She’s mesmerized. A cobra at a mongoose rally. Sonny keeps pressing.
SONNY (CONT’D.)
I promised you, didn’t I? Didn’t I give you my bounden word the nights on the sofa would come to an end? Soon as this is all past, I tell Darleen I want a divorce, there’s no kids, legally I got it arranged so the settlement won’t hurt—
SARAH
But I’m so frightened!
(beat, with awe)
I’ve never been involved in such things…with you…the hearings…now that woman trying to—
SONNY (getting miffed)
Can’t you let it sleep?!?
SARAH
Oh, Sonny…those terrible things she was saying! So many people in town whisper behind my back when I go shoppin’ at the stores.
SONNY (soothes her)
It’s okay, dumplin’. It’s just nothin’ but okay. Commission said I was clean. Nobody can’t shake back at that, comes right down to it.
SARAH
But Sonny, if that’s so, why couldn’t I find the proper specs on that job, the bills of lading, all the docu—
SONNY (toughly)
I said it don’t matter! As long as the books are squeaky, it’s just a lotta wind they’re raising.
Then he is very businesslike. He puts her from him and starts to roll down his sleeves.
SONNY (CONT’D.)
I build roads, and bridges, and buildings, and whole damned tracts of houses. Let’m say what they want. As long as I got you, you little whiz, I got the world in an eggcup!
SARAH (goofy-eyed)
Oh, I do love you more than any thing I ever knew, Sonny.
SONNY (distracted)
And I love you, too, babe. But if I don’t get home, Darleen’ll be comin’ after me with a blowtorch.
(beat)
Now I’m just fine, just fine. You stay on, work a bit on those books, and come in late tomorrow.
He shrugs into his all-weather padded vest, zips up, and gives her a honey-dripping grin. He opens his arms and, like a puppy, she moves to him, hungry for the smallest touch; and as he embraces her passionately the CAMERA MOVES PAST THEM toward the window of the construction company office, as the first few drops of rain spatter on the pane.
SONNY’S VOICE (OVER)
Can you imagine the gall of that damned woman? Makin’ me say her dead kid’s name!
As Sonny’s VO speaks, lightning splits the sky, the rain starts to come down in a torrent, and CAMERA GOES INTO WINDOW as the thunder rattles ominously around the night.
CUT TO:
12 EXT. CONSTRUCTION COMPANY—NIGHT—REVERSE FULL SHOT
From the edge of the woods CAMERA ESTABLISHES the small, three-room construction company offices sitting in the middle of a small clearing at the side of the highway. Tall woods all around. Floodlights illuminate a sign near the road with the Colony Construction name and logo prominent. In the otherwise empty parking area—turning to mud as the rain comes down—we see a fancy current-model pickup truck: a behemoth RV with a rack of spotlights on the cab, wheeled with gargantuan tires. The RV is painted in very distinctive candy-flake colors, the Colony logo on the door. There is also a modest sedan, perhaps three years old, sitting very near the RV, looking pathetic next to Sonny’s high-rise vehicle. The small grounds of the office are neatly manicured, the lights are on in two of the offices.
[MORE]
As we watch, one of the lights goes off, Sonny comes out of the building, pauses a second to gauge the rain as he stands on the porch of the frame office, then he hunches his shoulders, dashes down the steps, rushes through the pelting rain as lightning and thunder crash, leaps up to the runningboard of the RV, gets in quickly. The RV lights go on, throwing cones of brilliance across the highway to the woods. Then the motor revs like a waking dragon and, spewing mud in a wide swath, he tools out of the lot, turns onto the gleaming black highway, and is gone, as CAMERA PANS LEFT to follow the action. Rain falls heavily. CAMERA HOLDS a moment then PANS BACK and BEGINS TO MOVE IN SLOWLY on the office building where the single light glows. Lightning illuminates the woods briefly as CAMERA CONTINUES TO MOVE IN STEADILY toward the window until we can see Sarah inside, poring over the ledgers and we
LAP-DISSOLVE THRU:
.13 SARAH—EXT. & INT. SHOTS
and
14
DIFFERENT ANGLE THAN SHOT 12. On the woman working by lamplight, ledgers in duplicate before her, making erasures, altering figures, changing dates. We need not see exactly what she is writing, but should get the impression that time is passing. CAMERA CONTINUES MOVING IN ON WINDOW as we
LAP-DISSOLVE THRU:
INT. OFFICE—ANOTHER ANGLE—SAME SCENE
as she works. Hours have passed. And we CONTINUE
LAP-DISSOLVE TO:
15 EXT. CONSTRUCTION COMPANY—NIGHT
Rain has now turned the parking lot into a venue of small lakes. ANOTHER ANGLE THAN SHOT 12 as the single light goes off in the building, the door opens and Sarah Bieber emerges, locks up quickly, pulls her collar around her neck, and dashes to her car. CAMERA IN as she tries to start the old vehicle. It revs a few times, then catches. CAMERA TO CAR as she pulls away, spraying water, and CAMERA HOLDS on her retreat as she swings onto the highway, going in the same direction Sonny took, and her taillights are lost in the rain.
