Miami Vice Page #16

CROCKETT:

hears voices from the interior.

ISABELLA:

My aunt. She's ancient. She looks

after the place...

(beat)

This was my mother's family's

home...

CUT TO:

INT. BODEGUITA DEL MEDIO - CROCKETT + ISABELLA - AFTERNOON

in the funky yellow restaurant drinking mojitas. They've had

lunch served to them at the bar. Frosted glasses have sugar

on the bottom and are loaded with crushed Cuban herbs. The

bartender has been there for 40 years. Crockett and Isabella

look like regulars. They've served chicken and plantains.

Like any restaurant, the people eating at the bar are the

regulars. They sit where Hemingway sat in the slow part of

the afternoon.

ISABELLA:

Tell me everything.

CROCKETT:

No.

ISABELLA:

I insist.

CROCKETT:

(flip)

Okay.

(beat)

Macon, Georgia is where I was born.

Wound up in a juvenile facility. I

was 14. Then the military. Then

prison. Because I was dumb and

angry. Then I read. Then I got

smart. Then I discovered what I

know, now...it's all business...

Isabella smiles.

CROCKETT (cont'd)

(to Bartender)

My friend, two more.

(beat)

What was your mother's name...?

ISABELLA:

Blanca...a rubio like you.

(pause)

I see her in a dress...an old

photograph from Lucinda somebody's

wedding...everybody is with

couples. Husbands and wives. They

all pose. My mother is alone

because my father had to go back to

the fighting.

(she points)

...she looks right into the camera.

She is the most beautiful woman in

the room. By herself. In a party

dress. And she looked like she

knew she would die alone...

(beat...remembers)

She spoke many languages. We were

in Luanda when she died. I went to

her friends in Mali. They sent me

to the Ecole Polytechnique in

Geneva to study mathematics, where

I met Montoya in the discos. He

had banking there...I was seventeen

and very much into the clubs. And

he sent me to University for an MBA

in Finance.

(pause)

Your mother?

CROCKETT:

Died in childbirth, having me...

ISABELLA:

To mothers. And all that we owe

them...

Isabella looks at Crockett and smiles and puts on her

sunglasses.

CROCKETT:

You know how improbable this is...?

ISABELLA:

"Probable"...applies to an event

that may be real. Doesn't apply

here.

CROCKETT:

...'cause we have no future...are

of today and not tomorrow.

ISABELLA:

(laughs)

That's right.

CROCKETT:

...and therafore there is no

consequence?

ISABELLA:

Exactly.

Crockett's hand is around her waist and slips down her hip as

he pulls her closer and takes off her glasses and she puts

down her drink and kisses him at the bar and Crockett's eyes

dwell on her and she looks back at him and, now, knowing what

he's thinking...

CUT TO:

INT. THE STREAMLINE HOUSE IN VEDADO - LEADEN SKIES - LATE

AFTERNOON:

The water is like sheet metal as clouds allow only a sliver

of light to illuminate the sea while rain greys-out most of

it. Minute crimson is a freighter heading to the stone

harbor. Fabric billows in the wind. PULL BACK into the room

to Crockett and Isabella...

TWO NAKED BODIES

...one light skinned, the other brown, intertwine in the

opiated moments after sensuality. The afternoon half-light

drapes parts of their bodies, making a relief against which

their eyes hold each other's...

CUT TO:

INT. SHOWER - CROCKETT - LATER

focused elsewhere. It's as if he's struggling to record the

event of her in memory so she'll sustain there, because he

compels himself to a different place, now. Then, the shower

curtain parts. It startles him...

ISABELLA:

enters. She touches his back. He turns to her with a smile.

CROCKETT:

(soft)

Let's talk deliveries.

Isabella is not let down by the switch to commerce. She

merely goes there, too. After all, this is their subject.

Soft smiles.

CROCKETT (cont'd)

...and a different kind of deal.

ISABELLA:

Like...?

CROCKETT:

Like "three thousand a ki?" That's

nice.

And I can supply the transportation

into South Florida and the Gulf,

more reliable and on-time than

FedEx. But, three per ki was OK

for openers.

ISABELLA:

And why should continuing

excellence cost more?

CROCKETT:

Cost less. That's the point.

ISABELLA:

Is it December?

CROCKETT:

What do you mean?

ISABELLA:

Did Christmas come early this

year...?

CROCKETT:

Better than that.

(beat)

We become partners. Only in this

territory and only on loads we run.

And you don't pay us three thousand

a ki. You pay us zero. Why we

get is thirty percent of the load.

Product or cash. "And why," you're

thinking, "would I be crazy enough

to out in these gringos like that?

Is he chipping? Crazy for my love?

Too many mojitas?" And the answer

is, "of course" but also "no. It

is because Sonny can deliver what

no one else can."

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