THE RUNNER SCREENPLAY, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [phonics reader .TXT] 📗

city without you knowing about it.

Jimmy who had been sitting been in his favorite position on the red couch got up.


JIMMY
Do you know where those Nigras are getting their drugs; at first we thought it was you.


Al put his glasses on.

AL
I’m nearly blind without these. No senor, not I, but I hear they are getting their goods from those Colombian assholes.


JIMMY
Colombians, I thought they were only involved in cocaine.

AL
They were, but lately they have started to make a move into heroin. They started interfering with my business in Los Angeles, but now they are moving in on me in New York, Detroit and now Chicago, through the State Street Boy’s and my countrymen, the 26th Street Hombres has traded national pride for profit and are buying their drugs from them, I must admit their drugs are a lot better than mine.

VITO
That wouldn’t be hard to do, that shit you peddling ain’t shit, that’s why I stopped dealing with you.

Al laughed, he was not offended because he knew that Vito was right, his Mexican mud was bad.

AL
My friend, my friend, why would you say such a thing, we just had a little misunderstanding and you just got a bad batch, that’s all.

VITO
Ok, ok, maybe so, but what are you proposing?

AL
Together maybe we can help each other, so we can continue making money.

JIMMY
Aware that Vito was losing his patience,

Get to the point.

AL
Ok my friends this is what I propose. What say we grab one of those Colombian and make him tell us where they are getting their goods than we knock out the supplier? They can’t sell what they don’t have; right and they would have to deal with us again.

JIMMY
What do you want us to do?

AL
Merely find out who the State Street Boy’s supplier is, my people would stand out in the black community, but I’m sure you have resource that could identify the supplier, me and my friends will do the rest.

JIMMY
One thing, you can’t fuck with none of the Nigras, there is too much heat on now to start fuckin’ with them Nigras.

AL
Yes, I read about that nigger basketball star that the sergeant killed, ok no niggers.


AL
Did you find out anything, my friend?

Vito wanted to end this meeting at quickly as possible.

VITO
Yeah, we found out that the heroin was coming in from a place called Chalna, Bangladesh. The Colombian purchases the raw opium from some farmers and they process it into the heroin which they sell to the State Street Boys, they are the exclusive dealers in the city.

Al was quiet for a moment and rubbed his unshaven face.

AL
If we take out where the opium is grown maybe we can eliminate our problem, huh?

Jimmy getting off the couch and opened a window.

JIMMY
How you plan on doing that?

Al
It is no problem my friends, my compadres and me will eliminate the farmers.

VITO
Can you do that?

AL

No problem, this situation is not only affecting our business but many of my other friends is hurting and I’m sure if we combine our resources we can handle this situation without any problems.

JIMMY
What do you want us to do?

AL
Merely help finance the operation, it will probably be expensive. Men have to be hired, arms purchased and transportation.

VITO
How much?

AL
I would think an investment of one million dollars would be sufficient.

VITO

Done!

Vito was glad to see that Al was preparing to leave. A week later, Al Hernandez assembled the five members of the Combine in Barcelona, Spain. The members represented the major drug suppliers in the world; Carols Valleros, Cuba, Bing Won, Bangkok, William St. James, England, Thien Mow, Cambodia and Herman Hilliard, Jamaica. Vito Pellegrino and Jimmy Tortoreno joined the others in a private room at the exclusive Barcelona Hotel and listened to Al outline his plans for the raid.

INT: PRIVATE ROOM- DAY

AL
Thank you all for coming. Gentlemen we have a common problem that is costing us a lot of money. Each of you has donated $1 million dollars for our venture, a small sum compared to the money we are losing. Additionally, each member is required to select twenty of his or her best men to participate in the raid. My plan is very simple. We will carter a private cargo plane to fly us to Chalna and a bus to take us to the village. I have already sent two men to spy on the village and they have reported that the village contained about fifty people, mainly old men and women, a few children and no security. The mountain where the raw opium is processed consisted of about fifteen workers, again no security. Twenty of my men will be positioned along the dirt road leading to the village to block any escape, twenty other men will be positioned in the jungle surrounding the village, again to block any escape and another twenty men will raid the mountain lab and twenty men will conduct the actual raid on the village, when given the signal by me, a long whistle blast, they will then burn the fields and kill everyone.

What Al didn’t know that the Colombians had an informer in the group and he notified Phillippe and gave him the entire plan. Pops, Cinque and Marque returned to Chicago and started receiving the heroin from the Colombians. The drug-starved junkies immediately recognized the quality of the heroin, the high was more intense and there were no adverse side effect.

