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SHADES BLACK AND WHITE
ACT III
BY ZACHARY HOLDER
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EXT. ROBERT CLINTONS HOUSE, NIGHT CONNIE is sneaking up towards the house. He looks through the window directly off the main entrance. He sees ROBERT sitting on a couch, reading the newspaper. He goes to the back of the house. There is a window ajar, CONNIE opens it the rest of the way and slips in without a sound INT. ROBERT CLINTONS LIVING ROOM, SAME ROBERT is still reading the newspaper. CONNIE walks into the room with his gun drawn. ROBERT is totally surprised. CONNIE What are you reading? Real estate section? Ive heard that there are some good plots of land available around the zoo. ROBERT (laughing) Connie my boy, you sure are playing this off extremely well. A fine acting job for sure, there may be a future for you in the theater comrade. CONNIE is stunned, he has absolutely no idea what ROBERT is talking about. CONNIE Acting? Me? You are a sick man Clinton. You were the one in on the act all along. Wheres the money from? Thats a lot of cash and its not from the stock market, thats for sure, although I do appreciate the fact that after you killed your brother for the money, you put the stock market papers on his desk to try and throw off the lead a little though. (stalks towards ROBERT) Killed your own brother, you sick, twisted, degraded son of a bitch. What was that you told me the other night, about all we have to lean on in this world is family. Youre a liar. Nothing but a
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greedy, hypocritical piece of scum. Youll do life for this, you understand. If you make it in. CONNIE grabs ROBERT, picks him up off of the couch and throws him back down on it. ROBERT is beginning to get scared, CONNIE is enraged and it doesnt look like anything will stop him from killing ROBERT here and now. ROBERT I dont understand Connie. What happened to you in the last week. At the meeting last week you seemed fine, I dont understand. CONNIE Meeting, meeting, what meeting? What the hell are you talking about? And where did all of that money come from? Stop talking in riddles goddammit, Ive had about as much as I can take and if you dont start talking now, so help me God, Ill make you talk. ROBERT You invoke Gods name twice, but yet you swear by his teachings. Religion is the opiate of the masses. You know there is no God, only man. CONNIE Man man man lives by Gods law, that is our course in life, He put us here and we must adhere to what is right and what is wrong. There is no gray, only different shades of black and white. ROBERT How long have you been a part of our organization, yet you continue to make these statements that are against everything we stand for. CONNIE Organization? What are you talking about?
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ROBERT You know whom I speak of, we are not named, but we are many. Men like you and I Connie. We are the true saviors of man. We will bring about this revolution that will save mankind. The current economic and political system is outdated. Only through revolution will true change come. CONNIE (realization slowly creeps across his face) Oh my God, the cops were right. Communists. ROBERT Such a generic term Connie, much like Socialism, Communism is such a broad thing. Labels are only there for people to catch on to and drag an ideal down with. You and I have had this conversation, although now you will probably try and deny it, why label oneself when others will do it for you. Let actions speak for themselves and let people say what they may. CONNIE lowers the gun, he sits down on a chair across from ROBERT. A look of dread fills his expression. Feelings begin to flood him that he might not have felt if it wasnt for this conversation. CONNIE My God, my God, what have I done. The money, I helped you with that. ROBERT Easy, Connie, easy. You werent, and arent the only one, there are many people who see our vision, with the money we get we can make the vision a reality. The money you took from crime scenes, from dead bodies that you investigated and then gave to Daniel, in the end it helps us all. The ends justify the means at times.
