought it, (X) didn’t she? :

The crowd can’t help it, and TITTERS. Sandusky, livid, raises the pistol at McDougal again, wanting to shoot.

©

116. Sth rev. 8/11/93 (goldenrod)

CONTINUED: 83

McDOUGAL You work for the city. It was your turn. Sandusky rants. Bernie steps in. (X) BERNIE SANDUSKY Hey, come on, You got no idea (X) come on, pal, you ‘ what it’s like! don’t want to People wanting hurt him, you favors, nuts don’t want to go calling me, you to jail. You guys sniping -- want to scare you want me to him, fine, scare scare him?! I/11 him, but don’t -- scare him!

Sandusky points the gun just to the left of McDougal. AROUND THE CORNER, Alicia finally gets Chuck on the line. ALICIA

Chuck! Thank God I caught you! I

want you to -- BACK IN THE BAR, BANG!! : Sandusky fires the gun into the wall. The crowd SHOUTS, Bernie grabs the little guy from behind, and McDougal strips the gun from hin.. There is a general easing of tension for a moment, until they hear a loud THUD from the hallway behind them. They whirl and look at the wall.

There’s a perfectly round bullethole, around knee high, through which light pours from the other side.

IN THE HALLWAY,

Bernie, McDougal, Sandusky, and a few others tear around the corner and find Alicia lying on the floor under the pay phone, clutching her leg, a pool of blood growing underneath it.

CHUCK’S VOICE comes from the phone, which swings from its cord.

C).

117. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 83 CHUCK (0o.s.) Ms. Clark? What were you going to - . (X) say? Ms. Clark! SANDUSKY Oops.

Alicia looks up at them, more surprised than anything else.

McDougal grabs the phone and hangs it up, Chuck’s voice still SQUAWKING on the other end, while Bernie bends over and tries to stop the flow of blood through Alicia’s torn trousers.

McDOUGAL (helpfully) To get to the other side?

os BERNIE Shut up! You shut up too, Alicia, you got shot. §

McDougal notices a hole in the wall under the phone.

McDOUGAL Hey! I found the bullet!

- McDOUGAL I’m on hold. (into phone) Yeah! A woman’s been shot! We need an ambulance!

118. . 5/26/93

CONTINUED: 83 Her eyes roll back in her head and she passes out.

PoW! The double doors to a hospital emergency room fly open as the PARAMEDICS. wheel the gurney with MARTHA on it inside. HENRY is right alongside, holding her hand, trying to keep up.

An E.R. DOCTOR is immediately there, talking back and forth with the Paramedics and NURSES.

- DOCTOR

(to a Nurse) Type and cross her for six units, get an OB surgeon down here ready for a c-section in five minutes, we’1ll use four, it’s prepped for an apendectomy and get some volume into her, saline, anything, come on GO!

As more medical personnel descend on the gurney that’s headed for a very brightly lit room at the end of the hall, Henry gets jostled and shoved to the back.

And they’re gone, into the operating room, the doors swinging shut behind them. Henry turns, desperate, and practically falls into a chair. . He drops his head into his hands.

Pow!! Another stretcher SMACKS through emergency room doors and takes off down the corridor, this time with ALICIA on it. More DOCTORS and NURSES descend on it.

PARAMEDIC 1

Gunshot, possible nick of the femoral artery --

119. 1st rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

CONTINUED: 85

I have to call my office --

Alicia paws ata pay phone as they whiz past it, but just Manages to knock it off the hook.

The pay phone just swings from its cord as they BANG through more doors and into --

AN EXAMINATION ROOM, , "86

NURSES move over to prep Alicia for surgery, SURGEONS step forward and start to clean and anesthetize her wound.

Alicia fumbles in the pocket of her jacket and comes up with something small, brown, and tattered.

It’s a reporter’s notebook.

HENRY sits alone in the waiting room. He’s looking down, his hands in his hair, he’s been crying. Someone rests a can of Coca-Cola on top of his head.

Henry looks up. It’s BERNIE. Henry smiles tightly at him, takes the Coke, and opens it.

120. ist rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

CONTINUED: 87

Bernie doesn’t answer. He sits down next to hin, opens a can of Coke of his own, and takes a long drink. They sit back and

wait together. (X)

RIP!! ALICIA tears a piece of paper with scribbling on it out

of the reporter’s notebook and lets a pen slip out of her fingers.

An ANESTHETIST starts to lower a mask over her face, but Alicia puts a hand up, holding it off, and grabs a nurse by the shirttail. 5

The Nurse turns and Alicia shoves the paper at her.

Now a mask is resting over a face, but it’s MARTHA’s face. .

