Copycat Page #16

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HELEN:

It's not chronological: Son of Sam

was before Hillside.

She begins to read.

M.J.

It's clear he thinks he knows me.

He lives a fantasy. 'Helen, don't

lose your head.' Is that a threat?

Does he want to cut off my head?

Dahmer cut off heads. Who else?

Kemper. Did Gacy? Rivkind? I

think Rivkind did.

She puts the note down on the table, smoothes it out. She

closes her eyes for a moment. We begin to see certain

filtered images. As they come, we INTERCUT them.

HELEN:

He attacks what he feels he can't

have. What he feels excluded

from...

EXT. UNIVERSITY CAMPUS - DAY

Lush, pastoral green. We see PETER sitting by himself. He

wears a WHITE LAB COAT, like one we saw hanging in his

basement.

HIS POV:
of students on the green, playing Frisbee,

studying together, picnicking. Women sunbathe, their straps

pulled down on their shoulders, their tops rolled up to

expose their midriffs.

HELEN (V.O.)

'First you make a stone of your

heart.'... Oh yes! He doesn't

suffer. That's past. Now it's our

turn.

One of the sunbathing girls sits up and looks round, then

takes her top off entirely.

HELEN (V.O.)

Kemper said in order to have the

experience he wanted with them, he

needed to evict them from their

bodies. By making the body a

completely passive object, he

releases himself from passivity.

CLOSE:
HELEN, DEEP IN THOUGHT...

HELEN:

But the relief he feels is only

temporary. '...Before your

conscience bothers you much

less...' But the tension always

comes back.

(she now picks out

the words:
)

'You can join the ranks of the

illustrious...' He wants to be

like them. The best. To become

the best. But, he has his own

desires, his own compulsions apart

from theirs.' His own horrors...

CUT TO:

FLASHBACK:
PETER'S CHILDHOOD HOME - DAY

An incremental flash of a SMALL BOY standing by his bed

which he has wet. His pajamas are soaked. His powerful

MOTHER grabs him by the hair and drags him with her.

HELEN (V.O.)

Some horrors that are all his

own...

The SMALL BOY is flung into an under-stairs closet where

firewood and stacked papers are kept. The door is slammed

hard. He gropes around in the darkness, finds a big box of

matches, lights one. Then, angrily, he sets fire to a pile

of newspapers. They start to burn. We see, but do not,

hear, his screams for help.

HELEN (V.O.)

He needs to prove they don't

control him, that he's the one in

control. But the feeling of power

never lasts. He can control his

victims, but he can't control

anything else... his place in the

world. He want s to be recognized.

He puts messages in my computer; he

sends me a letter...

INT. HELEN'S APARTMENT - DAY

She picks out the lines... "then you must try a twosome or a

threesome."

HELEN:

Of course he wants to do a

threesome! Only Bundy did three in

one day. Is Bundy next? But Bundy

should be last... the grand finale.

What about Kemper and Ramirez?

Gacy, Dahmer, Williams? Rivkind?

Who else is on his list? In what

order?

EXT. CITY STREET - DAY

PETER in his car. Ahead, he see TWO GIRLS at a bus stop.

We see PETER take a long bladed-knife and carefully conceal

it under his right thigh. The TWO GIRLS are wearing

backpacks. 'FESTIVAL OF LOVE' stickers decorate the bags.

PETER pulls his nondescript sedan up to them and says

something. They giggle, shake their heads. He laughs,

holds up his hands to level of his shoulders in a 'Not

guilty!' gesture, then makes a peace sign. The girls giggle

again, but do not get in.

PETER drives off.

INT. HELEN'S APARTMENT - DAY

HELEN:

'...great dark hall of fame... all

our greatest killers...' His

greatest heroes? He wants to be

famous. When they're caught and

people like me write about them, we

give them a kind of immortality.

They get thousands of letters.

Ramirez kills eight women and gets

a hundred marriage proposals a

month. They're like film stars.

M.J.

They get fan letters...

