Aaron grimaces, turns to go. Again, Barrett stops him.
BARRETT
He was looking for you because you stiffed him. The watch doesn’t run.
Aaron doesn’t turn. But the shot catches him in the space between the shoulder blades. He cringes, and with Pat, he goes as CAMERA HOLDS on Barrett, who lights a cigar and settles back in his chair.
DISSOLVE TO:
54 SERIES OF INTERCUTS – LAP-DISSOLVES – SIMILAR TO SCENE 26
as Aaron and Pat, individually and together, canvass the list of Hallie’s friends. In
dorms, halls, shops, streets, front stoops, pool halls, communes, anywhere that is feasible to shoot, using as much STOCK FOOTAGE as is available and fits in with the season and their garb.
DISSOLVE THRU TO:
55 EXT. STREET CORNER – DAY
Aaron and Pat standing there, comparing their lists, crossing off names. SILENT BIT. Aaron points to a name, indicates Pat should tackle that one, while he goes after another. He consults his watch, then makes a motion toward the coffee shop on the corner, indicating he’ll meet her there at a certain time. Pat nods and they go off in separate directions.
DISSOLVE TO:
56 HALLWAY OF APARTMENT BUILDING – WITH PAT – DAY
as she comes down the hall, checking apartment numbers. She finally stops in front of Apartment 9 and KNOCKS. The door opens and EUNICE JOHNSON stands there. She is about Hallie’s age, early twenties, a little wasted-looking, but pretty in an un-madeup way. Long hair hanging loose, held in back by a macramé barette that has long tassels hanging down. She also wears a macramé belt of exquisite design. (NOTE: Since this SCENE will feature the new fashion of Macramé, be advised the author can turn the producers on to makers of same, and in the mimeographing of this script, the accent mark over the word macramé should be tipped in, by hand if necessary. After all, the actors have to know how to pronounce it, don’t they?)
Behind Eunice are three or four other girls, all sitting around tables doing the macramé crocheting. There are racks of macramé goods everywhere. This is obviously cottage industry. A RADIO PLAYS in the b.g.
EUNICE
Hi. Can I help you?
PAT
I’m looking for Eunice Johnson.
EUNICE
You’ve got her. I’m it. Her.
They smile at one another. Pat indicates the belt and goods.
PAT
Is that macramé?
EUNICE
Uh-huh. Did you come to buy or look? Either way makes us feel good.
PAT
I came to talk mostly, but that is beautiful work. May I come in?
EUNICE
(guardedly)
Uh, what did you want to talk about?
PAT
Hallie Benda.
EUNICE
(relieved)
Wheew, you had me worried for a second. The landlord keeps saying if we’re going to use the apartment as a factory we’ll have to pay a commercial rate. Come on in.
She steps aside and Pat goes in.
57 INT. APARTMENT – DAY
The other GIRLS look up as Pat comes in. Two of the girls at the tables are black, one is white, one is oriental. They continue looking.
EUNICE
(to girls)
Friend of Hallie’s.
She looks at Pat for her name.
PAT
Pat Walters. Hello.
EUNICE
(points to each girl)
Sandy, Lucy, Vonda and O.E., which stands for Octavia Estelle. Want some apple juice?
PAT
Thanks, that’d be nice.
Eunice leads Pat over to an alcove with a sink, fridge and stove, while the girls go back to work.
58 TWO SHOT – PAT AND EUNICE
as Eunice opens refrigerator, takes out a chilled bottle of apple juice, and taking a cup from a mismatched batch of cups on a shelf, pours Pat a drink.
EUNICE
You know, you’d think someone who’d been through such awful stuff would be more compassionate.
PAT
I beg your pardon?
EUNICE
Our landlord. He was in a Nazi prison camp with his wife, you know. And he came through it and got out of Poland or Hungary or wherever it was, and he came here and made some money…so instead of understanding how people live, and trying to be nice, he gouges all of us living here. I just can’t understand it. You’d think that kind of misery would make people kinder.
PAT
Did you ever see that film, “The Pawnbroker”?
EUNICE
Oh. Yeah. I see what you mean.
PAT
EUNICE
It’s really sad.
(beat)
But all the same, I wish he wasn’t such a creep.
PAT
Did Hallie work here?
EUNICE
Hallie? No, huh-uh. She just used to come over and sit sometimes. She’s not very good with her hands and macramé takes a lot of skill.
PAT
I’d love a belt like yours.
EUNICE
Well, just take a look around. It’s all for sale.
PAT
Could we talk about Hallie first?
EUNICE
What do you want to talk about her?
PAT
She’s about to get in some pretty big trouble.
