Midnight Express Page #11

BELL (OVER)

Whatcha' in for, smuggling? Rash?

BILLY turning his eyes away from ZIAT

BILLY:

Yeah.

BELL:

(shaking his head)

History, man, history. How much?

BILLY:

Two kilos.

BELL:

Where?

BILLY:

The airport. Trying to get on the

plane for the States.

BELL:

(whistling a kind

of punctuation)

Could be ten or fifteen. Maybe

even twenty.

BILLY:

(tensing)

Twenty months?

BELL:

Twenty f***ing YEARS, man - YEARS!

I figger ten at the least.

BILLY stunned.

BILLY:

(soft)

Years?

BELL:

Yeah, what do you think this is,

the good USA? This is Turkey, man...

(laughs bitterly))

It's a f***ing accident here if

you're innocent. And anyway...

...ain't nobody who's innocent.

ANOTHER ANGLE - all the color and breath seems to have

gone from BILLY.

ERICH:

(his English is

halting but has a

calming effect)

Don't pay too much attention,

anything is possible in Turkey.

You might get bail.

BELL snorts, amused, kicking the SOCCER BALL away hard as

it dribbles towards them.

ERICH:

...If you make bail, you're free.

You can get a fake passport or

sneak across the border to Greece.

The Greeks hate the Turks so much

they never send you back. The Turks

know it. They just keep the bail.

money.

BELL:

Sure, keep dreaming and see where

that gets you... like Max, up in

the head, you know...

(makes a crazy signal

towards the head)

You gonna eat a lot more fasoulia

beans, Billy baby, 'fore you taste

a hamburger 'gain cause you broke

the law man, and you got caught...

(grins)

And that... is history.

ERICH:

The law is sometimes wrong.

BELL:

(eyes feverish)

The Law is never wrong, a**hole.

The Law is!

And stalks away, disgusted. A deep anger inside him. ERICH

looks at BILLY who is quiet; by way of apology.

ERICH:

New people sometimes get on his

nerves.

BILLY:

(lifeless)

What did he do?

ERIC:

He was caught steeling from a

Mosque. That's heavy here. He

got 30 years.

BILLY:

Thirty years?

ERICH:

Jimmy has more balls than brains.

He didn't tell his parents he was

in jail for a year and a half. He

says he got himself in and now

he's going to get himself out.

He shakes his head, looking at:

BELL him across the courtyard huddling with a cigarette,

bartering angrily. a raggedy GUARD giving him a cigarette,

bartering angrily.

BILLY and ERICH.

BILLY:

And you?

ERICH:

Hashish. Ninety percent of the

foreigners are in for hashish.

They walk.

BILLY:

What they give you?

ERICH:

(passive)

Twelve years.

Billy stops.

BILLY:

How much did you have?

ERICH:

A hundred grams.

BILLY:

(appalled)

It's not fair!

Even ERICH has to smile now.

ERICH:

There is no fair in Turkey, Billy.

It's all "sula-bula" like this,

like that. An Italian hippie had a

car accident and a Turk was killed.

SO, they threw him in here for six

months...

BILLY:

That doesn't seem so bad.

ERICH:

But he was eating lunch a mile

away when the Turk smashed into

killed himself.

BILLY:

He wasn't even in the car?

ERICH:

(shakes his head)

Aslan, there...

(points)

ASLAN - a young big fat heavily moustached Turk, wearing a

black silk double-breasted business suit, grotesque cuff-

links, heavily pomaded hair, is huddling in a section of

the YARD with FIVE other grinning GANGSTER TYPES, all in

suits.

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