You sure ain’t the Ursula I remember. What gives, baby?
Ursula turns to stare out the window, fingering the curtain as if she thinks someone might be watching. Smoke twists above her head. Orph stares at the back of her neck, at a small birthmark in the shape of an oak leaf. He reaches out to touch her but she moves closer to the window.
Outside, the same thug in the dark suit and snapbrim hat who was at the station is leaning against a lamppost. When he sees Ursula at the window he raises his hand to wave. All of a sudden, she turns around and rushes to Orph.
URSULA
Why don’t we go away, get out of town for a couple days, start over, begin like we’ve never been apart all these years? I have money, so if it’s the cost you’re thinking about – well, don’t. Consider it covered. Your wife’s worked hard, Orph.
ORPH
I didn’t think I married a workingwoman.
URSULA
Don’t be so proud! Now that you’re back I’ll stop. You can get a job, a real job, and we’ll start a family. A boy and a girl. We’ll find a little place in Santa Monica with a view of the ocean. I can bake cakes on the side, just to keep myself in dresses. What do you say?
Orph holds her again, like he’s beginning to feel the woman he remembers come back to life. When he grips her bare arms a little too hard she winces, struggles, and he grips her harder. Her eyes flash and she slaps him in the face.
ORPH
That’s more like it. That’s the Ursula I remember. My beautiful little bear.
URSULA
I hate it when you call me that. Why you wanna call me that? Just say we’ll go away. I can’t tell you how I want to get out of here!
ORPH
So let’s leave now! Anywhere you like!
Ursula fixes her eyes on his. He might be holding her but there’s no question that she’s the one in control.
URSULA
We can go up to the lake like we did when we were kids. Rent one of those cabins, you remember, cook on an open fire...
EXT. MOUNTAIN CAMPGROUND - DAY
A cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, shingles and eaves and gables bathed in sunrays cast through the boughs of tall sugar pines.
Ursula and Orph are both in casual country clothes, although Ursula looks as though her thoughts are still pacing city sidewalks.
ORPH (V.O.)
It was okay at first, almost like old times, the two of us laughing and cooking, singing round the campfire. And then on the second day, everything changed.
Leaning in the open door of the cabin, Orph strums his guitar while Ursula, hair tied in a handkerchief, makes up a picnic basket. There is wind in the trees, breezes moving boughs so it sounds like a distant waterfall. Ursula whistles along to the dark melody Orph plays, a cowboy riff on ‘I’ll Never Turn Back No More’.
ORPH
See baby, we can still make music together, just like we always could.
Ursula stops whistling, looks at her husband, and deliberately leaves one of the two sandwiches behind on the counter.
EXT. MOUNTAIN LAKE - DAY
Orph and Ursula sit in a row boat in the middle of a wide, clear lake, the shore dense with pine trees and manzanita bushes. No one else is around, not on the water, not on the shore.
The sun nakering against the water, Ursula fans herself with a magazine. A woodpecker hammers somewhere in the distance. Orph puts down the oars, strips off his jacket, and rolls up his shirtsleeves to reveal arms scarred by battle.
URSULA
This’ll do.
ORPH
Not too sunny?
URSULA
There are clouds over the valley.
Ursula begins to unpack the basket, handing Orph his sandwich. He opens a couple bottles of beer.
ORPH
Ain’t this nice?
URSULA
(flatly)
Just like a fairy tale. Only hotter.
ORPH
Come on, sweetheart, it was your idea to come up here. Can’t we be happy?
URSULA
How do you expect a girl to be happy when everything’s so second rate?
ORPH
I thought this was what you wanted. Why pick a fight already?
URSULA
That’s the problem with you: too much thinking and not enough action.
Ursula takes off her blouse to reveal a white sharkskin bathing suit. She tightens the handkerchief holding her hair in place.
ORPH
Maybe you married the wrong guy.
URSULA
Not like I had much choice.
ORPH
There’s nothing holding us now.
URSULA
ORPH
I’ve heard that one before.
URSULA
Maybe you don’t want a woman after all.
ORPH
I just wanna be happy, baby. I’ve seen too much death to stare it in the eyes every time I look into yours.
Pretending to be shocked by his words, Ursula starts to cry, turning her face away and gazing down into the water.
CLOSE UP on the dark waters of the lake and Ursula’s reflection, hard and composed, staring at herself with no trace of tears.
URSULA
You’d be better off with someone else, a girl who knows how to make you happy. I’m cursed, Orph, snake-bitten.
Ursula raises her head and catches sight of something behind her, in the line of Orph’s vision.
ORPH
What kind of crazy talk is that?
URSULA
Turn the boat. I wanna go back.
Orph rows the boat around, and as he does, a MAN begins shouting from the shore behind Orph’s back. It’s too far for Orph to get a good view of the guy.
When Orph turns back to Ursula she only shrugs. He puts down the oars and pivots all the way round in the boat to look at the man.
ORPH
(shouting)
What? I can’t hear you! Say again?
The man’s cries become more panicked and urgent, but his words remain unintelligible.
ORPH (CONT’D)
(still shouting)
Slow down. I can’t hear you!