She’s in surgery, and it’s a heavy duty one.

No one speaks in the room, there’s just the sound of instruments CLICKING, a respirator WHOOSHING --

-- and a heart monitor that BEEPS a steady rhythm.

The presses still THUNDER in the press room, pumping out paper after paper with "Caught!" on the front page.

From the platform above the room, the PRESS OPERATOR SLAMS a telephone down and SHOUTS at the top of his lungs.

CHUCK keys open the metal box and SLAMS the red kill button. DOWN ON THE PRESS FLOOR, 91

the giant presses start to slow their pace like before.

ia. 5/26/93

The heart monitor skips a beat, becomes irregular. The tension goes up a notch in the operating room.

FOOM! With an X-ray flash, we see Henry’s page one -- "They Didn’t Do It!" -- photographed. It’s a negative image, the

blacks. white and vice-versa. FoOoM! Another negative image, this time of the copy for the story.

A TYPESETTER RIPS a cartridge from the typeset machine that took the pictures. She carries it, fast, across the room, to another machine.

She SLAMS the cartridge into the side of the second machine and punches a few buttons. The machine HUMS and spits out strips of photographic paper with positive images of the cover and story. - :

A respirator inflates and deflates, filling MARTHA’s lungs.

The halls are empty as a TYPESETTER tears ass down the hall, the long, curling strips of photographic paper flowing behind him like tails. He BANGS through a door at the end of the hall marked "Paste-Up."

SLICE! A giant paper cutter hacks off the rough edges of the photographic strips. ZIP! Exacto knives cut it even closer. With a HUM, the cleaned up strips are sucked between two thick rollers and feed out the other side, straightened, flat, and with hot paraffin on the back.

Two large cardboard faces with blue lines running down the middle have the old page one and lead story on them. Rough hands RIP those stories off like old Band-Aids, making room ton =

-- our story. Skilled hands smooth the new strips onto the board between the blue lines. Robin’s same picture is SLAPPED into place under the headline.

The easel the boards are on PURRS to life, rotating up ninety degrees to face a huge refrigerator-like camera that FLASHES twice.

122. 5/26/93

MARTHA’s hand drops off the operating table. A NURSE’s hand picks it up to move it back and Martha squeezes.

A MOCK-UP GUY bursts out of the stairwell and into the press room.

. PRESS OPERATOR

Where you been, hurry up, go, GO,

Go! The Mock-Up Guy crabwalks under the press bed, opens a drum underneath, shoves a cartridge in, SLAMS the drum shut, and rolls out. UP ON THE PLATFORM, . 99 CHUCK hits the green button and the presses start to roll. DOWN ON THE PRESS-ROOM FLOOR, 100

the WORKERS all stand back, breathing hard, as the presses pick up speed, running the new headline.

Finished papers, bundled automatically, CHUNK out of the press at the end. They hit an inclined stainless steel chute, slide right through a hole in the wall and end up --

-- in the loading dock. Dozens of Sun trucks are being loaded up, ready to go.

The mask is removed from MARTHA’s face.

The sun comes up over the city. The big clock in Columbus Circle says it’s six thirty-five.

HENRY sits, eyes wide open, crammed uncomfortably into the waiting room chair. SANDUSKY is now in the chair next to hin, also’ aSleep. A DOCTOR steps into the room, red blood on his greens. Henry looks up.

cuT TO:

123. 5/26/93

BERNIE, in the same clothes from last night, walks down a street on the Upper West Side, checking addresses against a piece of paper he holds.

He stops in front of a brownstone, summons his nerve, and goes up the steps.

He runs. his fingers down the row of buzzers and hesitates before one in particular. As he’s about to ring, something catches his eye from the window to his right.

It’s the kitchen of the ground floor unit, and DEANNE, his daughter, is visible inside the apartment. Bernie steps back, not to be seen, and watches for a moment.

Inside, it’s a domestic scene. Deanne is in her work clothes already, making and eating breakfast. A MAN is there too, reading the paper, still in his night clothes.

Deanne moves to the other side of the room, out of Bernie’s eyesight, and when she comes back into the room --

-- she’s holding a baby. Bernie just stares for a long moment, stunned.

THUNK! Something SLAMS into the door next to him, startling the hell out of him. It’s a newspaper.

A delivery car continues down the street, the DRIVER tossing papers to the other brownstones.

Deanne hears the sound and leaves the kitchen to get the paper. The front door opens suddenly --

-~- but Bernie is gone.

Deanne never knew anyone was there. She bends down, picks up the paper, and opens it.

It’s today’s Sun. She looks at the front page, fascinated, then opens it and flips to the story, reading it right there on her front step.