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON - DAY WARDEN FELIX MENDOZA IN HIS OFFICE

FELIX:

We keep records of any threatening

or illegal correspondence, like

relatives of victims who might want

to send the condemned man some

strychnine cookies. So it's only a

partial list, but you're still

looking at about forty pages...

MONTAGE OF PICTURE AND SOUND: WE BEGIN TO SEE MOVING LISTS

OF NAMES -- LIKE SCHINDLER'S LIST -- SUPERIMPOSED OVER THE

SHORT SNIPPETS OF SCENES... A WATERFALL OF NAMES...

INT. HELEN'S OFFICE

INSERT FAX MACHINE: LISTS OF NAMES BEING EXCRETED.

HELEN (V.O.)

Would you fax those pages to me?

INT. TASK FORCE ROOM - DAY

M.J. on the phone. On the desk in front of her, is a list

of killers, complementary to HELEN'S.

M.J.

Thank you for your help, Warden

Hillyer. As soon as you can.

She hangs up as GIGI puts a long fax sheet of names on

M.J's desk.

GIGI:

Hot off the fax. Mr. Rivkind's

fans.

M.J. doesn't look at the Rivkind list, just crosses his name

off the killer list and picks up the phone, dials, waits.

CUT TO:

INT. HELEN'S OFFICE - LATE AFTERNOON

CLOSE:
FAX OF A LIST OF NAMES AND ADDRESSES IS SCANNED BY A

SCANNER; UNIQUE SOUND OF SCANNER AND FLASHING LIGHTS.

ANOTHER PAGE IS SCANNED IN.

COMPUTER SCREEN:
CALERA WORDSCAN: SAME PAGE APPEARS AND IS

READ BY COMPUTER (A FILM OF COLOR MOVES OVER THE PAGE

SHOWING AREA SCANNED.) PAGE THEN REAPPEARS WITH ERRORS

MARKED BY COLOR;

ON SCREEN THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES SCROLL BY -- THERE ARE

HUNDREDS, MAYBE THOUSANDS OF NAMES... IMPOSSIBLE TO READ AND

COMPARE...

A COMPUTER SCREEN MIXES WITH THIS: -- BOOLEAN SEARCH TERMS

BEING TYPED IN, MEANING "LOOKING FOR LAST NAMES, IGNORING CASE,

OCCURRING ON MORE THAN ONE LIST, AND/OR MORE THAN ONCE,

COUNT NUMBER OF HITS."

THE COMPUTER SCREEN SCROLLS NAMES FASTER AND FASTER, EVERY

ONCE IN WHILE HALTING A SPLIT SECOND ON A NAME, AND

RESUMING. SUPERIMPOSED IS A FLASHING LEGEND:

PLEASE WAIT. DO NOT TOUCH KEYS OR SEARCH DATA WILL BE LOST.

HELEN (V.O.)

If we keep going and work till

midnight...

ANDY (O.S.)

Sorry, Luv. I've got a date.

HELEN (O.S.)

You've got a date right here, Andy.

This has got to...

WE NOW SEE ANDY is feeding the scanner, he has a thick sheaf

of faxed lists...

ANDY:

It's almost six. And guess what?

Hall likes me bathed and shaved.

HELEN:

Stop acting like a silly little

fag!

His eyebrows arch, but his smile stays in place.

ANDY:

My life to live, darling, try to

remember what it was like way, way

back when you were young and sexy

and alive.

He gets up and walks toward the door.

HELEN:

You bastard!

ANDY:

But alive!

THE DOOR SLAMS (O.S.) HELEN angrily hits the keys:

CUT TO:

THE ENDLESS LIST FLOWS LIKE MUDDY WATER ACROSS THE SCREEN...

HELEN -- HER FACE REFLECTS THE SCROLL OF NAMES (AS THOUGH

THEY WERE PROJECTED ON HER FACE IN REVERSE.) SHE IS TOTALLY

FOCUSSED, BUT NERVOUS; SHE LIGHTS A CIGARETTE AS

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