CUT TO:
16 INT. SARAH’S CAR—NIGHT—HER POV
Past her to show the road barely visible through the sheeting rain. She swabs at the windshield. The wipers work fitfully. Her lights swerve on the road, picking up nothing but rain, and the occasional center-stripe.
.17 SERIES OF EXT. ANGLES—TRAVELING SHOTS
Thru
19
On her car as it skids. We see her go off the road onto the berm several times. Not many cars pass her going the other way, but each time a car swooshes past, the water from the highway inundates her vehicle. On LAST SHOT of SEQUENCE, CAMERA HOLDS as car passes through to:
20 INT. CAR
as suddenly a gigantic semi looms whale-like in front of the car, its lights glaring. As it booms past, water rises over her like a tidal wave, she starts to skid badly, spins the wheel…
INTERCUT TO:
21 INTERCUT
EXT. HIGHWAY—NIGHT—RAIN
As the vehicle fishtails wildly, swerving across the line and back and we
CUT BACK TO:
22 SAME AS 20
As she struggles with the wheel…the road and trees flashing in the windshield. Then, as she manages to get the car under control, she sees THRU WINDSHIELD the glow of neon lights, red and yellow and flashing at her. She turns toward them, as CAMERA HOLDS HER POV, until she is right under the lights and we can see it’s the gaudy road sign of the old sort, circa Forties; the neons flash on and off with the message:
HI OLD TIME ROADHOUSE DANCING EATS
23 EXT. ROADHOUSE—NIGHT—HIGH SHOT
On Sarah’s car as she pulls past the sign and into the muddy parking lot. Her car is covered with mud, windshield obscured. She pulls into the lot, near the few RVs and cars and 4-wheel-drive vehicles. The Hi Old Time is one of those ratty-looking, utterly disreputable juke joints that features greasy food, redneck music, sawdust on the floor, and probably a congeries of small rooms upstairs in which the totality of furniture is a bed, a hat rack, a bidet and a sink, if you get the meaning. Sarah pulls to a stop near some vehicles.
NOTE: we should not be able to make out one vehicle from another. ANGLE to obscure this element.
24 INT. SARAH’S CAR
CLOSE ON DASH CLOCK. Two A.M. CAMERA PULLS BACK to ANGLE on SARAH as she looks at the Hi Old Time. She makes a disgusted sound, the sort of sound a good churchgoing woman would make at the city limits of Sodom. It is clear that she reviles this sinkhole of depravity. She reaches into her glove compartment, brings out a small squeegee and sponge implement, and opens the door on the rain.
25 EXT. ROADHOUSE PARKING LOT—CLOSE ON CAR—STEADICAM
As
Sarah steps out, HAND-HELD CAMERA goes with her. She is lit by the neon that goes on and off with eerie colors washing her. Torrential rain. Cold. She slams the door and begins squeegeeing her windshield, sluicing away the mud covering the glass. Then she stops. CAMERA HOLDS HER as she looks across the hood of the car and CAMERA ANGLE TILTS to show us the vehicle parked next to hers. It rises above her car and as we SHOOT PAST HER we are FULL ON the Colony Corporation logo. It is on the side of Sonny’s RV. It can be no other vehicle. We know that trashwagon appearance from Scene 12. She looks around, obviously confused to see the vehicle here. Wasn’t Sonny going straight home to his wife…or to the police station in town…what’s going on here? Concern, querulousness.