Stomping up and down at the shore, the man waves his arms, shouting and pleading.
Orph turns around to pick up the oars, but when he does, Ursula has vanished. He’s alone in the boat. Where is she? How could she just disappear? She must be under the seat. No, she must be in the water...
He scans the surface of the lake but there’s no sign of her anywhere. The water is as still and unbroken as a pane of glass.
ORPH (CONT’D)
Ursula? Ursula! Where are you? Forgive me! URSULA!
Orph turns again and shouts to the man on the shore, who starts to run into the woods.
ORPH (CONT’D)
Mister! Hey, mister! Call the police! Call an ambulance! Help!
As the man disappears into the trees, Orph thinks he sees the flash of another person. He squints but can’t be sure. It’s too far away. The sun shimmering off the lake is too bright, the forest too dark.
In a panic, Orph begins rowing back to shore, looking across the water and searching for Ursula.
ORPH (V.O.)
A guy with any sense would have got the message, rowed home, and started a new life after whatever statutory period had to pass in the state of California. Any other dope would have found an average-looking girl with average tastes and no interest in the high life. He’d have taken her somewhere quiet and simple away from this paradise hell. But not me. No sir, I was just too dumb to read the smoke signals.
EXT. MOUNTAIN LAKE - LATER
As the afternoon wanes, Orph stands near the lakeshore with the SHERIFF and his DEPUTIES. Behind them, DIVERS slip into the water.
SHERIFF
Mean to tell me she just vanished when your back was turned and you didn’t hear a thing, Corporal?
ORPH
I wouldn’t lie to you, Sheriff. The man was shouting –
SHERIFF
And who was this fellow?
ORPH
That’s just the thing, I don’t know – he was so far away I couldn’t see.
SHERIFF
And you say he just ran off into the forest?
ORPH
Like he was trying to get away from something.
SHERIFF
And by that time your wife was gone, into thin air.
ORPH
Into clear water more like. I turned around and she had vanished.
EXT. MOUNTAIN LAKE - NIGHT
Floodlights have been rolled in to illuminate the dark lake. The Sheriff and Orph look on as the divers come out of the water, dripping with fatigue.
SHERIFF
No sign of her?
DIVER
Not a trace, Sheriff. We’ve been all over the bottom and there’s nothing but fish.
ORPH
She’s gotta be there!
The Sheriff wipes his brow.
SHERIFF
Listen, Corporal. Any chance you’ve made up this fairy tale?
ORPH
No! It’s just like I said! My wife –
SHERIFF
Here’s what I suggest, kid. Put yourself in your wife’s car and drive back to Los Angeles. We’ll dredge the lake again after daybreak, but if my boys say there’s nothing there, then there’s nothing there. I reckon your wife swam to shore and ran off with some fellow who’s a little less highly strung.
EXT. FREEWAY - NIGHT
Orph drives the winding expressway through the Tejon Pass, his face screwed up with confusion.
ORPH (V.O.)
I didn’t know what to do at first and kept thinking of how quiet it was when she vanished, except for that man shouting on the shore, and my own voice like gunfire, but otherwise silent – no breeze, no birds, no sound of water or wind or the world turning fast in its infernal orbit. And then I started thinking how Ursula wasn’t the first person I’d lost, how there was my best friend, and that farm boy from Virginia, all of them gone because of something I’d done. Sure I was dumb, I was dumb in love with a girl who’d tried to tell me she was poison but I just wouldn’t listen. The simple truth was, I got the bad sister and my brother got the good.
EXT. MALAVITA CLUB - DAY
Orph parks Ursula’s white convertible coupe in the lot behind the Malavita Club on Sunset Boulevard. It’s mid-morning and the sun is a white-hot poker that has melted and spread itself across the sky so even the streets seem to be sweating.
ORPH (V.O.) (CONT’D)
Next morning, I went looking for the only family I had left in the world. Jack and I had the same mother but different fathers. His old man did a runner and left our mother broke in a seedy little town south of Santa Cruz. She found my father just in time to pick her up and dry her off. Nine months later I showed up. Then my old man did a runner, too, and Jack’s been looking after me ever since, making sure I don’t fall down the same wet hole our mother was in.
INT. MALAVITA CLUB - DAY
Malavita is a playground of drink and decadence where dinners cost fifty bucks a head and men upstairs lose more in a night of poker and blackjack than most people make in five years of hard graft.
Orph weaves through the club’s back rooms. He finds his way to the stage and peeks out from the wings as the FURY GIRLS rehearse ‘I Hate to Lose You’ with the BAND. The piano player, MODEST JONES, keeps hitting bum notes.
JACK ‘SHADE’ PLUTONE and FAYE PLUTONE, Ursula’s twin sister, sit in a deep booth at the edge of the dance floor.
SHADE
No, no, no! You’re late again, Jones!
MODEST
They sing too fast, boss!
The three Fury Girls protest.
SHADE
Get off the gin, Jones! Start again at the second verse.
From his place in the wings Orph catches sight of Faye, glowing next to Shade. She’s a dead ringer for Ursula and Orph has to look twice.
When the song is over, Orph slips onto the stage, crosses the dance floor, and joins Jack and Faye at their booth.