Phillippe told Zuba who got the information to Pops told Jerome McLemore.
Jerome told Marque and Madame Bourneis about the plan to kill the villagers. It was a warm humid night, the air was thin and the vegetation dense when Al and his 200 men arrived at the seemingly sleeping village. The men took their assigned positions and awaited Al signal. Al joined the men in the jungle and watched the village. Smoke was coming out of the straw huts and the soft and happy voices of men sitting around a blazing fire drifted up to him. This is going to be easy, Al thought; he did not know how wrong he was. Pops, Cinque and two hundred Simbas had arrived two days earlier and Phillippe and another three hundred of his men had arrived the following day. Fifty Simbas and fifty of Phillippe men moved the women, children and older villagers to the mountain lab. The Simbas had taken up positions in the jungle while Philippe’s men had taken up positions on each side of the dirt road. Cinque high in a large bamboo tree was ready with his bow and arrows. Al blew one long blast on his whistle and watched as 100 of his men assigned to storm the village, started running howling and screaming. All of a sudden, he saw one man fall, a long steel arrow protruding from his neck, then another man fell an arrow was lodged in his right eye. Al was in shock as he watched his men running towards the village cut down by automatic machine gun fire. Al desperately signaled the men on the dirt road to attack. The fifty men on the road sprinted towards the village. Al Hernandez watched in horror as automatic gunfire slaughtered his men. Suddenly, the dense jungle where Hernandez was watching came under fire. Trees erupted in flames, as bullets sprayed the area. Three steel arrows killed three men standing besides Al when one of the men fell he knocked Al down, Al pulled two of the dead men over him. As he looked out from under the body of the men, he saw the carnage. His men were being cut down on all sides and just as the quickly the shooting stopped and he saw the villagers rushing towards his men with long knives. They started hacking and slashing his men, wounded included. The cries of the dying men anguish and pain echoed through the night air. After butchering the intruders, Al watched as the villagers built a large fire that lit up the night, he watched in horror as his men, some still alive were tossed into its blazing flames. The villagers were singing and dancing as Al watched from under his dead comrades. The mosquitoes were fierce, stinging Al all over his body. Red whelps appeared on his legs, face and arms but Al resisted the urge to scratch, he watched and waited. The dead men covering Al had begun to smell and he felt nauseous, but he lay still, waiting. One hour-two hour, passed before the celebration in the village quieted down. The raging fire had simmered into a small blaze but the smell of burned human flesh filled the air. Al waited until the villagers had returned to their huts. He waited an hour before he slowly crawled out from under the men. He crawled about fifty feet into the dense dark jungle before he rose to his feet. Al started slowly walking into the jungle and ducking behind the large bamboo trees at the slightest sound. As he continued walking, he suddenly realized he was lost and did not have his glasses. He cussed himself for not paying more attention when they were coming. After an hour of wandering, Al was tired, thirsty and hungry.
The first rays of the sun started to break through the jungle’s canopy, casting an eerie light upon the trees. Al decided to sit down on a rotting log, relax and figure a way to get out of this mess as he fought off the ever buzzing and biting mosquitoes. He listened to the songs of the tree birds scampering around and seemingly mocking him. In the distant he heard the deep growls of wild animals searching for prey before the sun made its appearance. Al heart began to beat faster as the sweat poured into his eyes. There was another animal sound and fear started to invade his consciousness. Al pulled his .357 magnum, jumped off the log and shouted into the jungle.

AL
Me got something for your asses.

Unconvincingly AL looked around but everything looked the same, nothing but large green trees.

AL
Shit!
Al mumbled as he looked at the red whelps on his arms and legs.

Fuckin’ mosquitoes!

He sat back down on the log and rubbed his legs and arms.

Me will just cool out until the sun comes up and walk back to the village and pretend like I was one of the other men who helped them, yeah, that are what me will do.

Al felt a cool breeze and felt refreshed. Even before the sun came out in the dark jungle the temperature was 80 degrees. Al saw a shadow in the trees. He got up from the log and pointed his weapon towards the shadow. Without his doubled bifocal lens glasses he could not make out what the shadow was although it looked too tall to be an animal maybe it was one of the villagers he hoped. When, the shadow got closer he squinted his eyes and saw it was a woman, with his hopes restored he started running towards the figure. When he got close to her, he saw that she was nude; her long black hair was nestled between her full brown breasts. The woman was tall, had an athletic body, tiny waist