Double Indemnity Page #4

PHYLLIS:

(Opening the door)

I wonder if I know what you mean.

NEFF:

I wonder if you wonder.

He walks out.

A-28 EXT. DIETRICHSON HOME - (DAY)

Shooting past Neff's parked car towards the entrance door,

which is just closing. Neff comes towards the car, swinging

his briefcase. He opens the car door and looks back with a

confident smile.

NEFF'S VOICE

(Over scene)

She liked me. I could feel that. The

way you feel when the cards are...

A-29 ENTRANCE DOOR, DIETRICHSON HOME

In the upper panel the peep window opens and Phyllis looks

out after Neff.

NEFF'S VOICE

falling right for you, with a nice

little pile of blue and yellow chips

in the middle of the table. Only

what I didn't know then was that I

wasn't playing her. She was playing

me -- with a deck of marked cards --

and the stakes weren't any blue and

yellow chips. They were dynamite. I

went back to the office that afternoon

to see if I had any mail. It was the

same afternoon you had that Sam

Gorlopis on the carpet, that truck

driver from Inglewood, remember,

Keyes?

A-30 NEFF

He sits in his car, presses the starter button, looking back

towards the little window in the entrance door.

A-31 ENTRANCE DOOR

The peep window is quickly closed from inside.

A-32 STREET

Neff makes a U-turn and drives back down the block.

DISSOLVE TO:

A-33 LONG SHOT - INSURANCE OFFICE - TWELFTH FLOOR - (DAY) -

CAMERA HIGH:

Activity on the eleventh floor below. Typewriters working,

adding machines, filing clerks, secretaries, and so forth.

Neff, wearing his hat and carrying his briefcase, enters

from the vestibule. He walks towards his office. He passes a

few salesmen, etc. There is an exchange of greetings. Just

as he reaches his office a secretary comes out. She stops.

SECRETARY:

Oh, Mr. Neff, Mr. Keyes wants to see

you. He's been yelling for you all

afternoon.

NEFF:

Is he sore, or just frothing at the

mouth a little? Here, park these for

me, sweetheart.

He hands her his hat and briefcase and continues right on,

CAMERA WITH HIM, to a door lettered:

BARTON KEYES - CLAIMS MANAGER

Keyes' voice is heard inside, plenty loud. Neff grins as he

opens the door and goes in.

A-34 KEYES:
OFFICE - (DAY)

A minor executive office, not too tidy: large desk across

one corner, good carpet, several chairs, filing cabinet

against one wall, a dictaphone on the corner of the desk.

Keyes is sitting behind the desk with his coat off but his

hat on. A cigar is clamped in his mouth, ashes falling like

snow down his vest, a gold chair and elk's tooth across it.

On the other side of the desk sits Sam Gorlopis. He is a

big, dumb bruiser, six feet three inches tall -- a dirty

work shirt and corduroy pants, rough, untidy hair, broad

face, small piggish eyes. He holds a sweat-soaked hat on his

knee with a hairy hand. He is chewing gum rapidly. As Neff

opens the door, Keyes is giving it to Gorlopis.

KEYES:

Wise up, Gorlopis. You're not kidding

anybody with that line of bull. You're

in a jam and you know it.

GORLOPIS:

Sez you. All I want is my money.

KEYES:

Sez you. All you're gonna get is the

cops.

He sees Neff standing inside the door.

KEYES:

Come in, Walter. This is Sam Gorlopis

from Inglewood.

NEFF:

Sure, I know Mr. Gorlopis. Wrote a

policy on his truck. How are you,

Mr. Gorlopis?

GORLOPIS:

I ain't so good. My truck burned

down.

He looks cautiously sideways at Keyes.

KEYES:

Yeah, he just planted his big foot

on the starter and the whole thing

blazed up in his face.

GORLOPIS:

Yes, sir.

KEYES:

And didn't even singe his eyebrows.

GORLOPIS:

No sir. Look, mister. I got twenty-

six hundred bucks tied up in that

truck. I'm insured with this company

and I want my money.

KEYES:

You got a wife, Gorlopis?

GORLOPIS:

Sure I got a wife.

KEYES:

You got kids?

GORLOPIS:

Two kids.

KEYES:

What you got for dinner tonight?

GORLOPIS:

We got meat loaf.

KEYES:

How do you make your meat loaf,

Gorlopis?

GORLOPIS:

Veal and pork and bread and garlic.

Greek style.

KEYES:

How much garlic?

GORLOPIS:

Lotsa garlic, Mr. Keyes.

KEYES:

Okay, Gorlopis. Now listen here.

Let's say you just came up here to

tell me how to make meat loaf. That's

all, understand? Because if you came

up here to claim on that truck, I'd

have to turn you over to the law,

Gorlopis, and they'd put you in jail.

No wife. No kids --

GORLOPIS:

What for?

KEYES:

(Yelling)

And no meat loaf, Gorlopis!

GORLOPIS:

I didn't do nothin'.

KEYES:

No? Look, Gorlopis. Every month

hundreds of claims come to this desk.

Some of them are phonies, and I know

which ones. How do I know, Gorlopis?

(He speaks as if to a

child)

Because my little man tells me.

GORLOPIS:

What little man?

KEYES:

The little man in here.

He pounds the pit of his stomach.

KEYES:

Every time one of those phonies comes

along he ties knots in my stomach.

And yours was one of them, Gorlopis.

That's how I knew your claim was

crooked. So what did I do? I sent a

tow car out to your garage this

afternoon and they jacked up that

burned-out truck of yours. And what

did they find, Gorlopis? They found

what was left of a pile of shavings.

GORLOPIS:

What shavings?

KEYES:

The ones you soaked with kerosene

and dropped a match on.

Gorlopis cringes under the impact.

GORLOPIS:

Look, Mr. Keyes, I'm just a poor

guy. Maybe I made a mistake.

KEYES:

That's one way of putting it.

GORLOPIS:

I ain't feelin' so good, Mr. Keyes.

KEYES:

Sign this and you'll feel fine.

He puts a blank form in front of him and points.

KEYES:

Right there. It's a waiver on your

claim.

Gorlopis hesitates, then signs laboriously.

KEYES:

Now you're an honest man again.

GORLOPIS:

But I ain't got no more truck.

KEYES:

Goodbye, Gorlopis.

GORLOPIS:

(Still bewildered)

Goodbye, Mr. Keyes.

He stands up and goes slowly to the door and turns there.

GORLOPIS:

Twenty-six hundred bucks. That's a

lot of dough where I live.

KEYES:

What's the matter, Gorlopis? Don't

you know how to open the door? Just

put your hand on the knob, turn it

to the right, pull it toward you --

GORLOPIS:

(Doing just as Keyes

says)

Like this, Mr. Keyes?

KEYES:

That's the boy. Now the same thing

from the outside.

GORLOPIS:

(Stupefied)

Thank you, Mr. Keyes.

He goes out, closing the door after him. Keyes takes his

cigar stub from his mouth and turns it slowly in the flame

of a lighted match. He turns to Neff.

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