When a Stranger Calls Page #4

MANDRAKIS:

A thing like that should never be

allowed to happen again.

CLIFFORD:

I couldn't agree with you more.

They look at each other for a long moment of acknowledgment.

Then Mandrakis stands up with a sigh.

MANDRAKIS:

Go ahead then. My accountant will

contact you.

Clifford stands and they shake hands.

CLIFFORD:

Thank you.

(beat)

How is Mrs. Mandrakis?

MANDRAKIS:

She is... unable to have any more

children.

CLIFFORD:

I'm sorry. Please give her my best.

MANDRAKIS:

Of course.

Clifford turns to go.

INT. MANSION - STAIRCASE & ENTRANCE HALL

As Clifford finds his own way down the stairs and out the

front door.

A WOMAN watches Clifford leave from the back of the staircase.

It is Mrs. Mandrakis. As with her husband, the change in her

is remarkable. She is now a brooding, barren woman.

O.S. the front door closes. Clifford is gone. Mrs. Mandrakis

walks around the front of the stairs and begins slowly

ascending them.

The houseboy silently steps into the entrance hall from a

side door and watches her.

CUT TO:

INT. A HALLWAY - MENTAL INSTITUTION - DAY

A male PATIENT wearing green, institutional pajamas and

slippers shuffles slowly up the hall. His movement is

catatonic, unfocused.

Canned Musak faintly underscores the scene.

MAN'S VOICE (O.S.)

Curt Duncan isn't going to run right

out and kill more children. I'm not

worried about that.

ANGLE ON CLIFFORD

Standing in the doorway of an office, facing into the hall,

watching the patient.

MAN'S VOICE (O.S.)

We had him for six years... under

continuous therapy, some of it rather

forceful...

ANGLE ON PATIENT

Moving past CAMERA. He is really out of it. It is a

depressing, vaguely unnerving sight.

MAN'S VOICE (O.S.)

...and drugs... tranquilizers

depressants, lithium...

ANGLE ON CLIFFORD

He turns and goes back into the office.

INT. OFFICE - DAY

We see now the MAN who's been talking -- the director of the

State Hospital, DR. MONK. He is sitting comfortably behind

his desk; his jacket off, his tie loosened, his feet up on

the desk. He is very matter-of-fact.

DR. MONK

Eventually, anyone will respond to

the treatment here.

Clifford sits down in front of the desk, picks up a folder

and leafs through it.

CLIFFORD:

You gave him electric shock?

DR. MONK

Yeah, we zapped him a few times.

It's fairly standard.

CLIFFORD:

It says here thirty-eight... thirty-

eight times.

Monk shrugs, then yawns expansively. He needn't justify

himself to the layman.

CLIFFORD:

What will happen to him now, without

the drugs he was on?

DR. MONK'S SECRETARY enters the office and hands him a folder.

Without interrupting the delivery of his lines, Monk takes

the folder, opens it, initials something on the inside, closes

the folder and hands it back to the secretary who turns and

leaves the office without uttering a word.

DR. MONK

There'll be some deterioration. That's

inevitable, but we can't say how

much.

Pause. Clifford looks at the doctor as if questioning his

casual assessment of "some deterioration."

CLIFFORD:

During the time that you had him

here, did you discover any particular

habits of his, peculiarities, quirks,

anything that might help me find

him?

DR. MONK

(shrugging again)

It's all in the folder.

CLIFFORD:

Any letters from people back in

England? Family?

DR. MONK

That, too, is in the folder.

Clifford directs a bleak look back down at the open folder,

then looks up again, his eyes narrowing.

CLIFFORD:

Let's get something straight here,

Doctor. I've been 33 years in the

business of tracking people down and

putting them away. I spent almost a

year on Curt Duncan alone, with the

trial, the testimonies, the background

investigations. I didn't come here

today to look in your goddamn folders.

In fact, I wouldn't have come here

at all if you'd done your job right.

Pause.

DR. MONK

Mr. Clifford, this is a hospital,

not a penitentiary. Everything that

pertains to one of our patients is

meticulously recorded in that

patient's folder... whether you can

make sense of it or not.

They glare at each other for several seconds. Monk is the

first one to look away.

DR. MONK

Curt Duncan is a classic paranoid-

schizophrenic. They see themselves

as victims, and they always blame

other people for the way they are.

When Duncan killed the Mandrakis

kids, it wasn't an act of hostility

against the children but against

their parents. He was getting back

at his own parents for traumas he

suffered in early childhood. The

criminal side of Curt Duncan is one

of terrible, symbolic vengeance.

CLIFFORD:

(looking up)

Assuming he isn't found right away...

what will happen to him?

Monk rises and walks to a window.

DR. MONK

I think you'll find him. Somebody

will find him. He can't function out

there. He'll make a mistake.

(turning to face

Clifford)

This is where he belongs. After six

years in here, he's suddenly gone

out to confront the world again. I

think he's in for a bit of a shock.

Monk looks back out the window.

CUT TO:

EXT. CITY STREET - LATE AFTERNOON

Not a terribly good section of town. We are looking at the

nondescript exterior of a bar across the street.

INT. BAR

This is not a slum bar, but it's close. There are a few tables

and chairs and a pool table in the back. The atmosphere is

quiet, almost depressed, and the handful of REGULARS here

are exercising their privacy without having to be alone.

They include:
HANK, the bartender, also the owner, who

absently polishes things with his cloth; TRACY, an unemployed

woman in her mid-forties who sits at the bar with a drink

and a cigarette and silently rummages through her current

feelings -- none of them new or particularly hopeful; a

COUPLE, probably retired, sitting at the same table they

come to every afternoon at this time -- him for his beer,

her for a glass of sweet white wine; and BILL, at the pool

table, a young man lithe and powerful, minding his own

business and playing his game of pool with a steady,

aggressive concentration.

RETIRED MAN:

Rackin' 'em up today, Bill?

Pause.

BILL:

(over his shoulder)

Doin' all right.

The old man smiles stupidly around the room. He racked 'em

up a little in his day, too. His smile fades as he looks at

his wife. He takes a sip of beer and lapses into memories.

Then the door opens to the outside and the yellow-orange

light of late afternoon floods into the bar. The regulars

turn to glimpse who's coming in. They see the figure of a

MAN silhouetted in the doorway. He stands there for a long

moment, not coming in. Finally even Bill interrupts his game

to turn and look.

HANK:

C'mon in and shut the door.

The intruder enters, indecisively. The door swings shut behind

him, plunging the room back into darkness. This man is "a

little weird", and the regulars continue to stare at him

until he makes his way to a table near the wall and sits

down. Then everyone returns to his own thoughts.

HANK:

(after a moment)

What'll it be?

(pause, no answer)

Hey! What'll it be?

CLOSEUP - INTRUDER

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