Escape from L.A. Page #2

SUPERIMPOSE:
"NEW LAS VEGAS OFF THE COAST OF SEATTLE THURSDAY 0330

HOURS G.M.T. "

A Salesman with a chin-mike speaks non-stop, unintelligible

Chinese. A frenzied crowd gathers around him, waving money,

placing bets.

Two men sit at either end of a long table. They are in deep

shadows, facing each other. We only get glimpses of them: One fat.

Mirrored sunglasses. Chinese. His fingers tap on the table. A

cockroach scurries past. Ammo belts. A sheathed combat knife the

size of your arm. .45 automatics in holsters.

The other, dressed in black. An eye-patch. Dangerous. A flash of

two six-guns in holsters. A futuristic gunfighter. The cockroach

dashes past his fingers. WHAP! He squashes it.

The crowd goes nuts, placing bets, yelling and screaming in a

dozen languages.

The salesman places three different shaped, clear shot glasses in

front of the two men. Then he leans over to...

A VAT OF POISONOUS SNAKES. He reaches in, grabs a cobra, pulls it

out. The cobra hisses and squirms. Deftly, the salesman continues

to talk non-stop into his chin-mike as he milks the cobra venom

into the first glass.

He pulls out an ice-pick, jabs it into the snake's throat, and

bleeds a thick green-white liquid into the second glass. Finally,

he slits open the cobra with a large knife, and cuts out the heart

and liver. Tossing aside the dead snake, the salesman squeezes the

heart and liver with his fingers. The juice drips into the third

glass.

Now the salesman stirs the glasses. The poison is clear. The blood

is milky-green. The heart and liver are red. He places the glasses

on the table between the two men.

The two men stare at each other, motionless. The crowd continues

placing bets at a fevered pitch. A titanium white tube floats

above the center of the table. A laser beam of light shines from

one end.

The salesman leans over and flicks on side with his finger,

sending the tube spinning on its axis like a bottle, the light

circling the room before stopping on the fat man's forehead.

The fat man reaches slowly toward the glasses. His hand shakes

slightly. He hesitates. Finally he takes the glass with the red

liquid (the heart and liver), lifts it to his lips, pauses, then

gulps it down.

The crowd explodes. More bets.

The salesman leans over and spins the light tube again, this time

it lands on something black, an eye-patch. Pull back to reveal a

man with an eye-patch.

The man with the eye-patch reaches forward, his hand paused

between the remaining two glasses. He takes the one filled with

milky-green blood and downs it fast. The crowd roars.

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