The Essential Ellison Part 75

1st V. P.But...

CHAIRMANLet him alone! It isn't logical to kill him now. We'rebusinessmen, not butchers.

125 REVERSE ANGLE-FROM GUNSMITHS ACROSS ARMORY.

as Flint comes out slowly. He dusts himself off, starts to walkacross the open s.p.a.ce to the Gunsmith group. 1st V.P., Barmeierand Calista watch him come toward them. He stops and smiles ather.

FLINTWould you call me a cab...or is someone motoring my way?

Calista looks at him with contempt.

CALISTAI'm disappointed in you, Derek.

FLINT(shrugs)Shakespeare was right. Why die for a lost cause?

She turns her back on him. Flint is being looked at by all ofthem with disgust and contempt. He shrugs, starts walkingtoward the big doors leading out of the armory. As he reachesthe door and opens it, the voice of the Chairman fills thearmory.

CHAIRMANGoodbye, Mr. Flint. Now that you've been properlyhumbled, let us hope our paths never cross again. If youever interfere with my business again...I'll show nomercy.

(beat)Now get out...loser!

And Flint, his jaw muscles twitching with his defeat, turns,shoulders slumped in abject defeat, and steps through the outerdoor of the armory. CAMERA HOLDS on the door for a moment andthen it is softly closed as we FADE TO BLACK andFADE OUT.

END ACT FOUR.

TAG.

FADE IN:.

126 INT. FLINT'S APARTMENT-DAY.

EXTREME CLOSEUP on Flint's hand, hitting the circular contact thatopens the tambour door to his apartment. (For those who don't knowwhat a tambour door is...it's like the lid on a rolltop desk.)CAMERA PULLS BACK to FULL SHOT of Flint as the door rolls up,revealing the gorgeous Calista. She does not come in.

FLINTGood morning. Would you care for some eggs Benedict, or just acup of kona coffee?

CALISTAIt shattered to powder when we tried to cut it.

FLINTYes, I know. How about quiche lorraine and fresh fruit?

CALISTAThe Chairman wants to see you.

Flint nods, turns and pa.s.ses his hand over an opaque plate set inthe right-hand wall. A closet door slides open and he takes out hisjacket, slips into it. Dr. Zarkov pads in from the other room andsits, watching.

CALISTAAren't you worried he might have you killed?

FLINTYou're business people, not butchers. No profit in killing me,now that the diamond is gone. Shall we go?

He starts to come through the door. She doesn't move.

CALISTAYou beat us. How did you beat us?

Flint touches her face gently. She starts at the touch.

FLINTWe don't want to keep the Chairman waiting.

He goes out, the door rolls down closed and we

CUT TO:.

127 EXT. VAULT-MATCH-CUT.

MATCH TAMBOUR DOOR IN PREVIOUS SHOT TO ANOTHER DOOR, heavily studdedwith rivets; the door to a vault. It looks utterly impregnable. Likea bank vault. The door slides into the wall as CAMERA PULLS BACK toshow Flint, Calista and the 1st V.P. standing before it. When thedoor slides away, they stand on the threshold of a small ante-chamber with a second riveted door on the other side. Flint looks atthe other two, as if asking silently if they're coming in with him.

CALISTAWe've never been beyond this chamber. We've never seen him.You'll be the first.

Flint smiles pleasantly, as if about to take a country stroll, stepsinside and the riveted door slides back obscuring him.

128 CLOSE WITH FLINT-COMPUTER ROOM.

as the second riveted door slides into the wall in front of him. Hewalks into a dimly-lit chamber filled from floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, with highly sophisticated computer cabinets. The VOICE ofthe Chairman fills the chamber.

CHAIRMANWelcome, Mr. Flint. I am the Chairman of the Board.

FLINTI suppose you knew I'd realized you were a computer.

CHAIRMANYes, but precisely when?

FLINTWhen I was destroying your headquarters, you seemed to knowwhere I was almost before I got there.

CHAIRMa.n.a.lmost. But not quite.

(beat)This isn't easy for me, Mr. Flint, but would you mind tellingme how you outwitted me?

FLINTI had already cut the diamond when Miss Griffen captured me. Icut it to the necessary wafer and attached it to the eye ofthe Death card in the tarot deck at the party. When MissGriffen took me to the garden, my contact picked up the deck.

CHAIRMANSo you knew all along.

FLINT(with compa.s.sion)Yes, I'm afraid so.

CHAIRMANBy allowing us to trap you, by keeping us busy trying to breakyou, it allowed your contact to get the focusing element toyour people in utter safety.