SHADE
Look who it is! My kid brother, back from the dead!
ORPH
Just call me Little Lazarus.
SHADE
Take a break, Modest, and learn to count!
Modest Jones slumps against the piano keys while the Fury Girls retire to the wings.
As Faye puts out her cigarette and lights another, she eyes Orph suspiciously.
FAYE
(chilly)
Where you been keeping my sister?
ORPH
Thought maybe you could tell me.
FAYE
I’m sure I don’t follow.
ORPH
We went up to the mountains and... I don’t know how to put it. She disappeared. I thought I might find her here.
SHADE
Disappeared how, kid?
ORPH
We were out on the lake, and the next thing I know, she’s not in the boat.
Faye looks alarmed, stiffening her back and putting a hand to her mouth.
FAYE
What’ve you done to her?
ORPH
Now hold on a minute, sister!
Orph sits, shoving in beside Faye so she’s trapped between the two men, one side of her face deep in shadow, the other caught by the hard glare of a spotlight.
FAYE
Turn that darn thing off me!
The spotlight swerves away and dims, leaving the trio gazing at one another in the dim glow of the table lamp.
ORPH
I didn’t do nothing to Ursula. There was a man on the shore and I like that she ran off with him.
SHADE
And you thought us two might know something?
ORPH
If you don’t know then I can’t guess who would. The police say there’s no – I’m sorry, Faye, but there isn’t a body, so there can’t be a crime. I just know something’s not right.
Faye turns away from Orph, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and raising it to her mouth. She does a pantomime of mopping invisible tears. It smells like bad acting.
SHADE
She’ll turn up. Bound to be here somewhere. How you fixed for work, Orph?
ORPH
Truth is, I’m not.
SHADE
But you’re still the little brother who could play birds from the trees, ain’t you? Don’t tell me a few years overseas rusted them fingers solid?
ORPH
If you’re asking can I still play piano the answer is yes.
SHADE
Modest!
MODEST
Boss?
SHADE
You’re fired.
Modest Jones slams down the piano lid and storms off through the wings, bumping into the Fury Girls.
ORPH
Thanks, Jack, but I didn’t mean –
SHADE
You know me, I like to keep things in the family.
ORPH
What about Ursula?
SHADE
Maybe Faye can help out. What do you say, doll?
FAYE
What could I possibly do?
SHADE
Show our boy around. You know where Ursula lurks.
FAYE
But, Jack, I just don’t see –
SHADE
If I say show him around then show him around.
ORPH
Thanks, Jack. I promise –
SHADE
Didn’t I swear when we were kids I’d always look after you? I swore it again the day the four of us got married. I swore it when your pops disappeared and I swore it when our mother died. We’re in this together, kid, until one of us checks out, and you can bet that if I go first I’ll be looking after you from the great beyond, whether it’s above or below, and if you go first I’ll be praying every day for your eternal sal
vation and giving money to the church to intervene on behalf of your immortal soul. So go find your wife. I didn’t want to say it, but Faye can tell you, Ursula was mixed up in some things. Nothing serious, but we’ll shake down a few people and see how the cards lay when they fall. Now get up there and play.
Orph slides from the booth to take his place at the piano. When his fingers start hitting the keys it sounds like the job he was born to do. With every note we see a different Orph coming into focus: confident, serious, and happy.
ORPH (V.O.)
It was good to be in front of a piano again, even better to see my brother, the big man, looking bigger than ever. I wanted to stay in his pocket for as long as I could. But I was sure Faye knew exactly where her sister was and it was only a matter of time before she let slip that the deck was stacked and I was the chump being taken for the last cent he had.
INT. MALAVITA CLUB - NIGHT
An evening performance at Malavita is in full swing, the Fury Girls singing ‘I Hate to Lose You’ as Orph, in a dark suit, plays piano. At the end of the number, the Fury Girls exit backstage and Orph begins playing ‘Crazy He Calls Me’. Faye, in a shimmering black gown, appears from behind a screen at the rear of the stage.
She sings as though she’s making love to the audience. Then, towards the end of the number, she turns her attention to Orph, addressing the last lines of the song to him rather than all those welldressed people clustered at tables in the dark.
The notes are a silk stocking unrolled down a perfect leg, the curve of hips under a satin negligee, the taste of lips like ripe apricots. Orph is under her spell, swooning as he plays.
Shade, near the back of the room, seems to notice. He leans over to whisper to one of his bouncers, EDDIE MAJESTIC.
CLOSE UP on Eddie, nodding and staring at Orph. We recognize him as the thug who was lingering at the train station when Orph arrived back in town. We might even recognize him as the man from the lake, but it’s too early to be sure.
As Faye and Orph reach the end of the number she keeps her eyes locked on his, turning him over in the music.
ORPH (V.O.) (CONT’D)
When Faye sang that night it was better than any music Ursula and I ever made together. It was poetry, love under moonlight, enough to make me feel like I didn’t care whether I ever found Ursula again if I could only have Faye, the twin I’d loved from the very beginning. I knew she was working me, and part of me liked it. I couldn’t help myself, not anymore, and with Ursula out of the way...