Yet more of The Numbers Game: Is the femme in fact fatale?

THE NUMBERS GAME 3


Nancy
Don’t do it, Joe. Don’t mix with those bad people.

Lewis
The world’s a bad place, sweetheart. Talk tomorrow…

Bellhop
Tomorrow’s Independence Day… He’s gone…

Nancy
He’s gone....

Bellhop
.....He’s gone but he’ll be back. Miss Sturridge…

Nancy
Say ‘Nancy’, Jack. I’m just a secretary.

Bellhop
You’re a sweet girl, Miss Sturridge, but the world…
That’s something Mr Lewis knows about.

Rose
Knows too much if you ask me. There’s a price
For knowing what he knows.

Nancy
............I know it too,
I know it all by heart. A shot rings out,
The elevator doors slide open. Feet running
Down a corridor. A flashbulb bursts.
A body is found somewhere near the river,
A wad of money stuffed into its mouth.

Bellhop
That’s movie stuff, Miss Sturridge - I mean Nancy -
Life ain’t like that, not for the most of us.

Nancy
Not movies, but a kind of poetry.
Like visions, Jack. The one I’m having now.
Goodnight you two. I hope you win tomorrow.

Bellhop
Goodnight Miss Sturridge…. Know just what she means.
It’s not dressed up in verse though, never is.
No five beats in real life, just repetition.

Rose
A good kid, not a suave dame like those others
Lewis picks up. Now that is repetition.
Another numbers game, if you ask me.

Bellhop
The numbers game? We’re all the numbers game.
Seven-seventy-six is no sure bet
But one thing is quite sure: the smell of money.
There’s always some poor guy whose number’s up.
I’m off at ten.


Rose
..........So?

Bellhop
....................Let’s go to the movies.


Shots ring out, sound of feet running along corridor. Sound of river lapping at shore.

*

Who's been shot? What river?...Only the epilogue to come. (And the broadcast tonight at 9.15.)