Mortal Lock (36 page)
Authors: Andrew Vachss
Tags: #Collections & Anthologies, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #General
FADE TO BLACK
OPEN ON INT: Gathering hall
Four women are standing at the podium, dressed in identical black robes with purple sleeve-stripes. They speak in a continual stream, one picking up exactly where the other leaves off …
FIRST WOMAN
This is from the Book of Revelations …
SECOND WOMAN
… and Transformations.
THIRD WOMAN
The order is no accident.
FOURTH WOMAN
First came the Revelation.….
FADE OUT on a shot of them all speaking
FADE IN:
Open on a crew of music boys stalking toward THE SEX TUNNEL. Boom boxes are on their shoulders, each holds a different sort of short club in the other hand. One of the youngest in the crew points to a group of different individuals, all garbed in one-time-use-only plastic suits, hard at work doing various cleaning tasks
.
YOUNG MUSIC BOY
(tugging at the vest of an older boy)
What crew is that, Lyric?
LYRIC
That’s no crew, kid. That’s a horde. You have to be chosen to get in a crew. If no crew wants you, you end up in a horde.
YOUNG MUSIC BOY
And the hordes do all the cleaning?
LYRIC
(cold-laughing)
Hordes do
all
the dirty jobs in Underground. That’s why you have to be in a crew. If you’re in a horde, you’re nothing.
The Music Boys pass through the entrance to the Sex Tunnels. The camera watches them go, then pulls back out to one of the horde workers. He is scrubbing the exterior wall, but his attention is focused on a young woman who is also entering the same tunnel. She’s round-faced and kind of chubby, with her hair tied in a long ponytail, wearing nondescript jeans and a plain white sweatshirt. Another horde boy approaches as he works, and speaks to the scrubber out of the side of his mouth
.
HORDE BOY #1 (scrubber)
What’re you staring at, Esau? You act like you never seen a whore before.
HORDE BOY #2
She’s not a whore, Zimmy.
ZIMMY
Yeah? What do you think she does in there every day?
ESAU
I don’t know, but she isn’t a sex worker. They always live in the Tunnel. You never see them coming and going. Only the customers do that. The workers can’t leave until they finish their contract. And most of them just sign up again, anyway. Once you work a full contract in there, what else
could
you do?
ZIMMY
I never thought about it.
ESAU
There’s a lot of jobs in there that don’t have anything to do with sex. Look at our horde: we don’t have anything to do with sex either, but we help the tunnel keep running, don’t we?
ZIMMY
No we don’t; we just clean things. Come on, Esau. What’s the worst job in Underground? Cleaning the walls, right? We have to keep them so pure and bright it hurts your eyes to look at them. What’s that got to do with sex? Nothing! It’s what the Rulers tell us to do, so we do it.
ESAU
Most of the stuff people write on the walls is just silly. Sex stuff. Drawings of people doing … whatever.
ZIMMY
That
crap isn’t what I’m talking about—one shot of Chloroscrape from a hydroblaster and it’s gone. It’s those damn Book Boys that make us use the AC7—that’s the only thing that removes that blue paint of theirs. It eats the cover right off the wall. Then we have to put on the plastic spray-sheets, and layer it back until it looks new again. I wish they’d just stay away from here—there’s enough walls in Underground for them to work on.
ESAU
They only write on
these
walls when it’s something about sex.
ZIMMY
Who cares? I just wish I could catch one of them doing it. The bounty is five hundred thousand credits! That’s enough to buy anything you want, even your own crew. But the Rulers only pay off if you catch one of them actually writing. And you have to get the special blue paint too—that’s the only real proof it’s one of them.
ESAU
I never heard of one of them getting caught.
ZIMMY
(confidently)
Oh, they get caught, all right. It’s just that we don’t see it happen. Book Boys don’t wear crew gear. They could be anywhere, anytime. Hell, for all I know, you could be one yourself.
ESAU
(shocked, but kind of flattered, too)
Me?
ZIMMY
(letting the wind out of his sails)
Relax, man. I know you don’t have the balls for anything like that. Everybody knows what happens to a Book Boy when the Rulers get them.
FADE TO BLACK
FADE IN:
INT: Outside the sex tunnel
Note, the artificial lighting outside the sex tunnels roughly approximates a daylight cycle, starting off faint (dawn), growing steadily brighter (noon), then darkening as time passes (dusk, then night)
.
The horde arrives, and sees the Book Boys have been at work:
SEX WITH KIDS
THE RULERS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES
WE ALL KNOW WHAT YOU DID
ZIMMY
Damn! It’s going to take hours to get
that
off.
ESAU
Don’t touch it, Zimmy.
ZIMMY
Are you insane, man? If we don’t take it off, the Rulers will …
ESAU
Check out the right bank. Don’t turn your head! Use your mirror ring.
The camera comes in close on the reflection in Zimmy’s ring: a pack of Guardians, standing together, weapons at the ready
.
ESAU
(whispering)
Guardians! We have to wait until they’re gone before we touch anything the Book Boys put up. The Police Squad will be here in another
(he glances up at one of the digital clocks that are omnipresent in Underground)
sixty clicks or so.
Then
we can start cleaning that part of the wall.
ZIMMY
There’s a bounty on Guardians, too.
ESAU
(sarcastically)
So go grab one.
