Cosmopolis

Where?

I want a haircut.

The President's in town.

We don't care.

We need a haircut. We need to go across town.

We'll hit traffic that speaks in quarter inches.

Just so I know...

which president are we talking about?

United States.

Barriers will be set up.

Entire streets deleted from the map.

Show me my car.

What have we learned, then?

Our system is secure. We're impenetrable.

There's no rogue programme.

It would seem, however...

Eric, no, we ran every test.

No-one's overloading the system or manipulating our sites.

-When did we do all this?

-Yesterday,

at the complex - our rapid response team.

There is no vulnerable point of entry.

Our insurer did a threat analysis.

We are buffered from attack.

-Everywhere?

-Yes.

Including the car?

Including, absolutely, yes.

My car, this car?

Eric, yes. Please...

We've been together, you and I, since the little-bitty start-up.

I want you to tell me that you still have the stamina to do this job.

-The single mindedness.

-This car, your car...

The relentless will.

cos I keep hearing about our legend,

that we're all young, smart and raised by wolves,

that the phenomenon of reputation is a delicate thing.

A person rises on a word

and falls on a syllable.

I know I'm asking the wrong man.

Oh, what?

Where was the car last night after we ran our tests?

I...

I don't know.

Where do all these limos go at night?

I know I'm changing the subject.

Haven't been sleeping much.

I look at books and drink brandy.

What happens to all these stretched limousines that prowl the throbbing city all day long?

Where do they spend the night?

What?

Do you ever get the feeling, sometimes, that you don't know what's going on?

Do I want to ask you what you mean by that?

All this optimism...

All this booming and soaring.

Things happen like... Bang! It's this AND that! Simultaneous.

I put out my hand and what do I feel?

I know there are a thousand things that you analyse every ten minutes -

patterns, ratio, indexes, whole maps of information.

I love information.

Eric, this is our sweetness and light.

It is a fuck-all wonder

and we have meaning in this world.

People eat and sleep in the shadow of what we do.

But at the same time...

What...

Any special reason we're in the car instead of the office?

What makes you think we're in the car instead of the office?

-If I answer that question...

-Based on what premise?

..I know I'll say something that's halfway clever,

but mostly shallow

and probably inaccurate on some level

and then you will pity me for having been born.

We're in the car cos I need a haircut.

So have the barber go to the office, get your hair cut there.

Or have the barber come to your car. Just...

get your hair cut and go to the office.

A haircut has what? Associations.

Calendar on the wall, mirrors everywhere.

There's no barber chair here.

Nothing swivels but the chair you're in, Shiner.

Where's your car?

We can't seem to find it.

I'd offer you a ride.

I couldn't. Absolutely.

I know you work en route.

And I like taxis.

I was never good at geography

and I learned things by asking the drivers where they come from.

They come from horror and despair.

Yes, exactly.

One learns about the countries where unrest is occurring by riding the taxis here.

I haven't seen you in a while.

I looked for you this morning.

Your eyes are blue.

Have you ate breakfast yet?

No.

Good. I'm hungry for something thick and chewy.

You never told me you were blue eyed.

What are we going to talk about?

I want a heliport on the roof.

I've acquired the air rights, but we still need the zoning variants.

Don't you want to eat?

There's a shooting range next to the elevator bank.

Let's talk about us.

You and I?

We're here so we might as well.

When are we going to have sex again?

We will, I promise.

We haven't in a while now.

When I work, you see...

the energy is precious.

When you write?

Yes.

Where do you do this?

I look for you, Elise.

I curl up somewhere.

I've always done this.

My mother used to send people to find me...

Maids and gardeners, combing the house and grounds...

She thought I was dissolvable in water.

I like your mother.

You have your mother's breasts.

Her breasts?

Great stand-up tits.

Tell me this - where will you go now?

To a meeting somewhere, to your office?

Where is your office?

What do you do, exactly?

You know things - I think this is what you do.

I think you're dedicated to knowing.

I think you acquire information

and turn it into something stupendous and awful.

You're a dangerous person. Do you agree?

A visionary.

A report from the Complex.

It's a credible threat, not to be dismissed.

Which means riding cross town is...

Had numerous threats, all credible.

I'm still standing here.

Not a threat to your safety, to his.

Who the fuck is "his"?

The President's. This means a ride across town...

does not happen unless we make a day of it, with cookies and milk.

Do people still shoot at Presidents?

I thought there were more stimulating targets.

In the next block, there are two haircutting saloons,

there's one and two.

No need to go across town.

Situation is unstable.

Here.

I know that smile, Michael.

I think the yuan...

I mean, there's reason to believe we may be leveraging too rashly.

It's gonna turn our way.

Yes, I know, it always has.

The rashness you think you see.