CAMERA HAND-HELD—WITH HER
Still holding the squeegee, she slogs through the rain and mud to the roadhouse, opens the front door and steps inside.
26 INT. ROADHOUSE—ANGLE ON DARK ENTRANCEWAY
As Sarah moves out of shadow with the door closing behind her, coming TO CAMERA. CLOSE ON HER as we see her looking into CAMERA. The SOUND of pseudo-disco-cum-country music, achingly bad and cheap music, OVER THIS SCENE. EXTREME CU as she REACTS to what she sees.
CUT TO:
27 REVERSE ANGLE—SARAH’S POV—WHAT SHE SEES
The usual stereotypical roadhouse scene, with neon beer signs bubbling, a bar, booths, tables and chairs, bumper pool, the band platform empty but the jukebox blaring. And in the middle of the room, Sonny is slow-dancing with a pair of, well, to put it politely, a PAIR of BIMBOS. Acres of eyeshadow and blonde hair, short black leather skirts, spiked heels an assassin would envy. Not easy, dancing with two women at the same time.
CAMERA MOVES IN CLOSER to show the technique Sonny uses to meet the challenge: his hands where they shouldn’t oughtta be, and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, first one lady, then the other. And heads thrown back with laughter.
CUT BACK TO:
28 SAME AS 26
CAMERA MOVING IN STEADILY, CALMLY, ANGRILY on mousy Sarah’s face as she stares in wide-eyed disbelief…then a pain so clear, so obvious, that even an Easter Island statue would melt at her angst…then a rapidly dawning and blossoming and burning hatred. We can see betrayal in her expression, and her clenched fist codifies it for us.
29 CLOSE ON SONNY & WOMEN
They do not attempt to keep their voices down, yet they are saying double-entendres as if they were sotto voce:
SONNY (lecherously)
Swear I haven’t been around such prime beef since I was locked in overnight at the meat market.
1ST BIMBO (archly)
You look like a filet mignon type to me, Sonny.
2ND BIMBO
Don’tchoo get no prime filet to home, honey?
SONNY
Ground round, nothin’ but ground round.
1ST BIMBO
Dog meat.
2ND BIMBO
Imported kangarooooooo…!
SONNY
Everywhere I put my hands…
(and he puts his hands)
I get hamburger, when my soul cries out for USDA prime cut!
The bimbos squeal and writhe under his pawing, as they dance. Sonny begins to chant, and, after a BEAT, the flashy ladies take it up:
SONNY (CONT’D.) (chanting)
I wanna double burger…I wanna double burger…I wanna
1ST BIMBO 2ND BIMBO (joins in) (joins in)
I wanna double burger…I wanna double burger…
I wanna double burger…I wanna double burger…
30 SAME AS 28
CAMERA MOVING IN on Sarah, whose teeth are clenched.
SARAH (murmurs softly)
“I better get home before my wife comes after me with a blowtorch…”
31 ANGLE PAST SARAH—TO BARROOM
As she stands there. She cannot take her eyes off the squalid scene. Suddenly, the women dancing with Sonny begin to drag him toward the shadowy foyer. Sonny, half resisting, grabs up his padded vest from the back of a chair, screams a goodbye to an unseen bartender, and they all careen toward the spot where Sarah watches. But the spot is empty, and we see the front door slowly closing.
32 EXT. PARKING LOT—THE SCENE
As the reeling trio emerge, the women holding their coats over their heads to protect their “do”s from the rain. They rush to the RV. Sonny is about to unlock the RV when a particularly BRIGHT BLAZE OF LIGHTNING and accompanying thunder illuminate the scene.
.33 INTERCUTS BETWEEN SONNY & SARAH IN CU
thru
36
His eyes widen. Rain washes his face as he stares in disbelief.
CUT TO:
ANGLE across the RV and Sarah’s car, beside each other, to Sarah staring at him with naked hatred as she stands with her door unlocked and open.
CUT TO:
Sonny dropping the mask. His amazement vanishes and his lips skin back in a rictus of fury. He utters a low growl.
