Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Page #5

INT. VANGER MANOR - NIGHT - 1966

44

The family has assembled at a long dining table.

VANGER V/O

The sun was down, the excitement

over, we sat down to dinner. That’s

when I noticed Harriet wasn’t there.

Vanger considers an empty chair as everyone else,

including the young man from the bridge, his jacket

draped on his chair, passes platters of food around.

VANGER V/O

And she wasn’t there the next

morning. Or the next. Or the next

forty years.

44A

OMIT:
INT. VANGER MANOR - NIGHT

44A

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 23.

23.23.

INT. VANGER’S MANOR - DUSK - PRESENT DAY

Vanger has the same look of concern on his face now as he

leads Blomkvist up some stairs.

VANGER:

What was she going to tell me? Why

didn’t I make time for her? Why

didn’t I listen?

BLOMKVIST:

She couldn’t have run away?

VANGER:

Not without being seen.

45A

EXT. THE BRIDGE - NIGHT - 1966

45A

The crews continue their work under lights.

VANGER:

Firemen stayed on the bridge all

night pumping out the gasoline. And

no one swam across, or took a row

boat. All of them were still tied up

on this side Sunday. Believe me, we

checked.

45B

INT. VANGER MANOR - DUSK - PRESENT DAY

45B

BLOMKVIST:

She couldn’t have fallen and drowned?

VANGER:

The currents aren’t strong here.

Anything that falls into the water

turns up nearby. Like her father.

His body didn’t drift more than ten

meters when he drowned the year

before.

Vanger’s pauses at a landing to steady himself and his

labored breathing.

VANGER:

No. Someone killed her, Mr.

Blomkvist. Someone on the island

that day. Someone close enough to

know what she used to give me each

year on my birthday.

He unlocks the door of the attic and pushes it open to

reveal a cluster of nine dusty framed dried flowers on a

wall.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 24.

24.24.

VANGER:

These were from her.

And, on another wall, forty similarly-framed flowers

VANGER:

These, from her killer.

Blomkvist regards the forty ...

BLOMKVIST:

Who knows about these?

VANGER:

Me, the police, the murderer ...

and now you.

EXT. STOCKHOLM - DUSK

46

It’s raining as an elegantly-dressed woman slows before

a luxurious apartment building. Salander approaches from

the other direction. Passing, she notes the four number

tones the woman keys in the code lock.

The door buzzes open and the woman disappears inside.

Salander doubles back and keys the same four number tones

in the Milton Security lock.

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - STOCKHOLM - CONTINUOUS

47

Opulent foyer. Security camera. Antique elevator cage

whose cables pull the woman upstairs. Salander comes to

an unlocked service door and takes stairs to a basement

machine room. Examines tangles of phone lines, meters,

Wi-Fi routers. Photographs them with a digital camera.

She climbs the stairs back up to the foyer. The front

door buzzes, and a man in a suit on the sidewalk pushes

it open, sees her, holds it wide enough for her to pass.

The man is a driver/bodyguard. He continues to hold the

door for his employer who now emerges from the back of an

idling car and crosses to it in the rain ... Wennerstrom.

EXT. VANGER’S MANOR - NIGHT

48

The rain here is icier and more punishing.

VANGER V/O

When the police investigation petered

out, I kept at it

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 25.

25.25.

INT. VANGER MANOR - NIGHT

They’re eating dinner now in the dining room.

VANGER:

-studying their reports and

interviews, all the information there

was, and it’s a lot. I’ve spent half

my life examining the events of a

single day.

And for all that, he’s no closer to the truth.

BLOMKVIST:

I understand your frustration.

But what you’re asking me to do is

a waste of money.

VANGER:

We haven’t discussed your fee.

BLOMKVIST:

We don’t need to. I can’t find

something you haven’t been able to

in forty years.

VANGER:

You don’t know that. You have a

very keen investigative mind.

Blomkvist wonders why he ever agreed to come here as

Vanger refills his wine glass.

VANGER:

Here’s what I propose: You come

stay on the island. I have a nice

little cottage by the water you can

use. You study the material I give

you. You find something I’ve missed

- or you don’t.

BLOMKVIST:

You want me to set aside my life

and career for something that’s a

complete waste of time.

VANGER:

Think of it as a well deserved

vacation. A way of avoiding all the

people you want to avoid right now.

(nothing from Blomkvist)

As for compensation, I’ll pay you

twice your salary for as many months

as it takes. I’ll quadruple it if

you solve the mystery.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 26.

26.26.

BLOMKVIST:

Mr. (Vanger)

VANGER:

I’m not done. I’ll throw in one

more thing - even though you’re a

terrible negotiator. It’s what you

want more than anything else and it

can’t be bought at any price. I’ll

give it to you ... Hans-Erik

Wennerstrom.

He pushes toward Blomkvist a plate: the carcass of the

fresh-killed and cooked duck they’ve been eating. It and

the mention of Wennerstrom’s name clouds, at least for a

moment, Blomkvist’s memory of the train he missed.

VANGER:

He began his career working for me.

And I’ve followed it with interest,

shall we say, ever since. You were

right about him. You just couldn’t

prove it.

A50

EXT. PLAGUE’S APARTMENT - ESTABLISHING

A50

INT. PLAGUE’S APARTMENT - STOCKHOLM - NIGHT

Salander climbs a flight of stairs in a building that

couldn’t be more different than Wennerstrom’s. Knocks

on a door, waits, listens to some dead-bolts unlocking.

It opens, but remains impassable by a figure weighing

over 300 pounds. He offers her no greeting. Fades back

into the shadows of his dark apartment.

PLAGUE:

Would you like to sit? I could

possibly clear a place if necessary.

It’s hard to imagine how he or anyone might accomplish

that. The place is like a junkyard. Even the unmade bed

is covered with stuff.

SALANDER:

Did you make it?

PLAGUE:

Have you something for me?

She takes some cash from a pocket, hands it to him. He

counts it and is unimpressed with its total.

PLAGUE:

I’m on welfare; I don’t administer

it. This isn’t enough.

Dragon Tattoo Final 9/1/11 SZ 27.

27.27.

SALANDER:

I had to pay three months back rent

and eat a little bit. It’s all I

have right now.

PLAGUE:

I find that so poignant.

So much so that he does nothing more than look at her.

She reaches to take the money back, but he pockets it and

moves across the dark room to a work table where high-end

computers fight for space with debris. Finds and gives

her a small homemade electronic box, which she turns over

in her hands.

While it’s clear both these people are deficient in

behavior that governs polite society, it’s hard to tell

which lacks it more.

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