Game 6 Page #11

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NICKY:

I used to carry a gun when I drove

a cab.

ELLIOT:

Where is it?

NICKY:

I gave it away. I thought, I'm a

writer now.

ELLIOT:

That was a big mistake.

DODGIE:

You should never be without a gun.

In this city?

ELLIOT:

If he carries a gun, you have to

carry a gun.

NICKY:

We're making too much of this.

ELLIOT:

No, we're not.

NICKY:

I'm not a lonely spooky writer like

you. Nursing a hundred grudges. I'm

a man who loves life.

ELLIOT:

We're talking about something

deeper than grudges. How do we

respond to personal attack?

DODGIE:

In this city? And you don't carry a

gun?

ELLIOT:

How do we maintain our dignity and

self-respect?

NICKY:

In other words why should we suffer

silently at this kind of abuse? The

man is out there ruining lives.

ELLIOT:

It's your best play, Nicky.

NICKY:

He'll hate it.

ELLIOT:

He'll kill it. He'll write a review

so devastating it will shatter your

career and cause the most

unmanageable psychic grief. What

happens to your apartment on the

East River? Your house in

Connecticut, where you watch things

grow.

Dodgie goes to the cabinet on which the cash register sits.

He opens the cabinet door, slides out a drawer and removes

some hand towels. There is something there he wants Nicky to

see. An old pockmarked revolver.

Nicky sees the gun.

NICKY:

We were thinking of putting in a

pool.

ELLIOT:

(quoting)

`The most interesting thing about

Elliot Litvak is that he writes the

way he looks -- fuzzy, grubby and

shifty-eyed.'

(beat)

I'm telling you as a friend.

NICKY:

What?

ELLIOT:

There are things that speak to us

from the past.

DODGIE:

In this city you don't walk five

feet out the door and there is

somebody trying to take what's

yours.

ELLIOT:

Your truth is locked in your past.

Find it. Know it for what it is.

(beat)

Shoot him, Nicky.

NICKY:

Shoot him.

ELLIOT:

The American theater doesn't need

people like that.

NICKY:

Shoot him, Nicky. Not that we

really mean it. But where does he

live?

ELLIOT:

Keep going west. Last building

before the river.

NICKY:

How do you Eknow.

ELLIOT:

Paisley Porter.

NICKY:

What do you mean?

ELLIOT:

About an hour and a half ago. I saw

her come out of a place. She said

she was visiting a friend. But she

wouldn't tell me who.

NICKY:

Had to be him.

ELLIOT:

She was very evasive.

Nicky gets out of the chair. Dodgie removes the sheet for him

and Elliot smooths down his clothes and hair, like a pair of

grooms attending a warrior.

Nicky goes to the cabinet, gets the gun. He returns to the

chair.

NICKY:

I'm enjoying this more every

minute.

Elliot takes an after-dinner candy out of his pocket -- the

candy he pocketed in the Italian restaurant after lunch. He

blows the lint off and eats it.

DODGIE:

How do you want the sideburns.

NICKY:

Elegant and refined.

EXT. SHEA STADIUM

Crowds of people pouring down the ramps from the train

station, hurrying, late.

The umpire's room -- six men nibbling cookies, smoking a last-

minute cigarette, adjusting equipment.

An unidentified room somewhere in there lower reaches of the

stadium. Twenty cases of Great Western champagne stacked and

ready for the postgame celebration.

INT. STEVEN SCHWIMMER'S LOFT

Steven shaving. He does it symmetrically. A stroke under the

left sideburn; a stroke under the right sideburn. Left side

of jaw; right side of jaw.

Steven standing in his shorts, applying putty to his jaw to

make it square. Then a false mustache and a wavy blond

hairpiece. Then a thick bronze makeup paste.

Steven in front of a full-length mirror near the bed, putting

on a bulletproof vest, which gives him a solid appearance,

bulking his caved-in chest and concealing his pot belly.

Steven putting on black trousers, a brash shirt with a bright

bow tie, which he tips slightly askew. A pair of black and

white shoes with elevator heels. Then his shoulder holster.

Steven leaning over the coffee table, inserting bullets into

the chamber of the revolver.

With the gun in his holster, he stands in front of the

mirror. Takes the gun out, aims it, puts it back in the

holster.

Does a dazzling karate move.

Steven putting on a metallic rayon sport coat. A long silk

scarf.

We see a handsome, dashing young man.

He puts on a pair of dark glasses and heads for the door.

EXT. THE BARRYMORE

pening night crowd. The sidewalk is mobbed. Limousines and

taxis pulling up. Men in tuxedos, other men scalping tickets.

The TV crew with a female reporter doing interviews: talking

to Joanna Bourne and Sidney Fabrikant.

A couple of ten-year-old break dancers entertain the well

heeled opening night crowd.

INT. TAXI

Stuck in traffic. Nicky in the rear seat.

The driver is a black woman around fifty. Next to her in the

front seat is her grandson, Matthew, who is ten.

The interior of the taxi is homelike. A plastic drinking cup

magnetically rooted to the dashboard. A small battery-

operated fan next to the cup. The steering wheel is

upholstered. There are family photographs on the dashboard

and visors.

Matthew's schoolbooks are next to him on the front seat. He

is doing his homework.

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