When a Stranger Calls Page #3

JILL:

I won't be here much longer. The

doctor and his wife are coming home

soon.

DUNCAN (O.S.)

I know.

JILL:

Can you see me?

DUNCAN (O.S.)

Yes.

JILL:

(turning toward the

window)

I'm sorry I turned the lights down.

It didn't work anyway. I can turn

them back up if you like --

DUNCAN (O.S.)

Don't.

JILL:

Don't?

(beat)

You've really scared me. Is that

what you wanted?

(beat)

Is that what you wanted?

DUNCAN (O.S.)

No.

JILL:

What do you want?

DUNCAN (O.S.)

Your blood... all over me.

Pause. Jill is terrified.

JILL:

You don't know me. You don't know

who I am or where I live. I'll get

Dr. Mandrakis to drive me home. Him

or the police.

DUNCAN (O.S.)

You've called the police?

Pause. Jill searches for some way of answering him.

JILL:

I want to talk to you.

The line goes dead. Jill hangs up. She stands. She starts to

shake.

The phone rings and Jill snatches it up.

JILL:

Leave me alone!

SACKER (O.S.)

Jill, this is Sergeant Sacker! Listen

to me!

(beat)

We've traced the call. It's coming

from within the house. A squad car's

on its way over there now... just

get out of that house!

Jill hangs up. She stands frozen in shock. Several seconds

go by. She doesn't move.

Then the phone rings. She turns and tiptoes toward the front

door. Halfway there, the phone stops ringing. She pauses for

a second, then continues.

INT. FRONT HALL

Jill reaches the front door. Carefully, quietly, she turns

the bolt. Then O.S. she hears a creak. She turns and looks

up the staircase. At the top, a door is opening. Someone is

coming out! A mumbling sound is heard on the sound track.

Jill whirls around back to the door and yanks at it. It opens,

but only an inch. The chain is still across it! She

frantically works to get the chain free. After agonizing

seconds, the chain falls clear and the door swings open.

Standing there on the other side of the door, is a police

Detective, JOHN CLIFFORD. (We have cut ahead in time some

twenty or thirty minutes.) Behind him on the street, several

patrol cars and an ambulance are pulled up at the curb, their

domelights silently flashing.

CLIFFORD:

Are the parents here yet?

COP'S VOICE (O.S.)

Yeah, they arrived about ten minutes

ago.

CLIFFORD:

Christ!

(beat)

What a homecoming!

COP'S VOICE (O.S.)

They wanted to talk to someone. I

asked them to wait until you got

here. Come on in.

Clifford sighs and steps into the front hall. The door is

closed by the uniformed COP with whom Clifford has been

speaking. The cop is a man in his thirties. His name is

CHARLES GARBER. Garber and Clifford stand in the front hall

and talk as POLICEMEN and AMBULANCE ATTENDANTS move around

them. In the living room beyond can be seen several other

POLICEMEN, Dr. Mandrakis and his wife.

GARBER:

We were only a block away when the

call went out. When we got here, the

guy was still waiting upstairs in

the children's bedroom. He was covered

with blood.

CLIFFORD:

Blood?

GARBER:

Not his own. The children had been

dead for several hours.

CLIFFORD:

Jesus...

GARBER:

He'd been using an old phone in their

bedroom that the parents had never

had disconnected.

CLIFFORD:

Who is he?

GARBER:

We found a Merchant Seaman's card on

him. He's English. Entered the country

less than a week ago.

CLIFFORD:

How about the babysitter?

GARBER:

She's going to be all right.

As Garber delivers his final line, we see ambulance attendants

dressed in white, taking a sheet-covered stretcher out the

front door.

FADE OUT:

FADE IN:

EXT. STREET - LATER AFTERNOON

An upper-class neighborhood. The CAMERA is facing down the

street. A car approaches the intersection at the end of the

block, turns and comes slowly up the street.

Because it is not a new car or an expensive car, and because

it is moving at a rate which suggests that its sole male

occupant is looking for house numbers, we can assume that

the DRIVER is a visitor to this neighborhood.

The CAMERA PANS with the car ninety degrees as it turns into

the semi-circular driveway of a mansion and rolls up to the

front door.

A TITLE appears across the bottom of the screen:

4:
30 pm Thursday, April 20, 1978

As the TITLE FADES, the driver shuts off the car engine and

opens the door to get out.

CUT TO:

INT. MANSION - DAY

The doorbell rings. A HOUSEBOY comes into the front hall,

goes to the door and opens it for the visitor. It is John

Clifford, the detective from six years ago.

He has aged noticeably over the years. His hair is grayer,

his stance not so aggressive, but his eyes still smoulder

with the accumulated frustration of having spent years in an

uncertain, sometimes unsatisfying, and frequently unsafe

occupation.

No words are exchanged as the houseboy leads Clifford across

the entrance hall and up an imposing flight of stairs. Still

keen in his observation of things, Clifford quickly takes in

this new atmosphere.

The house is richly decorated but with an underlying theme

of melancholy. There are no bright or cheerful furnishings,

and the houseboy advances with guarded tread, his face steady

and reverent.

The houseboy stops before a door at the top of the staircase

and raps lightly on it with his knuckles. Without waiting

for an answer, he opens the door and steps aside for Clifford

to enter.

Clifford pauses briefly, then walks into what appears to be

an upstairs study.

INT. STUDY - DAY

A MAN is sitting behind a desk which faces the door.

Presumably he is the master of the house. Although his face

is hidden in shadows, we can see from his hands that he is

engaged in writing something down.

Clifford quietly approaches the desk and takes a seat in

front of it. Then, vaguely in keeping with the spirit of the

house, he waits to be spoken to rather than interrupt the

pervasive stillness.

After a moment, the master of the house lays down his pen

and leans back in his chair. Pause.

MASTER:

So you're in business for yourself

now.

CLIFFORD:

(quietly)

Yes, sir, for the past three and a

half years.

MASTER:

That's good.

(beat)

And you'd heard about Curt Duncan's

escape?

CLIFFORD:

Oh, yes.

MASTER:

Do you think the police will... find

him?

Pause.

CLIFFORD:

I know they haven't assigned anyone

to it specifically. It's an old case.

MASTER:

(a tinge of bitterness)

An old case.

(beat)

Can you find him?

CLIFFORD:

Yes. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not

this week, but I'll find him.

MASTER:

He could be anywhere by now.

CLIFFORD:

I don't think so... because he's a

foreigner. He'll come back to the

city. After six years in confinement,

it's the only place that's familiar

to him. That's important.

Pause.

MASTER:

A man murders two children in cold

blood. A jury declares him insane.

How could such a person not be?

Clifford lowers his eyes, doesn't answer.

MASTER:

He is sent to a state mental

institution where the security is...

less than perfect. And he escapes.

It... it isn't fair.

The master of the house leans way forward over his desk, and

his face comes out of the shadows and into the light. It is

Dr. Mandrakis.

He seems much older. His complexion is pallid. His eyes stare

out from beneath his brow like a wounded animal hiding in a

dark cave.

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