No Country for Old Men Page #8

MOSS:

Uh-huh. Double ought.

CLERK:

They'll give you a wallop.

He pushes the shells across.

MOSS:

You have camping supplies?

ANOTHER COUNTER:

A clerk stares at Moss.

CLERK:

Tent poles.

MOSS:

Uh-huh.

CLERK:

You already have the tent?

MOSS:

Somethin' like that.

CLERK:

Well you give me the model number of

the tent I can order you the poles.

MOSS:

Never mind. I want a tent.

CLERK:

What kind of tent?

MOSS:

The kind with the most poles.

CLERK:

Well I guess that'd be our ten-foot

backyard Per-Gola. You can stand up

in it. Well, some people could stand

up in it. Six foot clearance at the

ridge. You might just could.

MOSS:

Let me have that one. Where's the

nearest hardware store?

INT. MOSS' NEW MOTEL ROOM - DAY

He has the shotgun wedged in an open drawer and is sawing

off its barrel with a hacksaw.

MINUTES LATER:

Moss sits on the bed dressing the barrel with a file.

He puts down the file, looks at the barrel. He slides the

forearm back and forward again and lets the hammer down with

his thumb. He looks the gun over, appraising, and then opens

the box of shells and starts feeding in the heavy waxed loads.

INT. FIRST MOTEL LOBBY - DAY

Moss enters carrying a new duffle bag. The same woman is

behind the counter.

MOSS:

Could I get another room.

WOMAN:

You want to change rooms?

MOSS:

No, I want to keep my room, and get

another one.

WOMAN:

Another additional.

MOSS:

Uh-huh.You got a map of the rooms?

She inclines her head to look under the counter.

WOMAN:

Yeah we had a sorta one.

She finds a brochure and hands it across. It shows a car

from the fifties parked in front of the hotel in hard

sunlight.

Moss unfolds the brochure and studies.

MOSS:

What about one forty-two.

WOMAN:

You can have the one next to yours

if you want. One twenty. It ain't

took.

MOSS:

No, one forty-two.

WOMAN:

That's got two double beds.

EXT. MOTEL PARKING LOT - DAY

An arcing point of view on the window of Moss's old room.

The curtain still slightly open.

A reverse shows Moss crossing the lot from the office carrying

his long nylon duffle bag, studying the room. He looks

further down the street.

The truck with the roof lights is still parked there.

INT. 2ND MOTEL ROOM

Two double beds. Moss is listening at the wall. He goes to

the bed and unzips the duffle bag and pulls out the sawed-

off shotgun. He lays it on the bed. He pulls the tent poles

and some duct tape out of the duffle.

INT. CHIGURH'S TRUCK/TWO LANE HIGHWAY - LATE DAY

CHIGURH:

Driving slowly down the street with frequent glances down at

the receiver on the seat next to him. The receiver lights

ups and bleeps one time.

Chigurh slows and looks around at the buildings that line

the two-lane highway.

INT. 2ND MOTEL ROOM - LATE DAY

Moss is standing on a desk chair unscrewing the plate from

the overhead airduct. He lays it aside and raises a flashlight

and peers into the airduct.

INT. MOTEL DUCT - LATE DAY

Down the length of the duct we see an elbow junction ten

feet away. The end of the document case is just visible

sticking out into the elbow.

CHIGURH:

The receiver is bleeping slowly as the car creeps along. Up

at a distant intersection is Charlie Goodnight's Del Rio

Motel.

INT. 2ND MOTEL ROOM

Moss rips off a length of duct tape. He wraps it around two

tent poles placed end-to-end but an inch apart, not butting.

He gives the tape several winds.

EXT. MOTEL PARKING LOT - LATE DAY

CHIGURH:

He is slowly driving the parking lot, the receiver now in

his lap.

The beeping frequency peaks and then starts to fall off.

Chigurh puts the truck in reverse and eases back to the peak.

His point-of-view: window with parted curtains.

INT. 2ND MOTEL ROOM - LATE DAY

Moss experiments with the tape-joint, angling then

straightening the two poles. Satisfied, he starts taping on

a third length of pole.

INT. MOTEL LOBBY - NIGHT

Chigurh stands across the counter from the clerk who looks

at him, waiting.

He is frowning at the rate card.

INT. CHIGURH'S MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

DOOR:

It swings slowly in toward us. Chigurh stands in the doorway.

The room-number bangle hangs off the key in the knob.

He stares in for a beat.

He enters slowly and reaches up for the light switch. He

doesn't turn it on. He drops his hand. He reaches up again,

feeling it.

He looks around the room. He takes the key and closes the

door behind him.

MOSS:

Moss pulls three wire hangers off the closet rack. He takes

them to the bureau and picks up a sidecutter.

CHIGURH:

He walks over to the bathroom.

He turns on its light, looks.

He leaves the door open. He goes to a closet, opens it, looks.

He goes to the door of the room but doesn't open it. He stands

with his back against it and looks at the room.

The bathroom door.

The closet door.

Chigurh goes to the bed and sits to take off his boots.

MOSS:

Moss snips the last of the wire hangers' hooks off with the

sidecutter. He wraps the three hooks with duct tape to make

a sturdier one.

He wraps more tape to attach this hook to the end of the

three-link pole.

CHIGURH:

From a bag he withdraws a twelve-gauge automatic shotgun

fitted with a silencer big around as a beer can.

He checks the loads.

He picks up the regularly beeping receiver, turns it off,

and slips it into his pocket.

He hoists the air tank.

MOSS:

He is standing on the chair below the airduct, stooping to

pick up the jury-rigged pole leaning nearby. He straightens

and feeds the length of the pole into the duct, using the

joints to angle it in.

INT. MOTEL DUCT - NIGHT

Inside the duct:
he watches the pole play in, illuminated by

the flashlight he has left resting inside.

EXT. MOTEL WALKWAY - NIGHT

STOCKINGED FEET:

We track on the feet padding down the exterior walkway.

INT. MOTEL DUCT - NIGHT

MOSS:

Peering along the airduct, both hands up next to one ear

awkwardly maneuvering the pole.

He lays the far, hooked end over the protruding corner of

the document case. He pulls.

The pole slides off the case.

EXT./INT. 1ST MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

CHIGURH:

He stands at the door of Moss's first room. He eases an ear

against it.

He steps back.

He punches out the lock cylinder with the airgun and kicks

in the door, raising the shotgun.

A Mexican in a guyabera reclines on one of the two double

beds.

He is scrabbling for a machine pistol on the nightstand.

Chigurh fires three times quickly. The damped blasts have

the low resonance of chugs into a bottle.

MOSS:

Head still in the airduct, frozen, listening.

EXT./INT. 1ST MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

CHIGURH:

Also frozen, back against the wall outside the room, to one

side of the open door.

After a beat he steps back into the open doorway leveling

the gun.

Inside the room:
no movement. Much of the man on the bed is

spattered against the chewed-up headboard.

The bathroom door is ajar, its light on.

A long beat.

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