Fay Grim Page #3

Things he got away with.

Those were the best ones.

Like what things?

He told me not to tell you.

Come on Ned, I mean it.

I promised.

You were 5 years old.

He had no right to make you promise anything.

But I did.

Do we have like a map of

the world or something?

Where's Afghanistan?

There.

- Did your father ever tell you about Afghanistan?

- Yeah.

Really?

Sure.

See, the mountains, here,

leading up to the Hindu Kush,

across the Himalayas, then on to Tibet.

He said he'd been there too?

He'd been everywhere.

See Jerusalem here.

Mecca. Iraq.

Rome. The Vatican-city.

The Pope threw a chair at him once.

Okay. Stop. That's enough.

Do you believe them?

Who?

Fulbright. You believe Dad's dead?

Hello?

He was shot in the street, returning to the office.

He'll be ok, they think.

He was very lucky. But he's raving.

They're getting ready to operate now.

- Angus!

- Fay, thank God!

Milla, get my trousers! Let's get out of here!

Angus, cool it! You've been shot. Calm down.

Listen, Fay, think!

You, Simon, and myself... are the only people

who ever read the Confessions.

You think you've been shot

because you've read Henry's notebooks?

Yes. Isn't it obvious?

No, it isn't.

Look, Fay...

I found one of Henry's books

and I had you smuggle it into Simon.

He's right, Henry was in South America.

In the 70's.

That's impossible.

He was an eye witness to

the overthrow of Governments there.

He mentions Fulbright by name.

Twice. And there's more...

Sorry, miss,

we've got to get him into surgery right away.

Fay, I'm sorry.

Someone knows we have that book

and they will kill to get it.

When you disembark at Paris

you go directly to the ladies room.

Before you clear customs.

It'll be on your left as you enter the terminal.

The operative will establish contact.

How?

Impossible to say.

Check the time before you enter the ladies room.

Wait only 5 minutes.

If contact isn't established in 5 minutes, abort.

If these guys don't get Uncle Simon out

of jail by six o'clock this evening...

...call me right away at the hotel

and leave a message.

Okay.

- You've got the number, right?

- Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

You don't fly much do you?

I do, often.

It will be over in no time.

My name is Andre.

- Fay.

- Enchanted.

What's this?

Angus bought Mom a new couch.

Come on, Check out my new computer.

Simon, what are you doing out of jail?

What are you doing out of the hospital?

I'm a sitting duck in the hospital, Simon.

Someone's trying to kill me, haven't you heard?

You'd be safer in jail too.

Where's Fay?

She cut a deal with the Feds.

She's on her way to Paris

to retrieve two of Henry's books

How could you let her do that!

I didn't know until an hour ago.

She negotiated for my release.

Here, take a look at this. It came in the mail.

Wow.

- It's an orgy.

- It sure is.

You see, it was not so bad after all.

Thanks so much. I really enjoyed myself.

I am in Paris for the week.

- Perhaps I can see you again?

- Sure. Okay.

- Welcome home Simon.

- Thank you Father.

Sorry to get you out of bed so early.

We need your help.

You have to look into it and turn the crank.

Sorry Father.

We need to know about the writing on the wall...

...behind the three people, you know, on the...

Yes, on the wall behind

the two girls with the goat.

We thought it might be Latin.

Old. Ancient.

Hebrew maybe.

Semitic, certainly.

No, Slovak.

I can't tell really

with all the foreground debauchery.

Why is this important?

We think Henry might have sent it.

They told Fay he was dead.

And offered no proof.

Just hear-say. A rumor off the Internet.

Why would they deceive her?

Because the only way they can get those books

away from the French is if Fay is a widow.

The French?

What the French got to do with it?

And which books?

Simon, what's going on?

We think Fay's been roped in to some

kind of international espionage, Father.

By whom? And why?

I was mistaken about Henry's book

when I read it seven years ago.

It was not what I thought it was.

Keep this phone with you.

Clear customs, retrieve your luggage...

...and meet Monsieur Picard

and his people from the Ministry Of Security

just outside the baggage claim.

I will be in touch.

Father...

Look, father, this is book six.

Simon's fellow inmate, Herzog,

claims that in 1973...

Henrry was taught a basic but now

outdated CIA encrypting method...

...by one of his associates probably

this guy Fulbright.

You mean, its code.

Sort of, an old fashioned technique

of composing sentences...

...in some sort of consistent but

obscure relationship to a pre-existing text.

Whereas in the original text,

what's called the concordance...

...there is a noun,

in the new communique there is a verb.

Likewise, the placement of adverbs

and adjectives are reversed.

The result is usually gibberish

Well, you've both read it.

Is that how you describe Henry's Confession?

No. Illogical. Pedantic.

Contradictory. But not gibberish.

Using this method, only a certain type of

idiot savant would be capable of constructing...

...an intelligible alternate meaning,

however crazy, for the length of,

say, a sentence or two.

Henry wrote eight volumes.

How do we begin?

We'll need this to start.

Milton's Paradise Lost.

I believe it's the concordance.

Hello?

Listen carefully.

At the Ministry Of Security...

...the French will give you two books.

In one of those books, on the 17th page...

...two paragraphs from the bottom,

there will be a paragraph written

in blue ink rather than black.

The third sentence of this paragraph

will be in quotations.

Do you understand me?

Repeat it for me.

Page 17, second paragraph from the bottom

in blue ink, third sentence in quotations.

Good.

Afterwards, as you leave,

you will see a woman on the staircase.

She will drop her pen and

lean down to pick it up.

If either one of the notebooks have

a paragraph written in blue ink...

...on the 17th page

with the third sentence in quotations...

...hold the package containing them

in your left hand.

Otherwise, hold them in your right.

Do you understand?

- Yes.

- Good.

And then what?

Keep this phone with you,

turn off the ringer and put it on vibrate.

Place the books in the hotel safe.

Your work will be done.

What do you got Ned?

I've created a program,

where we type in the confession...

...the computer translates all the nouns

and the verbs and everything.

As long as it can recognize the concordance.

That means we'll have to type

in all of Paradise Lost too, won't we?

This could take days.

I found it online, Angus.

Now we just have to see if we can download

and import it into Ned's program.

Oh that's easy. Let me see.

My apologies. But it's crucial I think.

I bet.

What is it Rabbi, can you read it?

The dame with the big caboose

is always in the way.

Hold it!

There it is.

I see it. But I can't read it.

It's not Hebrew.

- Maybe it's Chinese.

- That's a Roman alphabet, Rabbi.

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