EUNICE
You aren’t from the child welfare, are you?
PAT
No, I’m from the Neighborhood Law Office. We were supposed to defend her on a bust for using a stolen credit card, but she never showed up at the arraignment. We’re trying to find her so a warrant isn’t issued. And that means before 9:00 tomorrow morning.
EUNICE
Oh, wow. Yeah, Ginjer Moore was making a lot of noise on the street about Hallie trying to pin it on her.
PAT
Well, Ginjer gave us a list of Hallie’s friends who might know how we could find her, that’s why I came to ask you.
EUNICE
No chance I’d know where Hallie is. We weren’t very tight, y’know?
PAT
I gather you didn’t like her much.
EUNICE
Not much. She messed over Ginjer.
PAT
So you probably won’t feel like a fink if you give me a way to find her.
EUNICE
I won’t mind at all.
PAT
On the other hand, remember your landlord. A little compassion.
Eunice steps back, staring at Pat.
EUNICE
Wheew! Lady, you are trying to do a number on my head. First, it’s knife Hallie, then it isn’t, which way do you want me to move?
PAT
My way. I need to know where she is. But I don’t want you to feel lousy about it.
EUNICE
So how can I do it without feeling like a fink?
PAT
By knowing she needs some help, and the only way she’s going to get it is if we get to her in time.
EUNICE
(holds up hands)
No more! Hallie used to work with a little black guy named Obie Stover. She’d buy from him if he was holding, and he’d buy from her if she was dealing. She might lose a lot of contacts, but her dealer – never.
Pat raises the apple juice in a silent toast as we
LAP DISSOLVE TO:
59 INT. COFFEE SHOP – ON PAT – DAY
MATCH SHOP (with cup of apple juice from Scene 58), as Pat lifts a coffee cup to her mouth to drink.
AARON’S VOICE (o.s.)
Obie Stover.
CAMERA PULLS BACK as Aaron slips into the booth across from Pat. She is wearing a macramé belt now.
PAT
That’s the name I got. And a general idea where he hangs out.
AARON
Great. The kid I talked to didn’t know where to find him. Give me the address and I’ll take it from here.
PAT
Hold it. That’s the inner city, Aaron.
AARON
I’ll be all right down there.
PAT
Sure, maybe. But it’s still “tell them nothing” for paddys. And you’re a paddy to them.
AARON
You want to come with? I hate to ask you.
PAT
Come on, Aaron, stop that.
AARON
Okay. Finish your coffee and let’s go.
Pat puts down the cup and stands.
PAT
I’d rather not. This was cup number three. But I’ll go to the little girls’ room and meet you out front.
She goes one way, Aaron goes the other and we
DISSOLVE TO:
60 EXT. THE MATTAPAN BLACK GHETTO – DAY (STOCK)
as Aaron and Pat walk through, together.
61 EXT. GHETTO STREET – DAY
as Pat talks to someone, who points back in the opposite direction. Pat thanks the MAN and they walk away.
62 EXT. GHETTO STREET – DAY
as Pat talks to a couple of LITTLE KIDS on a front stoop. Very earnestly. They talk to her, and one of them points toward the corner. Pat smiles and silently thanks them. They move off again.
63 EXT. EMPTY LOT – AARON – DAY
Through a broken link fence we can see a young, very tall and thin black BOY of perhaps seventeen, looping a basketball into a rim made from an apple basket rim. The lot is littered with filth and dead beer cans, with the awful detritus of a society choking itself with garbage. The boy, OBIE STOVER, is alone. Aaron and Pat stop outside the fence and watch him for a long moment.
AARON
I thought that girl said he was a little guy?
PAT
She must have meant years, not height. He has a good hook.
AARON
I didn’t know you liked basketball?
PAT
I didn’t know you had natural rhythm.
He grins at her, she grins back, and they slip through the fence and CAMERA GOES WITH THEM as they approach Obie, who catches sight of them halfway across the lot. He stops shooting, cocks over onto one hip with the basketball under one arm, and waits.
PAT
Obie?
OBIE
He just left. His momma call him.
As they walk straight up to him.
PAT
Oh, that’s too bad. We got some small money here for an Obie Stover.
AARON
Maybe you can tell us where he lives so we can deliver it.
OBIE
What kinda money you got for Obie?
AARON
Seventy-five dollars. We’re from the Neighborhood Law Office. Some kid came in and said he’d burned this Obie for the money, so we’re bringing it on over.
OBIE
You shuckin’ and jivin’, mister.
PAT
So you don’t know this Obie? Right?
OBIE
That’s what I said.
PAT
Let’s go, Aaron.