ZIMMY
Maybe if there was only one of them.…
ESAU
(rolls his eyes; says nothing)
ZIMMY
Look!
(pointing)
There’s
another
one!
CAMERA PANS TO:
THEY NEVER WANTED TO DO IT
AND YOU ALWAYS KNEW IT
ESAU
(tilting his head in the direction of the Guardians)
Calm down! There’s plenty of other work to do until the Police Squad comes. And once we get both of those signs off, the Book Boys probably won’t be back for weeks.
FADE OUT
Passage of time indicated by showing the horde at work over several days
.
COME IN ON: Zimmy and Esau, staring open-mouthed at:
YOU THINK PAIN IS A GAME?
YOU THINK WE DON’T KNOW YOUR NAMES?
ZIMMY
(incensed)
That’s
it
!
He opens an alarm box on the wall, and presses a red button. The Police Squad rumbles into position
.
ESAU
Good move, genius. The tunnel won’t be getting a lot of customers today.
ZIMMY
So what? I’m not getting any of those credits, anyway.
The entire horde is still working when the girl Esau had first noticed departs the Sex Tunnel. She flashes a smile at him … very quick and very private
.
FADE OUT
NEXT “MORNING”
On the wall. Same script, same color paint, but in a much larger font:
THE RULERS KNOW YOU RAPE
THEY HAVE IT ALL ON TAPE
SO DO WE
FADE OUT on the horde starting to work
.
They are still working when the Girl exits. She makes the slightest gesture with her head. Esau slides away from the horde and stands close to her
.
THE GIRL
I know you can’t stay here long. My name is Rose.
ESAU
I’m Esau. Are you with a crew?
ROSE
No. I don’t have a horde, either. So I have to pay tolls to get to my job every time.
They are still walking as …
FADE OUT
Camera shows the passage of days. Esau is working when Rose arrives; and he is still working when she leaves. Each day, they manage to talk a little longer, but we don’t hear whatever they are saying
.
FADE OUT
COME IN ON:
Esau, walking through a tunnel, occasionally using a pencil flash.
INT: Esau and Rose, inside Rose’s cell. It’s about half the size of a studio apartment. They are sitting at a table built from salvage, talking.
ROSE
Was it bad today?
ESAU
You mean, did the Book Boys tag? No. But, really, I don’t care.
ROSE
Because you have to work the same number of hours, no matter how you spend them?
ESAU
(thoughtfully)
It’s not just that. I guess I was trying to say … I don’t know, what they write, it’s the truth. If it’s written in Blue, it must be True. But sometimes you have to figure out what they’re saying.
ROSE
(tilting her head)
You like doing that, Esau?
ESAU
I … I guess I do. I never thought about it before. Until you asked me, I mean. I mean, it’s not the kind of thing you tell people. You know …
FADE OUT
COME IN ON
INT: Rose’s cell. Esau is there, too. But now they are in bed together. He is lying on his back; she is cuddled against his chest
.
ROSE
Esau?
ESAU
Hmmm?
ROSE
How come you never talk about your work? You always ask me about mine, but you never say a word about yours.
ESAU
(shifting position, now on one elbow)
I’m … embarrassed, I guess. I mean, you’re a cashier. People tell you what they want, and you point them to the right arrow. The color of the arrow tells them how many credits it’s going to cost. Most of them, they already know, so you don’t have to … deal with them, really. You have a
good
job. Me, I only scrub dirt off walls. I’m nothing.
ROSE
How can you say that?
ESAU
Why not? It’s true. I’m in a horde because none of the crews wanted me. But you … you’re by yourself because that’s what
you
wanted.
ROSE
(gazing at Esau very carefully, as if searching)
A crew doesn’t make you anything. Neither does a job. What I do in there, yes, it’s a good job … if you mean the pay. But some of it’s dirty. A lot dirtier than anything you have to do. Dirty and ugly. Evil.
ESAU
What’s “evil”?
ROSE
When the customers have sex with children. The children don’t want to do it, but the Rulers make them.
ESAU
But the Rulers make
everybody
do things they don’t want to do. That’s what the Rules are. If people
wanted
to do things, you wouldn’t have to make them do them, isn’t that right?
ROSE
No. That’s wrong. I don’t mean you’re not telling the truth; I mean, what the Rulers do,
that’s
wrong.
ESAU
But if the Rulers make the Rules, how can any rule they make be wrong?
ROSE
(wistfully)
I thought you
read
what the Books Boys write, Esau. And thought about it, too.
ESAU
I
do
read it. But I don’t always understand it.
FADE OUT
FADE IN
Clear that time has passed
.
INT: Rose’s cell
.
ESAU
(takes a deep breath)
Rose, would you … would you be with me? My cell isn’t even as big as yours, but if we each sold ours, we could get a pretty nice one. Big enough for us both. Then we could—
ROSE
(sadly)
I do love you, Esau. But you’re not ready to be with me. You have to—
ESAU
(almost frantically)
I can get more credits! All I have to do is—
Rose slaps Esau. Hard. Then she puts her face in her hands and starts sobbing
.
ESAU
(knows he did something wrong; not sure what)
Don’t cry, Rose. I’m sorry. Just tell me …
FADE OUT on Esau as he walks out of the cell. Rose is still crying
.