Scene from a screenplay.
Read on:
High level 50-ish VP chief of staff type…call him Skeets. Skeets Parsons. Out jogging in the Fort Marcy Park area…right near where they found Vincent Foster. Suddenly three black cars pull up. One in front of him, one behind, and a stretch limousine to his left. Out of the limo steps someone who looks very Secret Service…earpiece, suit, haircut…the works.
Secret Service #1: Step into this car please, Mr. Parsons. We have a problem. National Security, sir.
Parsons does as he is told. The Secret Service guy gets in behind him. Inside the car are the Vice President…Vice President Marshall…a driver and two other Secret Service looking men. BIG men. Serious men. Maybe just a little rougher around the edges than Secret Service men usually look.
Marshall: Sorry to bother you right now, Skeets, but this is an emergency. I’ll fill you in as we drive.
The cars take off in DC formation. Lead car, VIP car, follow car. No lights, no sirens. Helicopter shot that shows them clearly headed AWAY from DC. Road sign shot says “Langley – 2 mi.”
Skeets: Gee, boss. Where are we going?
Marshall: There’s been an accident, Skeets. We’re headed to a CIA hospital at Langley.
Skeets: Oh NO!!! What happened?
Marshall: Someone got shot.
Scooter: Who?
Marshall: You.
Both of the men in the back grab Parsons and pin him to the seat. The third man takes out a small pistol. Skeets struggles, but it’s no use.
Skeets: What!!!???? What!!!??? What did I do!!!???
Marshall: Well, asshole…you didn’t do anything. Yet. And I am here to make sure that you DON’T do anything.
Scooter: But boss!!! BOSS!!! You can count on ME!!!
Marshall: Yeah. Well, just to be sure…
Here’s the deal. The Special Prosecutor is going to charge you in a few weeks. He can’t get the President’s guy, but he’s got you right in the cross hairs. He’s going to indict you on about 30 years’ worth of charges.
Skeets: Yeah, but BOSS!!! You said that would work out. You said that it would take at LEAST a year or two for that to go to trial and that the President would pardon me if I was convicted!!!
Marshall: Well…things have changed.
Skeets impotently struggles a little more, but it’s hopeless.
Skeets; But boss!!! I won’t rat you out!!! You know me!!!
Marshall: Yeah. I know you. You glorified Yalie gofer. You’d rat out your mother if you had to. If I could, I’d just have you killed and be done with it. But I can’t. Too much publicity already. So here’s the deal. “Plato ó plomo?” Ever hear those words before?
Skeets: Nooo…
Marshall: Some of my…Mexican friends use the phrase. It means “Silver or lead?” They ask that question when they want someone to clearly understand the alternatives which are being offered.
Skeets: Huh???
Marshall: Shut up, asshole. Like I said…here’s the deal. We will back you all the way with the Special Prosecutor. We will get you the shortest sentence possible. And the President will pardon you if and when he can. But the way things are going, he may NOT be able to pardon you. You may have to do four or even five years.
Skeets: Oh NO!!!
Struggles some more.
Marshall slaps him across the face.
Marshall: Get your shit together!!! You knew what was at stake here!!! We’ll see to it that if you DO have to spend time in jail, it will be at a federal country club. No Bubbas to fuck with you, good food, even a fucking squash court and a computer to write another one of those weak-ass novels of yours.
PLUS…for every year that you are in jail, we will deposit $5 million in that offshore bank account of yours.
Skeets: “I have no bank…”
Marshall smacks him again.
Marshall: What? Do you think I’m STUPID? (Hits him a third time. Hard. Skeets folds.) I know every dirty deal you’ve run in the last 30 years. Why do you think I hired you in the FIRST place???
Those $5 millions? That’s the silver. The plato.
Driver: We’re almost there, sir.
Marshall nods. The Secret Service guy with the small gun leans over and shoots Skeets in the foot.
Skeets screams. Marshall hits him again, and Skeets’ holders tighten their grip on him until he stops thrashing and subsides into muffled sobs.
Marshall: And THAT’S the plomo!!! Just a little down payment. Something to remember us by. No Joe Valachi shit from YOU, motherfucker!!! ONE WORD about what’s really going down…ONE WORD…and I will kill you, your family, your boyfriend…yes, I know about that, too…and your mother as well.
Shock and awe, baby. Shock and awe…
YOU knew the deal.
Shot of the cars going through a side gate outside of CIA headquarters in Langley and directly into a tunnel beneath a large, anonymous looking building.
Back in the car…darker outside now, as if it is in an underground passageway. Shot of several men in hospital blues waiting outside the car with a stretcher.
Marshall: These nice men will fix your foot now. It’ll only hurt for a few months. Tommy knows his business. (Shot of the Secret Service type shooter giving a tight grin and nod of recognition.)
Marshall: But you WILL remember…
Won’t you.
Skeets is hobbled out of the limo, onto the stretcher dolly and wheeled away.
The cars disappear into the darkness at the end of the tunnel.
Fade to black.
Yup…
“Not a WORD, asshole…”
“Not one WORD!!!”
Yup…
AG