They turn and start to walk away. Obie watches, then calls:
OBIE
Hey you. Wait up.
He lopes over to them.
PAT
What you want…Mr. Helpful?
OBIE
I’m Obie Stover.
AARON
Sure you are. All of a sudden you hear we got seventy-five bucks and poof you become Obie Stover.
It should be understood that this is a seventeen-year-old boy, and even though he’s black and hip as only ghetto street kids can be hip, still he’s seventeen and he can be hyped. That’s what Aaron and Pat are doing. (It should also be understood that the outdated idea of pushers as only being insidious Fagins, corrupting school children, is hincty and old-fashioned. The nasty truth is that today kids push to kids. Everyone who isn’t using is dealing. They don’t consider it criminal or evil; we do, and we’re probably right, but to attack reality in this manner we must deal with a typical dealer as he views it, for counterpoint.)
OBIE
Hey, man, I tell you I’m Obie Stover an’ you say I’m not. Who knows, you or me?
PAT
If you were Obie Stover, you’d know where Hallie Benda is.
Obie draws back.
OBIE
What kinda evil you whippin’ on me? I thought you say you got seventy-five bucks for me?
AARON
We’re looking for Hallie. She’s in big trouble. We’re from the Neighborhood Law Office, we want to –
OBIE
Get away from me.
PAT
Obie, we want to help her!
OBIE
I say get away from me or I’ll do some bun-kickin’, you hear?
At that moment, a tall, longhaired BOY comes through the fence, starts toward them. He calls out in a heavy Southern accent.
JOE BOB
Hey, you Obie!
Obie turns, panicking, sees Joe Bob, and yells at the top of his lungs.
OBIE
(frantic)
Get the hell outta here! Narks!
Joe Bob turns and bolts through the fence. Obie takes off at a dead run in the opposite direction after hurling the basketball at Aaron. The wind is knocked out of Aaron for a moment, but he gasps at Pat…
AARON
Joe Bob Holiday!
He takes off after him, running full out, as Pat follows and we
FADE OUT.
END OF ACT THREE
85: 20 NOVEMBER 70
“THE WHIMPER OF WHIPPED DOGS”
Part Four
ACT FOUR
FADE IN:
64 EXT. GHETTO STREET – ARRIFLEX
with Aaron as he chases Joe Bob Holiday. A twisting, turning, frantic run down filthy streets and through alleys, at one point Joe Bob banging into an ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN carrying big shopping bags that spill all over the street. Pat slows to help her as Aaron goes after him. Aaron gains. Joe Bob looks back…Aaron is coming on. He cuts across a street through traffic…Aaron does the same, almost gets hit…keeps going. Finally, Aaron gains enough and as Joe Bob turns a corner he slips, skids, goes to one knee, gets up and makes the move to run but Aaron is on him. Aaron hurls him up against the wall of the building. They are both badly winded.
AARON
Where’s Hallie…?
Joe Bob can’t – or won’t – talk. He just shakes his head and gasps for breath. Aaron bangs him against the brick wall.
AARON
Where is she, man? I’m her attorney! Tell me!
Joe Bob still won’t talk. Aaron isn’t crapping around any more. He’s almost frantic about finding her now. He looks around, sees an alley, and drags Joe Bob with him. They disappear into the alley.
65 ANOTHER ANGLE ON THE STREET
as Pat rushes up. She stops. Looks around. No one in sight. She waits, turning this way and that. In a short while Aaron emerges from the alley with a smudge of dirt under one eye, his jacket and tie pulled askew and holding his right fist the way a man would hold it if he had a set of skinned knuckles. Pat comes up to him, looking concerned.
AARON
He was meeting Obie to score some reds for himself and Hallie. I got the address.
PAT
Why’d he tell you?
AARON
(coolly)
We talked.
CUT TO:
66 EXT. COURT APARTMENTS – DAY
One of those lanai kind of places where everybody can look in everybody else’s window. One or two stories high, but all our action must take place on the first floor. As Aaron and Pat come up to Apartment “C” and Aaron knocks on the door. No answer. He knocks again. Harder. Nothing. Then he bangs on it. Nothing. But the apartment door next to it
opens and a NEIGHBOR WOMAN sticks her head out.
NEIGHBOR WOMAN
She’s in there.
Aaron and Pat look surprised.
NEIGHBOR WOMAN
She didn’t answer last week when the police came, either. The way she treated that baby!
(beat)
She went out the bathroom window around back when they came last week.
Aaron and Pat exchange glances and Aaron tears off.
67 EXT. APARTMENT HOUSE – ARRIFLEX – DAY