What is happening doesn't chart.

It charts. You just have to search a little harder.

Don't trust standard models, think outside the limits.

The yuan is making a statement.

Read it and leap.

We are betting big time here.

I know that smile and I want to respect it,

but the yuan can't go any higher.

I want to trust it.

We're borrowing enormous, enormous sums.

Any assault on the borders of perception

is gonna seem rash at first.

Yeah, come on, we're speculating into the void!

Your mother blamed the smile on your father...

he blamed her...

there's something deadly about it.

She thought she'd have to enrol you in special counselling.

I think we ought to adjust.

Where's Shiner?

On his way to the airport.

Why are they called airports?

I know I can't answer these questions

without losing your respect.

Shiner told me our network is secure.

Then it is.

Safe from penetration.

Why am I seeing things that haven't happened yet?

How old are you?

22.

What? 22.

You look younger.

I was always younger than anyone around me.

One day, it began to change.

I don't feel younger.

I feel located totally nowhere.

Think I'm ready to quit...

basically, the business.

Put a stick of gum in your mouth and try not to chew it.

For someone your age with your gifts,

there's only one thing in the world worth pursuing both professionally and intellectually.

What is it, Michael?

The interaction between technology and capital -

the inseparability.

High school was the last true challenge.

There's a poem I read in which a rat becomes the unit of currency.

Yes, that would be interesting.

Yeah, that would impact the world economy.

The name alone, better than the dong or the kwacha.

-The name says everything.

-Yes. "The rat".

"Yes, the rat closed lower today against the euro."

"Yes, there's going concern that the Russian rat will be devalued."

White rats, think about that.

Yes, pregnant rats.

"Major sell-off of pregnant, Russian rats."

"Britain converts the rat."

"Joins trend to universal currency."

"Yes, US establishes rat standard."

"Is every US dollar redeemable for rat?"

"Dead rats!"

"Yes, stockpiling of dead rats called global health menace."

How old are you,

now that you're not younger than everyone else?

LOUD MOANING

Was I expecting you?

Just passing by.

Thought you'd drop in, did you? That's nice. I'm glad.

Been a while.

I read about it.

Of course. Or did I see it on TV?

-What?

-What? The wedding!

Strange you didn't tell me.

-It's not so strange.

-Not so strange?

Two great fortunes!

Like one of those great arranged marriages of old empire Europe.

Except I'm a world citizen with a New York pair of balls.

So how many billions together do you two represent?

She's a poet.

Is that what she is?

I thought she was a Schifrin.

Little of both.

So rich and crisp.

Does she let you touch her personal parts?

You look gorgeous today.

For someone who's 41

and finally understands what her problem is.

What's that?

Life is...

..too contemporary.

So how old is your consort?

Never mind, I don't want to know.

Tell me to shut up.

Oh, one more question.

Is she good in bed?

Is she good in a limo?

I don't know yet.

Aww, that's the trouble with old money.

Now tell me to shut up.

I know something you want to know.

What's that?

There's a Rothko in private hands

that I have privileged knowledge of.

It's about to become available.

You've seen it?

Three, four years ago, yes.

It is...

..luminous.

What about the chapel?

What about it?

I've been thinking about the chapel.

You can't buy the goddamn chapel.

How do you know? Contact the principals.

I thought you'd be thrilled about the painting. One painting.

You don't have an important Rothko and you've always want one -

we've talked about this.

How many paintings in this chapel?

I don't know.

14? 15?

If they're selling the chapel, I'll keep it intact.

Tell them. SHE LAUGHS

Keep it intact? Where?

Tell them.

In my apartment.

There's sufficient space.

I can make more space.

My people need to see it.

Let them buy it.

Let them outbid me.

Forgive the pissy way to say this,

but the Rothko Chapel belongs to the world.

It's mine if I buy it.

How much do they want for it?

They don't want to sell the chapel...

and I don't want to give you lessons in self-denial

and social responsibility

because I don't believe for a second you're as cruel as you sound.

How much?

What does it mean to spend money?

A dollar?

A million?

-For a painting?

-For anything.

I have two private elevators now.

One is programmed to play Satie's piano pieces...

and move at one quarter the normal speed.

This is right for Satie,

and this is the elevator I take when I'm in a certain...

let's say...

unsettled mood.

It calms me, makes me whole.

Who's the other elevator?

-Brother Fez.

-Who's that?

The Sufi rap star. You don't know this?

I miss things.

I don't know what money is any more.

I'm losing money by the ton today.

Many millions.

Betting against the yuan.

Isn't the yuan asleep?

Currency markets never close.

Shanghai runs day and night,

now all the major exchanges, seven days a week.

I miss that.

I miss a lot.

How many millions?

Hundreds of millions.

