THE RUNNER/SCREENPLAY, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [best classic books to read .txt] 📗

#3, Patrolman Hollis interrupted an armed robbery at a currency exchange located at 321 East 47th Street. The robber now identified as Jerome Wilson, had an extensive criminal record had already shot and killed a worker in the currency exchange and was fleeing out the back door when Patrolman Hollis confronted him. Jerome Wilson grabbed a civilian woman as a hostage and placing his gun to her head ordered Patrolman Hollis to drop his weapon, fearing for the woman life, Patrolman Hollis unholstered his weapon and was about to place it on the ground when the robber was distracted by a sound in the alley. Patrolman Hollis saw this as an opportunity and with deadly aim fired one shot striking Jerome Wilson in the head, killing him instantly. Because of Patrolman Richard Hollis quick action he is awarded a “Department Commendation.

JOHN RINGO was a handsome black man, twenty-five years old and had a reddish overtone to his ebony skin a result of his Black Feet Indian heritage. He was tall, over six feet, with broad shoulders and a muscular built. RITA STERNS a Jew, twenty-two years of age moved to Chicago with her father, Isaac, a tax lawyer when she was thirteen from Memphis, Tennessee. Rita’s mother had died during her birth and her father was devoted to her. Isaac was a handsome man with dark hair and deep brown piercing eyes. He was tall and slender and always impeccably dressed, one of his clients was Jerome McLemore. Isaac loved soul food and the new music called jazz. He often took, Rita his only child with him as he visited the Dowop jazz club and restaurant at 47th south Calumet Avenue. Three months ago, Rita, her father and Jerome McLemore was listening to the jazz band at Dowop Jazz Club on 48th Street when Ringo walked in. Rita looked at the tall handsome black man and immediately liked him.

INT. RINGO’S APARTMENT-EARLY MORNING

At four in the morning on Christmas day, 1969, the annoying sound of the alarm clock and the sobbing cry of a night bird awakened John Ringo. As he rolled over in his round bed to turn the clock off, he saw Rita in the bed next to him. He was naked on top of the sheets, sweaty and his mouth felt as though someone had shitted in it, he had a nagging headache that started somewhere behind his right eye and he was thirsty. He gently shook his head and wondered what was that shit he was drinking at Juanita’s Lounge which was believed to doctor her booze. He glanced at Rita again, sprawled out on the bed, butt naked. Rita made a thick snoring sound coughed and farted as she turned. Rita’s legs were wide open showing her fuzzy off-red pubic hairs and pink nipples. Her pale white skin was a contrast to the black satin sheets on the bed. He watched her steady breathing as her breast, with its pink nipples rose and fell. Rita had been a plain white girl and had grown into plain women, not ugly but plain, but she had a hell of a body, round firm breast, McLemore waist, big legs and a hell of a butt, which was unusual for white women. Black men believed that white women had big legs, but no butts and black women had McLemore legs and big butts. As Ringo looked at Rita, “Another racial myth shot to shit,” he thought. Ringo got an erection as he pondered whether he should get another shot of that pussy. He decided he had better get going; he had some important business to take care of. He knew that Rita was long-winded, once they got started, she would want to fuck for an hour, he had to get something for his headache and wash the stink from his mouth. As he was quietly sliding out the bed, Rita woke up, sat up in the bed and wrapped her arms around her legs, forehead on her knees.

RITA
(rubbing his semi-erect penis)
Morning baby, see you ready for some more.

RINGO
(sucking a nipple)
Ready Freddie, they call me.

RITA
(panting)
Let’s get it on.

Ringo stopped sucking on her nipple and started getting out the bed.

RINGO
Ain’t got time, got to go to work.

RITA
Shit!

RINGO
I’ll see you tonight, and we’ll take up where we left off, ok?

RITA
(sliding under the covers)
I’ll meet you at Juanita’s tonight around nine.

Ringo met Jerome at Glady’s Restaurant a renowned soul food restaurant located in the basement at 45th South Indiana Avenue.

RINGO
Morning’ boss, Merry Christmas.

JEROME
Morning, Merry Christmas to you, how you sleep?


RINGO
(smiling)
Didn’t get to much sleep that Rita wears my black out.
JEROME
Its rough being a sex symbol and I know, those white gals will wear a Nigga’out, they can’t get enough of that fat black dick.

After eating their breakfast of homemade biscuits, bacon and Alaga Syrup, they left the restaurant and were driven by Rufus Jones, Jerome’s driver to an apartment at 43rd South Prairie Avenue. Jerome McLemore used the apartment as a “Paper Office.


