FADE IN:

EXT. PHOENIX, ARIZONA - (DAY) - HELICOPTER SHOT

Above Midtown section of the city. It is early afternoon, a

hot mid-summer day. The city is sun-sunblanched white and

its drifted-up noises are muted in blanched their own echoes.

We fly low, heading in a downtown direction, passing over

traffic-clogged streets, parking lots, white business

buildings, neatly patterned residential districts. As we

approach downtown section, the character of the city begins

to change. It is darker and shabby with age and industry. We

see railroad tracks, smokestacks, wholesale fruit-and-

vegetable markets, old municipal buildings, empty lots.

vegetable The very geography seems to give us a climate of

nefariousness, of back-doorness, dark and shadowy. And secret.

We fly lower and faster now, as if seeking out a specific

location. A skinny, high old hotel comes into view. On its

exposed brick side great painted letters advertise "Transients-

Low Weekly Rates-Radio in Every Room." We pause long enough

to establish the shoddy character of this hotel. Its open,

curtainless windows, its silent resigned look so

characteristic of such hole-and-corner hotels. We move forward

with purposefulness and-toward a certain window. The sash is

raised as high as it can go, but the shade is pulled down to

three or four inches of the inside sill, as if the occupants

of the room within wanted privacy but needed air. We are

close now, so that only the lower half of the window frame

is in shot. No sounds come from within the room.

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