How old are you?

28?

28.

I want you to go to the chapel and make them an offer.

Whatever it takes.

I want everything that's there.

Walls and all.

I remember what you told me once.

What's that?

Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.

What did I mean?

KNOCKS ON WINDOW

A word?

Yeah.

Complex recommends extra security.

-You're not happy about this.

-No.

First, a threat to the President...

You're confident you can handle whatever comes up?

..now an attack on the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

-Arthur Rapp?

-Arthur Rapp, yes.

Where?

Nike, North Korea, while being interviewed on television.

It's on all the channels.

-TV:

-'Director Rapp, will this change your policy on the yuan?'

'The yuan is uncharacteristically inflated, which makes it unstable,

'and eventually it will drop,

'and when it...

'Argh!'

The Complex...

Accept their recommendation.

Good.

All these limos... My God.

You can't tell one from another.

We could be kids on prom night.

Or some dumb wedding wherever.

What's the charm of identical?

That I'm a powerful person

who chooses not to demarcate his territory

with singular driblets of piss, is what?

Something I need to apologise for?

I want to go home and tongue-kiss my Maxima.

You now what today is?

-Incidentally...

-I know.

-..it's my day off, dammit!

-I know this.

-I need this extra day, desperately.

-I know this.

-But you don't know this.

You can't know what it's like, I am a single, struggling mother.

We have a situation here.

I am a mother running in the park

when my phone explodes in my navel

I think it's the kid's nanny who never calls

until the fever reaches 105.

But it's this situation, it....

We have a situation all right.

We have a yuan carry that could crush us in hours.

Take some water. Sit on the banquette.

I like face to face.

And I don't need to look at all those screens,

I know what's happening.

-The yuan will fall.

-That's right.

Consumer spending's down.

That's right.

Besides which, the Bank of China left interest rates unchanged.

This happened today?

This happened tonight in Shanghai. I called the source at Shenzhen.

-While running?

-While flinging my body down Madison Avenue

to get here on time.

The yuan can't go any higher.

That's true, that's right. Except it just did.

I didn't sleep last night.

-There's a time limit.

-Doctor Ingram...

-Who the fuck are you?

-Doctor Ingram.

Where's Doctor Nevius?

Called away suddenly. A personal matter.

Speak slowly and clearly.

Called away suddenly. I don't know... A family crisis...

I'm the associate, I...

flushed out your ear holes once.

You do this why?

What?

Every day.

No matter...?

Wherever I am, that's right.

No matter.

So you do what? Same routine every day?

Varies. Depending.

So he comes to your house...

Nice(!)

On weekends.

We die, Jane, on weekends. People.

It happens.

You're right.

I didn't think of that.

We die BECAUSE it's the weekend.

I thought we were moving, but we're not any more.

The President's in town.

Oh, you're right.

I forgot. I thought I saw him when I ran out of the park.

There was an entourage of limousines

going down 5th with a motorcycle escort.

I thought all these limos were for the President... I can understand.

But it was somebody famous's funeral.

We die every day.

What do we do about this?

Let it express itself.

What? Do nothing?

Let it express itself.

You can stand up now.

So, look, we have two rumours working in our favour.

First, there's the bankruptcies for six straight months.

More each month, more on the way.

Large Chinese corporations.

This is good.

The yuan will drop.

This is loss of faith. It will force the yuan to drop.

Dollar will settle up.

The yuan will drop. Where's Chin?

Working on visual patterns.

-This thing doesn't chart.

-It charts.

It doesn't chart the way you chart technology stocks.

You can find real patterns there,

locate predictable components. This is different.

We're teaching him to see.

You should do the seeing, you're the seer.

What is he? He's a kid.

He's got the streak in his hair, he's got the earring...

He doesn't have the earring.

If he was any dreamier, we'd have to put him on life support.

HE GRUNTS UNCOMFORTABLY What's the second rumour?

There's a rumour, it seems, involving the Finance Minister...

Some kind of scandal about a misconstrued comment.

He made a comment about the economy that may have been misconstrued.

The whole country is now analysing the grammar and syntax

of this comment.

Or it wasn't even what he said. It was when he paused.

They're trying to construe

the meaning of the pause.

So it may be deeper

even than grammar.

It may be breathing.

So the whole economy convulses because the man took a breath.

You gripped the water bottle.

Yes, it's that soft-type plastic.

You grip it.

You choke it.

It's a matter-of-fact thing.

It's sexual tension.

It's everyday nervousness in a life...

It's sexual tension.

Days like this...

What?

Oh, that whole sad business of Judeo-Christian jogging.

You were not born to run.

I look at you. I know what you are.

You're sloppy-bodied, smelly and wet.

A woman who was born to sit strapped in a chair,

while a man tells her how much she excites him.

