Mojave Page #3

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He came up to my table

and talked sh*t.

Security took him out.

Listen...

this place is dangerous.

Yeah? Everyone says

Hollywood is dangerous.

You are the one who said

what was wrong with Fitzgerald

is that he couldn't

write screenplays.

That's not what I'm talking about.

You have to go somewhere safe.

What happened in the desert?

There was a... situation.

I survived.

Someone else didn't.

I hope you don't think this sort of

thing makes a man less attractive.

You have to go.

Jumpin' tonight.

Not one of my better investments.

Let's have a drink, brother.

You'll have to buy.

They might know the owner

of the cards I've got.

I'm saving my cash

for exigencies, brother.

Is it on you?

What?

Is it on you?

No idea, brother,

what you might mean.

Hi! My name is Tarquin.

I'll be your server.

Oh, I'm sure that some entity

other than yourself,

Tarquin, will be

the judge of that.

But in my present mood,

which is just terrific,

my friend and I unconditionally

accept service as your intention.

We'll have water, brother.

We're parched.

We've been in the desert.

Still water or sparkling'?

Gas, brother.

Con gas. The bubbles.

Yeah, I was a little bit different

in the desert admittedly.

Mm-hmm.

Change sets you up.

How you been, brother?

Apart from killing

Mexican-American fathers of six

and leaving me to take

the fall for it.

I'm not your brother.

I've been doing all right.

I haven't.

I'm the 99 percent.

It's tough out there.

Only financially, of course.

IQ, brother, that remains

John Stuart Mill level.

Seriously, I was tested.

Just before I didn't go into the Army.

Congratulations.

Yeah, it's complicated.

I didn't do a lot of things, brother.

Look...

There isn't a man out there

who wouldn't have shot

that poor f***ing federale.

Nut a person alive with half a brain

would have reported it,

either, in your situation.

You were being followed by me.

I mean, obviously,

it could have been me

at the mouth of that cave,

if that parky hadn't come by,

it would have been me,

and I would have killed you.

You should understand.

And I am going to kill you.

And you need it.

Justice, brother,

needs to be sewed.

You shot a poor bastard

in the desert,

but, no, you can't tell anybody

because you've got to be Elvis Beatle.

You gotta control

your own biography.

You can'! be confused or conflated

or co-mingled with the facts, brother,

by certain disastrous facts,

certain realities.

That's bad press for the show.

So you cover it up

at expense of the human life.

What do you want, 100 grand?

A f***ing ticket to Greenland?

Brother, in a negotiation,

never be the first man

to mention a number.

What do I want'?

I want...

what you want.

But what neither of us

are gonna get... my life.

My ability to do things, to be things.

I don't want to be defined

by that sequence of accidents

any more than you do.

I want to move on, but only one of us

is gonna get to do that.

You're thinking you should we

killed me in the desert,

brother, yes, you should have.

Oh, I can always go to the cops

and tell them everything.

No. No.

That's no can do.

It's too late, brother.

You've done felonies.

You have covered up an act for which

you should've presented yourself

to the nearest constable.

You'd do time.

You're not gonna do that.

You show what you are,

everything you've got.

All done.

You'd have to say you were

psychologically unequal.

Unequal, brother, to your duties

as a good citizen.

You'd have to go apologize

on the public shame tour.

"Whoops. I shot a f***ing cop. Sorry.

Please still let me make

10 million a year

irrespective of residuals

and royalties."

You would have lo admit to deficiencies,

this is the really funny part,

deficiencies that you don't really have.

I mean, I don't think you could

admit to the ones you do have,

but I really try to imagine

you going anywhere

and saying that you're

a normal human being

that makes a normal

human f***ing being mistake,

and I just know

that's not gonna happen.

So which one of us

is the sociopath, brother?

Hmm?

How many people did you kill

or leave behind to get on your hill?

All those people rotting

in your past.

Those teachers and alcoholic wrecks

you used to befriends with

or be in bands with.

Are you still in touch

with anybody not useful?

It's not my fault that I can do things

as an artist that you can't.

Are you saying I can't?

Oh, I don't even know if you exist

as I understand existence.

Let's talk story, brother.

I had an idea

about the denouement

when I found the revolver,

dead guy's revolver.

I had an idea.

But we'll talk about that later.

Thank you for your service.

Put it on my chit.

If you're so clever...

why'd you take the gun?

What?

I'll say it to you very carefully

because you're only

John Stuart Mill level.

You have the pistol belonging

to the dead parky

and the broken piece of the rifle,

and I can reasonably maintain

that I never met you

before this very minute.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah.

If I'm the Mojave murderer,

which there is a question about,

why am I here if you

weren't in the Mojave?

Oh, I was in the Mojave.

You found the registration

of the Land Cruiser I wrecked.

Yeah.

Scenario one:

I never met you before in my life.

And I could go with that.

I did meet you before.

You came to my camp to kill me

because that's what you do

but I got the better

of you then, brother,

which is the truth.

But when I left the camp,

I left the rifle.

- Bullshit you did!

- Oh, I did.

And the last I saw you,

you were tracking me with the rifle.

And I got to the road.

I may have heard a couple

shots off in the distance.

Find I thought it was a hunter,

so I caught a truck.

Never saw you again until now.

I didn't know anything about

seven murders in the Mojave.

I'm a very busy man.

See, it plays, doesn't it?

It would prevail.

It's the fictional narrative

that makes the most sense.

Whereas the real narrative

is a very hard sell.

For example, genius,

you try and tell a cop

that you found

that dead parky's pistol

in the base of my f***ing

television, try.

You can't sell a story, brother,

in which someone else

is the villain.

You don't worry about

what is but what seems to be,

and what seems to be

is what I've been

making a living at

since I was 18 years old.

You worry about what

seems to be and not reality,

because reality

is what I f***ing say it is.

You're carrying, brother?

So are you.

How do you explain yours?

Well, yours is a bit more

hot than mine, wouldn't you say?

Mine's a misdemeanor.

Or you came in with it.

You want to play'?

- Two hundred grand.

- No.

Just get the f***

out of Los Angeles.

Use the gun on yourself.

I don't care what you do.

Whatever you do or say,

I'm gonna get out of it,

and I'm almost sorry

about that, brother,

but that's the way it is.

Get some sleep.

You look like sh*t.

Game on, brother.

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