HALF A BLOCK AWAY,

Bernie, unnoticed by Deanne, sees the front page when she opens the paper, sees that it’s his paper she’s reading.

He smiles. He turns and walks away.

curt TO:

1O7A

124. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

HENRY stands outside the hospital nursery, staring through the glass. There’s a baby beyond the glass, many of them, in fact, me he’s staring at the one with the name card that says "Hackett."

Frankly, the kid is nothing special. Small, reddish, kinda messy-lookin’. But Henry stares at it like a work of art.

He snaps out of it for a.second and smiles at himself. He shakes his head.

HENRY appears in the doorway to MARTHA’s hospital room. She’s in bed, looking out the window. As he walks in, she turns and looks at him.

She smiles. He goes to her and embraces her, as hard as she can take it.

All the crap. Today I can’t even remember it.

Today’s copy of the Sun SNAPS open, its front page bold and correct and right in our face.

The paper lowers. ALICIA sits up in her hospital bed, her leg bandaged, looking at the paper. BRUNO is asleep in a chair (X) near her.

A NURSE who is tending to her leg looks up and sees the front page of the Sun. Intrigued, she cocks her head to look at

at.

” 124A. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

C). : NURSE Can I read that when you’re done? Alicia looks at her. She smiles, deeply satisfied.

cuT TO:

HENRY and BERNIE are on the roof of the hospital. Bernie smokes a cigarette, looking out at the city below. Henry is looking at his headline, beaming.

Henry has flipped it open and is reading McDougal’s article.

O

125. 5/26/93

CONTINUED: 108

Henry looks at him for a long time.

Henry seems to be wavering.

Henry turns and looks at Bernie, grinning from ear to ear.

Bernie looks at him, and he seems almost misty.

They look out at the city, and a long moment goes by. Bernie looks back at Henry.

126. 3rd rev. 7/16/93 (yellow)

CONTINUED: 108 They both laugh until they stop. Henry looks a little ill. Bernie looks at him for a moment. He’s torn, like a man who can’t believe what he’s about to say. Finally, he sighs. ‘BERNIE (cont/’d) Aw, what the hell, Henry, you earned it. You wanna take a shot ata column? Henry looks at Bernie. Slowly, he smiles. HENRY Thanks. (pause) Hey, can Marty have one too? Bernie just looks at hin. HENRY (conta) No. No, one. We/11 just take the one. One is good.

The big metal doors of Riker’s Island swing open and the TWO BLACK KIDS step out, blinking in the sunlight.

The doors open on two cars that are parked outside, waiting. Four or five FAMILY MEMBERS pour out of the cars and swarm

over the Kids.

Radio HISS sneaks in and a TELETYPE MACHINE starts to CLATTER in the background as a familiar voice takes over.

VOICE (o.s.) Ten ten WINS. You give us twenty-two minutes, we’1l give you the world. It’s seventy-one degrees in downtown Manhattan --

cuT TO:

The radio voice continues over Martha’s hospital room. VOICE (0.s.)

-- headed up to a tolerable eighty-one. At the top of the news

this morning, an exclusive story in (X) |

the New York Sun reports --- (MORE)

126A. 1st rev. 6/22/93 (blue)

VOICE (0.s.) (cont’d) -- the out-of-town businessmen slain two nights ago in Williamsburg were in fact connected to a New York crime family, which may now be implicated in their slaying.

MARTHA is in bed, of course, asleep, exhausted. HENRY is spooned up behind her, this time right under the covers with her.

©

127. 5/26/93

VOICE (o.s.) Local police have turned the murder over to the state’s anti-organized crime unit, and the black youths arrested yesterday have been released with no charges filed. Keep your radio tuned to ten ten WINS. for updates. Ten ten WINS' -- all news, news whenever you need it.

Martha stirs in her sleep and starts to roll over. Henry feels it and shifts too. Without either of them waking up, they turn gracefully over to their other sides, now facing away from the clock.

VOICE (0.s.) Because your whole world can change in twenty-four hours. There is an old-fashioned digital alarm clock on the bedside table, the kind with the numbers that flick by on little cards. The time is six fifty-nine.

VOICE (0o.s.) W-I-N-S news time --

One by one, the clock’s numbers flip gently over to seven o'clock.

VOICE (o.s.) -- seven o’clock.

BEEP.

128. 5/26/93

HENRY and MARTHA are in their living room, working. The desk” is covered with stuff, stacks of magazines, stacks of newspapers, stacks of mail --

-- and a KID.

It sits in between two of the stacks, hanging out. It makes a kid sound. Henry looks up at it.