Psycho Page #21

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INT. THE UPSTAIRS HALLWAY OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY)

Lila comes out of the mother's room, closes the door behind

her, looks down the stairs, then starts across the hall to

the room whose door is half-open. The room within is dark,

the shades drawn full.

Lila pauses on the threshold, reaches in, feels the wall,

throws on a switch.

INT. MOTEL OFFICE - (DAY)

Sam has risen, is standing by the counter now.

SAM:

I'm not saying you shouldn't be

contented here, I'm just doubting

that you are. I think if you saw a

chance to get out from under...

you'd unload this place...

NORMAN:

(Angrily)

This place! This isn't 'a place.'

It's my only world. I grew up in

that house back there. I was a happy

child. My mother and I... we were

more than happy.

SAM:

And now that your mother's dead?

Norman snaps a sharp, fast, ugly look at him.

NORMAN:

My mother is not dead!

SAM:

(Softly)

I didn't think so.

INT. NORMAN'S ROOM IN THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY)

Lila is standing in the doorway, staring at the room in sick

dismay. The room is grotesque, a horrible, ludicrous fantasy

of childhood held beyond the point of decency.

It is a small room. The walls are fancied with romping

silhouettes of teddy-bears and sailboats and carousels and

fat cows jumping over aghast moons. The bed is small, far

too short for a man of Norman's height. And yet the rumpled

covers indicate that it is in this bed that Norman sleeps.

Next to the bed is an old-fashioned toy chest. On its top

there are a bird-in-a-cage lamp, a plain-bound book, and an

ash tray filled with ashes and cigarette stubs. A grown man's

shirt hangs on a child's clothes tree.

Against one wall there is a narrow, high bookcase filled

with thick, unchildish-looking books. On the small, white

chest of drawers there is an old, child's victrola. The record

on the turntable is discovered, on close inspection, to be

Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

Lila studies the room, fascinated and repelled. She glances

at the bookcase, comes into the room, goes to the bookcase

and pulls out a thick, large, plain-bound book. She opens

it. Her eyes go wide in shock. And then there is disgust.

She slams the book closed, drops it.

INT. THE MOTEL OFFICE - (DAY)

Norman, behind the counter, has moved back against the wall.

Sam is still on the other side of the counter, but is leaning

forward, his eyes hard on Norman's face.

Norman's face is no longer expressionless. It has the stark,

high sheen of a cornered animal.

SAM:

(Pressing)

You look frightened. Have I been

saying something frightening?

NORMAN:

I don't know what you've been saying.

SAM:

I've been talking about your mother...

about your motel. How are you going

to do it?

NORMAN:

Do what?

SAM:

Buy a new one! In a new town!

Where you won't have to hide your

mother!

NORMAN:

Shut up!

SAM:

Where will you get the money to do

that, Bates... or do you already

have it... socked away... a lot of

it...

NORMAN:

Leave me alone!

SAM:

...Forty thousand dollars!

NORMAN:

Leave me alone!

He is close to panic now. He turns, swiftly, dashes back

into his private parlor. Sam goes quickly around the counter,

follows.

INT. NORMAN'S PRIVATE PARLOR - (DAY)

Norman hears Sam following, wants to run, to never be reached

by this man. He crosses the small room, drawn to the rear

window, as if he might fly through it. Sam enters, pauses.

Norman turns, back against the window, as unable to fly away

as are the many still, stuffed birds. Sam registers a brief

flicker of reaction when he sees the birds, but continues to

gaze at Norman, hard.

SAM:

I bet your mother knows where the

money is. And what you did to get

it. And I think she'll tell us.

Something self-assured and confident in Sam's tone gives

Norman a new, more terrified alarm. He turns his head, glances

out the window at the old house. He looks back at Sam and

there is terror in his voice.

NORMAN:

Where's that girl? The girl you came

with! Where is she?

Sam does not respond, smiles a half-smile, turns to examine

a stuffed owl. Norman looks back at the house.

NORMAN:

(A horrible groan)

Oh, God!

INT. UPSTAIRS HALL OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY)

Lila, shaken and disturbed, almost sickened, is coming out

of Norman's room. She has left the light on. She pauses in

the middle of the landing, looks at the closed door opposite

the stairs, goes to it, opens it, sees that it is the

bathroom, pulls the door to, turns, starts toward the stairs.

INT. NORMAN'S PRIVATE PARLOR - (DAY)

Sam is lying on the floor, face downward, unmoving. A

candlestick is on the floor, close by his head, still rocking

as if just dropped. OVER SHOT comes the SOUND of Norman's

footsteps and CAMERA TURNS in time to catch a brief glimpse

of him going out into the office, almost at a run.

INT. STAIRWAY OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY)

Lila is on the top step, looking down toward CAMERA.

She is listening, hoping to hear some human sound, some sound

she might follow, pursue. She hears nothing. She starts down

the stairs. Just below the halfway step, she looks at the

front door, sees out through the door window:

LILA'S VIEWPOINT - (DAY)

Norman coming.

INT. STAIRWAY OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY)

For a moment Lila panics, then she hurries down the steps,

cannot go in the direction of the front door, remembers the

stairway behind her, turns and runs in that direction. The

SOUND of Norman bounding up the porch steps can be heard.

Lila turns and dashes down the stairs which lead to the

basement, going down far enough to conceal herself, crouching

there.

Norman enters the hallway, closes the door softly, listens.

He glances once in the direction of the basement stairs. He

seems about to smile, when suddenly all expression vanishes

from his face, and he appears to enter a no-place, no-time

state. He crosses to the stairway, goes up.

Lila remains crouched on the basement stairs, listening to

the SOUNDS of Norman. His footsteps on the stairs followed

by the fast noises of doors opening, of fast moving about an

upstairs room. Convinced that he is searching the upstairs

for her, she decides to chance an escape. She starts up the

steps, is about to turn into the hallway when her eye is

caught by a glimmer of light down in the basement. She pauses,

looks down, sees the crack of light coming from behind the

not entirely closed door to the fruit cellar. The swift moving

SOUNDS of Norman continue to come from upstairs.

Lila is torn, knows she should get out of the house while

she has the chance, is unable to resist the impulse to check

that hidden-looking room down below, a room in which, she

desperately believes, there must lie some answer to what

happened to Mary. She turns and goes softly and quickly down

the stairs.

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