Chinatown Page #3

(pausing, letting the

implication sink in)

CLOSE - GITTES

sitting next to some grubby farmers, bored. He yawns -- edges

away from one of the dirtier farmers.

BAGBY(O.S.)

(continuing)

The Alto Vallejo can save us from

that, and I respectfully suggest

that eight and a half million dollars

is a fair price to pay to keep the

desert from our streets -- and not

on top of them.

AUDIENCE - COUNCIL CHAMBERS

An amalgam of farmers, businessmen, and city employees have

been listening with keen interest. A couple of the farmers

applaud. Somebody shooshes them.

COUNCIL COMMITTEE

in a whispered conference.

8.

COUNCILMAN:

(acknowledging Bagby)

-- Mayor Bagby... let's hear from

the departments again -- I suppose

we better take Water and Power first.

Mr. Mulwray.

REACTION - GITTES

looking up with interest from his racing form.

MULWRAY:

walks to the huge map with overleafs. He is a slender man in

his sixties, who wears glasses and moves with surprising

fluidity. He turns to a smaller, younger man, and nods. The

man turns the overleaf on the map.

MULWRAY:

In case you've forgotten, gentlemen,

over five hundred lives were lost

when the Van der Lip Dam gave way -core

samples have shown that beneath

this bedrock is shale similar to the

permeable shale in the Van der Lip

disaster. It couldn't withstand

that kind of pressure there.

(referring to a new

overleaf)

Now you propose yet another dirt

banked terminus dam with slopes of

two and one half to one, one hundred

twelve feet high and a twelve thousand

acre water surface. Well, it won't

hold. I won't build it. It's that

simple -- I am not making that kind

of mistake twice. Thank you,

gentlemen.

Mulwray leaves the overleaf board and sits down. Suddenly

there are some whoops and hollers from the rear of the

chambers and a red-faced FARMER drives in several scrawny,

bleating sheep. Naturally, they cause a commotion.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT

(shouting to farmer)

What in the hell do you think you're

doing?

(as the sheep bleat

down the aisles toward

the Council)

Get those goddam things out of here!

FARMER:

(right back)

Tell me where to take them!

(MORE)

9.

FARMER (CONT'D)

You don't have an answer for that so

quick, do you?

Bailiffs and sergeants-at-arms respond to the imprecations

of the Council and attempt to capture the sheep and the

farmers, having to restrain one who looks like he's going to

bodily attack Mulwray.

FARMER:

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