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(pauses) But Connie, why now are you turning your back on us? After all weve been through, soon we will have enough money to start the revolution in our own backyards. The city has grown beyond what any of us had envisioned, the current administration needs to see that. Thus far they have failed. So it is time for us to get rid of the administration and start our own. Dont feel guilty about the money, for it has helped you already. Dont forget, you should be in jail right now. CONNIE I never stood trial. I was cleared. ROBERT Because of a few well-placed bribes I might add. Otherwise you would be rotting in prison right now, along with all of the filthy animals you helped put in there. Doesnt sound like a pleasant experience does it? The full realization of what Robert has been saying has finally hit CONNIE, he slumps back in the chair. He looks like a man spent, what was so full of life only moments ago has eroded into a shell of a man. CONNIE That guy got what he deserved, he got what he gave. Men dont go around raping little kids, do they? Not real men. I got that son of a bitch the first time and was convinced he was going to jail, until some DA up on an election year, let him off on probation because his mother threw her political clout around. The second time I caught him, he was in the act. The kid was six, maybe seven. Some back alley, I just happened to be walking by. The kid got to go home to his mother that night, the mother with no political clout got to see her son again. Political clout can only go so far when what is wrong goes unpunished. This time I was going to make sure politics didnt interfere with right and
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wrong. I made sure it got to the point where politics wouldnt save that piece of shits soul. ROBERT So he ended up on the banks of the Milwaukee River with fingerprints your all around his throat. Like it or not Connie, you killed that man and you wouldve paid for it with your own life. Except that men like you, men you realize what is right for the bulk of society are too important to us to let slip away. So we saved you. In an odd way though I guess, you paid for your own way out of jail with the money you kept bringing us. CONNIE hangs his head, suddenly he realizes that his whole world is a sham, everything he thought he stood for doesnt mean anything. He begins to weep. CONNIE Tell me why though, why did you kill your brother? ROBERT Me? Kill my brother? (awestruck) My goodness, you dont know do you? You dont have a clue. You poor sorry soul. (pauses) He was taking the money Connie, he was going to use it for himself and not for the good of the many. He betrayed us. You were going to take the money back for us, remember? Back for our cause. CONNIE looks up at ROBERT his face is white as a ghost, nearly death-like. Tears continue to stream down his face. IN FLASHBACK. INT. DANIEL CLINTONS OFFICE DANIEL and CONNIE are facing each other in the office. (This and all following flashback sequences should be shot in black and white film.)
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DANIEL The cause you talk about Connie, it wont work you know. Idealism is the death of all movements. This one is too idealistic, too radical. Listen to me Connie. Listen to the voice of reason. CONNIE is on the other side of the desk, hes holding out his gun. Its pointed at DANIEL. CONNIE Ive listened to voices of reason before Daniel. Socalled voices of reason are the main reason that things cant work like this anymore. We need change, wholesale change that can only come through one method. And we need that money to bring it about. So please Daniel, dont get in our way, just hand it over. DANIEL Youre a fool, like all of them, including my own brother and wife. It wont work Connie, it cant. CONNIE It can and it will. DANIEL takes a step towards CONNIE. CONNIE fires his gun, purposely missing DANIEL. DANIEL takes a few steps back. CONNIE It doesnt have to be this way, it shouldnt have to be this way. Our way is the way of righteousness, of virtue. Our way will prove to be what we need as man to survive. DANIEL Now Connie, the time to talk is through.
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DANIEL takes another step towards CONNIE. CONNIE fires the gun twice, rapidly. DANIEL falls back against the wall, dead. BACK TO THE PRESENT. INT. ROBERT CLINTONS LIVING ROOM CONNIE Impossible, thats not how it couldve happened. The note in the leg of the desk, the encrypted note. It shows you knew about the money, theres the motive. Greed. You speak so righteously of yourself and your cause and the goodwill to all men, but deep down you wanted that money and greed made you kill your own brother. ROBERT The note was for me thats for sure. Daniel put it there, before he betrayed us, before he let us all down. It was in case of his untimely death. To let me know where the money was. But with the police around I figured it wasnt safe yet to go in there and get it, in case they came back and discovered it. I could deny everything and it wouldnt stick, but if they found the note on me, or the safe or anything else, it couldve been the death of us all. That desk used to be mine, I knew all about the false leg and the false-bottomed drawer. You seem to be the only one that didnt know. You and Christine, of course, but why put any more hardship on her already, we didnt need to let her know that her husband was a traitor. I knew you killed D...