Klute Page #11

ARLYN:

Please, I am begging you.

KLUTE:

It's important.

ARLYN:

That's not the Dumper, that's all!

He was an older man!

KLUTE:

Can you give me any more

description than that?

Arlyn catches the footsteps, dodges past him toward

the door, intending to reassure --

ARLYN:

Cappy? --

-- as the pusher, CAPPY, steps in. All of this is

very quick, simultaneous, a confusion of voices.

CAPPY takes one look at Klute --

ARLYN (CONT'D)

It's all right, they're all right --

-- turns and runs.

BERGER (O.S.)

Cappy? -- Cappy?

Cappy's FOOTSTEPS race away down the stairs. BERGER

plunges out from the connecting room, still

carrying the car radio, shouting, pursuing --

BERGER (CONT'D)

Cappy it's all right! I got a radio

-- don't run, don't --

We hear him STUMBLE AND FALL on the stairs outside,

the sound of body reeling down. Arlyn shrieks and

races after:
Klute and Bree follow.

INT. HOUSE:
LOWER HALL - DAY

We see BERGER lying at the foot of the stairs. As

Arlyn clatters down toward him, Berger sways up

onto his knees. His nose is bloodied, he cries.

Arlyn casts herself on her knees beside him, pulls

his face against her, croons to him, soothes and

tends him.

ARLYN:

Oh baby -- no it's all right -- oh

my baby baby baby --

Klute and Bree are only a half-step behind. Klute

offers to assist: Arlyn puts him away ferociously.

ARLYN (CONT'D)

Get out!

(to Berger, again)

Don't cry my baby; I'll find him,

I'll get it. Baby, baby, don't cry.

(to Klute savagely,

incoherently)

Leave us alone! Get out and get out

and leave us alone!

(to Berger)

My honey, my baby, my baby --

We DISSOLVE TO --

INT. SUBWAY TRAIN: REFLECTION IN WINDOW OF BREE AND

KLUTE SITTING SIDE BY SIDE

CAMERA moves in closer so we only see reflection of

BREE looking at herself and at the world seeming to

speed by at an inhuman pace as the lights of the

tunnel zoom past her face. What she sees is the

figure of a woman with life screaming past her out

of control.

INT. SUBWAY

SUBWAY slows to a stop and a door opens. BREE sits

with KLUTE staring at the open door and then

without warning - gets up and runs off the train.

The door closes, leaving KLUTE locked in the train.

SUBWAY EXIT:

SHOT of BREE's feet rushing up the stairs in

darkness and then quick cut to her face as she hits

the sunlight. She pauses for a moment - relieved to

be out of the darkness.

EXT. ROOFTOP OF BREE'S BROWNSTONE - NIGHT

CAMERA pans from night view of New York City to

KLUTE sitting on the rooftop alone as if trying to

comprehend all he has seen, the mystery of TOM

GRUNEMANN's disappearance in this world and the

mysteries of the behavior of BREE.

SKYLIGHT INTO BREE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Alongside of him the skylight of BREE's apartment

lights up. He looks through the skylight and sees

BREE enter her apartment. He can hear BREE talking

to somebody, and then he sees that she is talking

to FRANK LIGOURIN.

KLUTE watches through the skylight and hears bits

and pieces of the scene between BREE and FRANK. He

sees the same kind of symbiosis, the same kind of

parody of loving that he saw between ARLYN &

BERGER. As the scene becomes more intimate he

leaves.

INT. CABLE'S (CITY) OFFICE: ON KLUTE - DAY

The pristine, antiseptic, elegance off CABLE'S

office is in its own way as unreal and dehumanized

as the sexual underworld KLUTE has been exploring

with BREE, and KLUTE looks as out of place in the

one as he does in the other. TRASK sits beside

KLUTE facing CABLE who is impeccably dressed. He is

the total image of the executive in control.

CABLE:

She wouldn't be reliable anyhow --

a narcotics addict.

KLUTE:

I believed her, Pete.

TRASK:

He's right you know. Waiting for

the pusher, she'd tell you

anything.

KLUTE:

I believed her:
the Dumper was not

Tom Grunemann.

CABLE:

All right, suppose it wasn't Tom

Grunemann; where does that get you?

KLUTE:

(smiles ruefully)

It's where it doesn't get me. I've

got nothing left that connects to

anything.

CABLE:

Then, close the case.

KLUTE:

I better keep looking.

CABLE:

Where, how?

KLUTE:

(the best he can offer)

I could try Arlyn Page again. She

saw much more of the Dumper than

Bree Daniel.

CABLE:

You just finished telling me she

had nothing to offer. Not Tom, you

said, the Dumper was clearly not

Tom.

KLUTE:

It's got to make sense some way.

CABLE'S SECRETARY appears for a moment tapping her

watch significantly.

SECRETARY:

Mr. Cable -- they are meeting in

Mr. Camara's office.

CABLE:

Yes Evvie, thanks. Gentlemen, I'm

sorry.

They rise, dismissed. He sorts a paper or two,

continues to Klute.

CABLE (CONT'D)

I'm flying back out to Pennsylvania

Friday; I'll fill them in on

things.

KLUTE:

How is it back there?

CABLE:

I think you're homesick.

(reflects)

I'll be out at my camp over the

weekend. Nice right now, that touch

of fall in the air, that skim of

frost in the early mornings, very

peaceful.

(briskly again)

John, I'll be back here again

Thursday; I'll be in touch.

Lieutenant, thank you.

KLUTE and TRASK depart.

CABLE closes the door and returns to his desk. He

pulls out a tape recorder from a drawer in his

desk, rewinds it and turns it on. We hear a

playback of the previous scene with KLUTE and

TRASK. He stands at the window listening with some

satisfaction; as if listening to what KLUTE

revealed keeps him in control of the situation.

EXT. WINDOW - CABLE'S OFFICE - DAY

The CAMERA pulls back from a CU of CABLE standing

at the window to a wide angle looking at CABLE

through the window. The window is 30 or 40 stories

high. The wide angle lens almost makes the building

look like it is standing on point, and CABLE, a man

suspended in space.

EXT. WIDE SHOT:
DOCKS - DAY

A TUGBOAT has pulled in. The SOUND of its heavy

ENGINES, IDLING, runs underneath this entire

sequence. A POLICE VEHICLE or two has parked at the

head of the dock. We see several figures on the

rear deck of the tug, but it's not clear at this

distance what they're doing. The POLICE CAR WITH

KLUTE arrives. He dismounts and proceeds from dock

to tug-deck.

EXT. TUGBOAT DECK: GROUP - DAY

TRASK glances toward Klute as he arrives, but

doesn't greet him. His attention, like the others,

is directed downward and

off-scene (to the surface of the water actually,

just outboard of the tug). We see beside Trask TWO

Uniformed Cops (SUGARMAN and SPENCE) and DECKHANDS.

And we hear, along with the throbbing of the

engines, a stirring about of the water and a

peculiar third noise -- rather commingled with the

engines -- which we can't at first identify.

Klute joins the group, watches.

SPENCE brings into view, and shakes out, a giant

neoprene body bag. INSTRUCTIONS among the group AD

LIB, UNDER --

TRASK:

(toward Klute)

They were bringing a freighter down

through Kill Van Kull; propellers

washed it up on top.

SUGARMAN brings into view a METAL BASKET attached

with short ropes. He complains --

SUGARMAN:

Why didn't you bring it up on deck?

DECKHAND:

Would you bring it up on deck?

They slip the basket downward, out of frame (into

the water).

DECKHAND (CONT'D)

(to other)

Mickey, get something. Get the eels

off.

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