CUT TO:
Sarah throws the squeegee at him and gets in the car, starts it instantly and PULLS OUT OF FRAME as we
CUT TO:
37 FULL SHOT—THE SCENE
As Sonny ignores the women, leaves them standing beside the still-locked passenger door of the RV, dashes around the vehicle as Sarah’s car roars out of the muddy parking lot and heads back toward the office (and the orientation should be clear from previous shots). He unlocks quickly, jumps up and slams the door, guns the motor and burns rubber, spraying mud everywhichway. He takes off after her as CAMERA COMES IN CLOSE on the two ladies of the evening, now utterly drenched, doing a kind of all-over wet T-shirt performance, furious at his abandonment. The RV’s taillights wink, and he’s gone.
. 38 THE HIGHWAY—MOVING SHOT—NIGHT
thru
42
First Sarah’s car, careening down the flooded road, skidding, swerving. Sarah in tears if an INTERIOR SHOT is needed. The small car holding the road only by a miracle as she recklessly rushes away from the roadhouse. Then Sonny coming after her, at full throttle, tidal-waving a car that passes him on the opposite side, Sonny cursing, pounding the steering wheel if an INTERIOR SHOT is needed, determined to catch her. End sequence with Sonny as he skids sidewise into the parking area of the Colony Construction offices.
[MORE]
Sarah’s car is close to the front steps, door open, pulled up onto the neatly landscaped display area right in front. The light is on in the car, headlights still flowing, and the front door of the offices is standing ajar. We see all of this in the brilliant glare of Sonny’s RV headlights.
43 EXT. CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
As Sonny sluices to a halt, jumps out, rushes up the steps, and through the doorway.
44 INT. SONNY’S OFFICE—THE SCENE—FAVORING DOORWAY
as Sonny rushes in, dripping wet, looking like a raging behemoth. Sarah has the desk lamp on, and she is using the letter opener to prise open a locked desk drawer. As he storms in, big as a house, filling the doorway, lit by the single lamp in terrifying immediacy, she pulls the ledgers from the drawer and looks up. Her face is filthy with tear-tracks and mud.
SARAH (betrayed, in pain)
Ogod, Ogod, what a fool I am!
Ogod, I believed you!
SONNY
Sarah, darlin’, listen to me…
SARAH
No! No more lies!
He comes to the desk, stands on the other side, fists balled, trying to finesse a way out of this.
SONNY (smoothly)
Now don’t do nothin’ with the books you’re gonna regret later.
SARAH (smoothly)
I did terrible things for you. I didn’t want to believe them, but I knew, down inside I knew…but I lied for you…
(beat)
All the pain you caused…the dead children…I saw them on the TV, and I lied for you.
SONNY
No, you’re wrong…I…
SARAH (screams)
You did! You did what they said! You shaved the specs, used inferior materi
al, my God, they weren’t even galvanized nails; the first rain everything ran with rust! Why didn’t I see what you are? I’m a decent woman…what I let you do to me…
Then she gets very cold and calm. She clutches the ledgers and starts around the desk. The letter opener lies there prominently.
SARAH (CONT’D.)
But no more. This is for me and for that poor Mrs. Kay…
As she passes him we
SHARP CUT TO:
45 INTERCUT
as Sonny’s hand comes down and picks up the letter opener with its prominent logo of the Colony Corporation sculpted at the end of the hilt.
0. 46 MURDER SEQUENCE—VARIOUS ANGLES
thru
51
(NOTE: suggest this be shot and edited as one would a music video, extreme closeups, tilt angles, slam-cuts, all with misdirection so we never actually see the murder. In much the same way Hitchcock shot the shower sequence in Psycho.)
Bodies frozen as Sarah tries to get around him. As she passes, one muscular shirt-soaked arm whips out, grabs her by the hair. He swings her around. The ledgers go flying. The desk lamp is knocked over. The light washes up the wall. The letter opener rises, vanishes from frame. Again. And on the third stroke we see the letter opener is broken off halfway up its length. Sarah falls, the plastic raincoat she still wears streaked and stained with blood inside. No blood on the hardwood floor.
.52 WITH SONNY
thru
57
As he drops the broken letter opener, the logo shining in the fallen desk lamp’s light. He stands there heaving with labored breathing. He wipes his hand over his face, the rainwater still dripping off him. His expressions rush through a gamut of emotions:
SERIES OF RAPID LAP-DISSOLVES:
SONNY’S FACE IN MEDIUM CU: