DAY--INTERIOR RESTAURANT/BAR
A long bar closer to camera, some tables for eating further back. The front window reads "SPIVEY'S" (seen reversed from here inside). Camera view puts Robert and Louise in background; they are huddled together at a table, laughing and talking intimately, though none of their words reach us. The bartender putters around behind his bar. Seated there drinking and watching the happy couple in the reflecting mirror on the wall is a black man, a street hustler type. He finishes his beer and then, whistling, saunters over to the wall phone and begins dialing.
NIGHT--INTERIOR HOTEL ROOM--SLOW ZOOM IN
The room is in total darkness, but the bright neon sign outside the window keeps flashing on and off, adding a pulsating reddish glow to the room. Robert and Louise are in bed; they have likely just had sex because he rolls off from atop her. The two rest happily beside each other, breathing deeply. Then on the soundtrack a mournful howling begins, some unseen hound baying in the distance. Louise shivers and moves closer to Johnson.
LOUISE: Somebody dying...
Her words chill Johnson too--always the superstitious one--but he tries to make light of the continuing sound.
JOHNSON: Naw, baby, settle down. Some ol' hound, one eye on the moon, other on some sweet bitch.
They snuggle together silently then.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Suddenly there is the sound of something crashing into the room door and splintering the wood; the door bursts open, kicked in by the heavy-set, gangsterish man (Louise's keeper Ras) who steps inside, a huge .45 in his hand. Louise has screamed during his entry; closer to the door and Ras, she cowers against Robert.
RAS: Well, well now. Ain't y'all the picture... So, Lou, you an' your cousin here talkin' old times?
Johnson still hasn't moved. Louise tries to recover some, hoping that Ras may be willing to talk. She starts to rise from the bed.
LOUISE: Ras... Please... Don't do anything, please. I'll...
RAS: Cheat on me, bitch.
He shoots her coldly three times. Louise's body sprawls backwards across Johnson--who struggles to cast her aside and tumble to the floor on the far side of the bed. Ras takes two steps closer, aiming for Robert too; but when he fires, the gun jams. He throws it aside, pulling a straight razor from his coat pocket.
RAS: I sooner cut you, nigge', down...
ANOTHER ANGLE
Johnson manages to escape to the far side of the bed away from the razor. He is weaponless and naked (his body seen only in motion as the pulsating red light continues). Ras closes in on him fast, slashing out. Johnson leaps backwards to avoid the blade but is still nicked on his face, near one eye.
JOHNSON (in shock and pain): Motherfucker!
He stumbles backwards over a chair, his hand knocking a near-empty bottle from the table. Johnson grabs this up from the floor and smashes it on the table edge, holding up the jagged top as his own cutting weapon.
CLOSE ON THE TWO--HAND HELD
A series of quick-cut, in motion, jagged shots of the ensuing fight between razor and bottle-knife. In the flickering reddish light it becomes an obscene dance of death, as much imagined by the viewer as actually seen, in the alternating darkness and light of the room--feinting, slashing, parrying, grappling, circling each other, the two men grunting and perspiring. Robert's face when seen is set and focussed, blood dripping from the cut; Ras in contrast looks manic, even evil, a grim smile frozen on his mouth. The light flickers on razor, bottle, teeth, and sweating flesh.
Finally, in a lit moment, the two grapple close again. Ras starts a swing of his razor, and Johnson steps inside that slash as the light goes off again. In the moment of darkness there is the sound of a blow and a terrifying scream. A body falls as the returning half-light reveals Johnson (minus his neckbag now) standing over the bloody body of Ras, whose face is a pulpy mess. (The dog's howling has continued throughout all this frantic action; now it stops.) Johnson kicks at the fallen man; when there is no response, he wearily drops the bloody bottle-knife beside the body.
JOHNSON: Lord Jesus...
He grasps for his lucky bag--and it's not there! He looks about in sudden panic. But...
ANGLE ON THE DOOR
Now Robert becomes aware of pounding feet coming up the unseen stairs outside the room.
MAN'S VOICE: Ras! Ras! Everything all right?
Already Johnson has been grabbing up his clothes and guitar. With no more than a glance at Louise's body, still naked himself, he dives out the open window onto a fire escape.
NIGHT--EXTERIOR FIRE ESCAPE
Tumbling down the metal stairs, dropping some clothing as he scrambles, yanking his trousers on at a staggered run, he leaps down to the ground. From the window above two black men shout and fire wildly after him, but he escapes into the alley darkness.
((END OF SECTION 3))
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