FLINTMagicians call it misdirection.

CHAIRMANAnd the black diamond focusing element?

FLINT.

Already at Cape Kennedy, and installed in the laser-trigger;under very heavy security.

CHAIRMANSo, in point of fact, I had lost from the first moment I hadyou.

FLINTI'm afraid so, yes.

CHAIRMANMy admiration, Mr. Flint. You are the first human ever tooutfox me. I feel like Spa.s.sky to your Fischer.

FLINTYou embarra.s.s me. Your gambits were inspired.

CHAIRMANBut ultimately useless.

(beat)You'll be amused to know this encounter has made it necessaryfor me to redesign almost half my units, not to mentionreprogramming several hundred miles of tapes and circuits.

FLINTHave you thought of amortizing it over a five year period?

CHAIRMANOrdinarily, I'd consider this a bad business venture, but inthe process of your, er, diverting us, you have thoroughlywrecked and demoralized our operation.

All through this exchange, the lights have been flickering andrunning programs; a kaleidoscope of lights.

CHAIRMAN (CONT'D.)My stockholders will be terribly upset. It will cost millionsto repair the damage to our complex alone.

Flint seems moved by this, genuinely solicitous as he says:

FLINTI'm terribly sorry. If there's anything I can do to- The machine clatters, chitters, bongs, lights flash and theilluminated plaque on one console flashes RED and BLINKS ON AND OFFwith the words REMOVE CONTENTS as something is deposited in thetray. Flint reaches over and picks it up.

CHAIRMANHere's a phone number and a dime. If you ever get involvedwith anything you think we might be interested in, please justgive me a call.

(beat)So I can avoid it.

Flint looks at the computer-which, somehow, seems very sad, verydejected-then down at the card and coin in his hand.

FLINT.

(with great gentleness)Why don't you take off a few weeks. I'm sure things will lookbrighter after you've had a rest...

The computer clicks furiously, impotently, a little crazily asCAMERA COMES IN for an EXTREME CLOSEUP of Flint's hand, the card andthe coin as we FADE TO BLACK andFADE OUT.

THE END.

The Man On The Mushroom The arrival in Hollywood was something less than auspicious. It was January, 1962, and I had broken free of the human monster for whom I'd been editing in Chicago. It was one of the worst times in my life. The one time I'd ever felt the need to go to a psychiatrist, that time in Chicago. I had remarried in haste after the four-year anguish of Charlotte and the Army and the hand-to-mouth days in Greenwich Village. Now I was living to repent in agonizing leisure.

I had been crazed for two years and hadn't realized it. Now I was responsible for one of the nicest women in the world, and her son, a winner by any standards, and I found I had messed their lives by entwining them with mine. There was need for me to run, but I could not. Nice Jewish boys from Ohio don't cut and abandon. So I began doing berserk things. I committed personal acts of a demeaning and reprehensible nature, involved myself in liaisons that were doomed and purposeless, went steadily more insane as the days wound tighter than a mainspring.

Part of it was money. Not really, but I thought it was the major part of the solution to the situation. And I'd banked on selling a book of stories to the very man for whom I was working. He took considerable pleasure in waiting till we were at a business lunch, with several other people, to announce he was not buying the book. (The depth of his sadism is obvious when one learns he subsequently did buy and publish the book.) But at the moment, it was as though someone had split the earth under me and left me hanging by the ragged edge, by my fingertips. I went back to the tiny, empty office he had set up in a downtown Evanston office building, and I sat at my desk staring at the wall. There was a clock on the wall in front of me. When I sat down after that terrible lunch, it was 1:00...

When I looked at the clock a moment later, it was 3:15...

The next time I looked, a moment later, it was 4:45...

Then 5:45...

Then 6:15...

7:00...8:30...

Somehow, I don't know how, even today, I laid my head on the desk, and when I opened my eyes again I had taken the phone off the hook. It was lying beside my mouth. A long time later, and again I don' t remember doing it, I dialed a friend, Frank M. Robinson, a dear writer friend of many years.

I heard Frank's voice saying, "h.e.l.lo...h.e.l.lo...is someone there...?"

"Frank...help me..."

And when my head was lifted off the desk, it was an hour later, the phone was whistling with a disconnect tone, and Frank had made it all the way across from Chicago to Evanston to find me. He held me like a child, and I cried.

Soon after, I left Evanston and Chicago and the human monster, and, with my wife and her son, began the long trek to the West Coast. We had agreed to divorce, but she had said to me, with a very special wisdom that I never perceived till much later, when I was whole again, "As long as you're going to leave me, at least take me to where it's warm."