INT. PAPER OFFICE- MORNING

The paper offices of the other policy wheels contained only a table and a couple of hard back chairs for the old women and men to sit on as they scrutinized or “Peeped,” the bets that had been turned in, but Jerome made his office comfortable for his office workers. They could sit in comfortable padded chairs, listen to music on the radio, and there were cold drinks and luncheon meat in the refrigerator. He instructed his cleaning man to ensure the apartment and the bathroom were always clean. Seated in the kitchen drinking coffee was TED BUNCHE, Jerome’s, Head Fieldman and sometimes driver and bodyguards, WILLIAM AND KENNETH DORSEY, two of his Fieldmen and JAMES JOHNSON, Jerome’s money offices manager. Margue, who no one knew what his job was and Madame Bourneis who many wondered if Marque was her lover or her brother. Madame Bourneis was stunning as she moved gracefully across the room like a panther approaching its prey. All the men in the room, including Jerome realized they were in the presence of something extremely dangerous. Madame Bourneis had a strong voice, but it had a soft, melodious quality. She was barefooted and dressed in a simple gray denim skirt and a black sleeveless blouse opened and showing the cleavage of her full brown breasts. Jerome had over fifty runners collecting for his wheel and promoted Ted to Chief Fieldman. The McLemore family was quickly became one of the richest families in Chicago, with holdings in powerful corporations, cash in numerous bank, and real estate holdings in America, Europe and Mexico, but he was intrigued by Madame Bourneis and Marque who were they or what were they.

INT: MAGIC SHOP- AFTERNOON
The Magic Shop was in a storefront located at 47th South Vincennes Avenue next to Gus’s Poolroom. Dark grey drapes that covered the large bay window facing the sidewalk was always closed, but an overhead sign read in bold block letters, “FORTUNE’S TOLD.” On warm days a dark haired young gypsy woman would sat behind the locked screen door and would give an enticing smile to the men walking down the busy street. Jerome McLemore had noticed and not noticed the storefronts for years and had heard tales of some of the hustlers who entered the store thinking they could sweet talk the young woman into a sexual liaison or purchase her feminine wares, none were ever successful, and which was more unusual, nobody had ever lied about their lack of success. Ted dropped Jerome at the shop and Jerome knocked on the locked screened door. Shortly, a young woman unlocked the door and he entered. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, she had dark brown eyes that showed intelligence and wore a long low-cut green dress with slits up the sides. Even though it was mid-afternoon and sunny, the heavy dark grey drapes blocked out the light. The only light in the dim room was a row of different colored scented candles. The woman led him through curtain-draped archway that separated the front room from a rear room. As they passed through the archway, Jerome noticed dimly lit shelves that filled the parlor’s inner walls, a string of beads woven in a multicolored string hung around a calabash stopped with wax. A dish containing more beads and dried animal bones, a lump of brown sugar sat on an old table covered with a bright cloth. As they continued their journey, Jerome was led into a room. In the center of the room was a table with two chairs and two lit candles at each end. There was a strong smell of incenses and garlic, which agitated Jerome. Clusters of bird feathers, tied with a string hung from a shelf above. A dried rattlesnake skin was nailed to the wall. The young woman sat in one chair and directed Jerome to the other.

The blacks in Bronzeville often mistook the gypsy parlors as whorehouses, but in actuality, they were nothing but cons. Once inside two very large gypsy men waited behind dark drapes while the woman who charged a dollar to read their fortune greeted the customer. Jerome sat next to the woman who smiled at him and slightly spread her legs.

YOUNG WOMAN
What do you wish from MADAME SAMATHA, a dollar to tell your fortune the woman said, still smiling and opening her tan, well conditioned legs
.
Jerome ignored the come on.

JEROME
I heard there is a special reader here named MARRIETA may I speak with her?

YOUNG WOMAN
Marrieta is very busy and only is available for special readings.

Jerome put a fifty-dollar bill on the table.

JEROME
Tell her I need a special reading.

The woman took the fifty and got up from the table. Jerome watched as she disappeared behind heavy grey drapes. Shortly, two men appeared from behind the drapes followed by an old woman and the younger woman.

YOUNG WOMAN
This is Marrieta.

The young woman led Marietta to the chair at the table across from Jerome. Marrieta looked to be over a hundred years old. She wore a simple headscarf fashioned into a fantasia of folds and pleats worked into seven points and formed a halo around her wrinkled olive-colored skin and strong face the pupils in her eyes where opaque and she never blinked. The younger woman left the room, but the two men stood behind the older woman.

JEROME
My name is Jerome McLemore and I want to ask you some questions, if that’s ok.

The old woman nodded her head.

JEROME
What can you tell me about shift-changers?

The old woman sightless eyes centered on Jerome’s.

MARIETTA
(in a strong voice)
What do you want to know?

It took Jerome a minute to collect himself; he was surprised at the strength and clarity of the old woman’s voice, which was deep, and without the patois of the poor or uneducated.

JEROME
What are they and where do they come from?

MARIETTA
Shift-changers or shape shifters do not come from this world, but a world outside of the natural world. They can come and go like a breeze. In its