Chinatown Page #6

GITTES:

Jesus Christ, this guy's really got

water on the brain.

WALSH'S VOICE

What'd you expect? That's his job.

GITTES:

Listen, we can't string this broad

out indefinitely -- we got to come

up with something.

WALSH'S VOICE

I think I got something.

GITTES:

Oh yeah? You pick up the watch?

INT. DUFFY & WALSH'S OFFICE - GITTES

WALSH'S VOICE

It's on your desk. Say, you hear the

one about the guy who goes to the

North Pole with Admiral Byrd looking

for penguins?

Gittes walks to his office.

ON HIS DESK:

is the Ingersoll watch, the crystal broken -- the hands

stopped at 2:
47.

GITTES:

He was there all night.

Gittes drops it, sits down. Walsh comes in carrying a series

of wet photos stuck with clothes pins onto a small blackboard.

GITTES:

(continuing; eagerly)

So what you got?

13.

Walsh shows him the photos. He looks at them. They are a

series outside a restaurant showing Mulwray with another man

whose appearance is striking. In two of the photos a gnarled

cane is visible.

GITTES:

(continuing; obviously

annoyed)

This?

WALSH:

They got into a terrific argument

outside the Pig 'n Whistle.

GITTES:

What about?

WALSH:

I don't know -- the traffic was pretty

loud. I only heard one thing -- apple

core.

GITTES:

Apple core?

WALSH:

(shrugs)

Yeah.

INT. GITTES' OFFICE

Gittes tosses down the photos in disgust.

GITTES:

Jesus Christ, Walsh -- that's what

you spent your day doing?

WALSH:

Look, you tell me to take pictures,

I take pictures.

GITTES:

Let me explain something to you,

Walsh -- this business requires a

certain finesse -

The PHONE has been RINGING. Sophie buzzes him.

GITTES:

Yeah, Sophie?

(he picks up the phone)

Duffy, where are you?

Duffy's VOICE can be HEARD, excitedly -- "I got it. I got

it. He's found himself some cute little twist - in a rowboat,

in Echo Park."

14.

GITTES:

(continuing)

Okay, slow down -- Echo Park -(

to Walsh)

Jesus, water again.

WESTLAKE PARK (MCARTHUR PARK)

Duffy is rowing, Gittes seated in the stern. They pass

Mulwray and a slender blonde girl in a summer print dress,

drifting in their rowboat, Mulwray fondly doting on the girl.

GITTES:

(to Duffy, as they

pass)

Let's have a big smile, pal.

He shoots past Duffy, expertly running off a couple of fast

shots. Mulwray and the girl seem blissfully unaware of them.

DUFFY:

turns again and they row past Mulwray and the girl, Gittes

again clicking off several fast shots.

CLOSE SHOT - SIGN:

"EL MACANDO APARTMENTS" MOVE ALONG the red tiled roof and

down to a lower level of the roof where Gittes' feet are

hooked over the apex of the roof and Gittes himself is

stretched face downward on the tiles, pointing himself and

his camera to a veranda below him where the girl and Mulwray

are eating.

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