How come we've never spent this kind of time together?

Your prostate is asymmetrical.

Those two... They're ours?

I felt the need...

Imperative that we reroute.

-The situation is what?

-This.

Water main break.

We have flood conditions in the streets ahead.

A state of chaos.

This. The question of the President and his whereabouts.

He is fluid. He is moving.

Wherever he goes, our satellite receiver reports a ripple effect

in the traffic that causes mass paralysis.

This also.

There's a funeral proceeding slowly downtown

and now deflecting westward.

Many vehicles, numerous mourners on foot. And finally this.

We have a report of imminent activity in the area.

Activity?

Imminent.

The nature is yet unknown.

Complex says "use caution".

Recite to me.

Where's your necktie?

I had my check-up.

Saw my heart on the screen.

I don't like saying this...

But?

You smell of sex.

That's my doctor's appointment you smell.

I smell sex all over you.

It's what?

It's hunger you smell.

I want to eat lunch.

You want to eat lunch.

We're people in the world.

We need to eat and talk.

I'm not sure how hungry I am.

Eat. You'll find out.

Speaking of sex...

We've been married only weeks. Barely weeks.

Everything is barely weeks. We have minutes to live.

We don't want to start counting the times, do we?

And having solemn discussions on the subject?

No, we want to do it.

And we will. We shall.

We want to have it.

Sex.

Yes.

Because there isn't time not to have it.

Time is a thing that grows scarcer every day. What, you don't know this?

I like that bookshop. Do you know why?

Because it's semi-underground.

You feel hidden. You like to hide.

From what?

Sometimes only noise.

You're one of those silent, wistful children,

glued to the shadows.

And you?

I don't know. I don't think about it.

Think about one thing and tell me what it was.

All right, one thing.

When I was four, I figured out how much I'd weigh

on each of the planets in the Solar System.

Oh, that's nice.

I like that.

Such science and ego combined.

When are we going to the lake?

Fuck the lake.

I thought we liked it there?

After all the planning, all the construction...

To get away, to be alone together. It's quiet at the lake.

It's quiet in town.

The way we live, yes, I suppose.

High enough, far enough.

What about your car?

Not so quiet, surely.

You spend a lot of time there.

I had the car 'Prousted'.

Yes?

The way they build a stretch is this...

Take a vehicle's base unit and cut in half

with a huge, throbbing buzz saw device.

Then they add a segment to lengthen the chassis by 10, 11, 12 feet.

Whatever desired dimension. 22 feet, if you like.

While they were doing this to my car,

I sent word that they had to 'Proust' it -

Cork-line it against street noise.

It's lovely, actually. I love that.

The vehicles are armoured, of course. This complicated the cork lining.

But they managed in the end.

It's a gesture. It's a thing a man does.

Did it work?

How could it work? No.

This city eats and sleeps noise. Makes noise out of every century.

Makes the same noises that were made in the 17th century,

along with all the other noises that have evolved since then.

No.

But I don't mind the noise.

The noise energizes me.

The important thing is that it's there.

The cork?

That's right. The cork.

This is what finally matters.

Is this what I wanted?

Tell me what you wanted.

Duck consomme with a herb twist.

It's true, you know.

You do actually reek of sexual discharge.

It's not the sex you think I've had.

It's the sex I want, that's what you smell on me.

Cos the more I look at you, the more I know about us both.

Tell me what that means.

Or don't. No, don't.

And the more I want to have sex with you.

Because there's a certain kind of sex that has an element of cleansing.

It's the antidote to disillusion. The counter-poison.

You need to be inflamed, don't you?

This is your element.

Where were you going after the bookstore?

Because there's a hotel...

I was going to the bookstore. Period.

I was in the bookstore, I was happy there.

Where were you going?

To get a haircut.

Do you need a haircut?

I need anything you can give me.

Be nice.

I need all the meanings of the inflamed.

There's a hotel just across the avenue. We can start over.

Or finish with intense feeling, that's one of the meanings.

To arouse a passionate feeling. We can finish what we barely started.

Two hotels, in fact. We have a choice.

I don't think I want to pursue this.

No, you don't. You wouldn't.

Be nice to me.

GLASS SHATTERS NEARBY

-BOTH:

-A spectre is haunting the world!

A spectre is haunting the world! A spectre is haunting the world!

We want to think about the art of money-making.

The Greeks have a word for it.

Chrimatistikos.

But we have to give the word a little leeway.

Adapt it to the current situation.

Because money has taken a turn.

All wealth has become wealth for its own sake.

There's no other kind of enormous wealth.

Money has lost its narrative quality,

the way painting did once upon a time.

Money is talking to itself.

I want this car, which I love. The glow of the screens.

I love the screens.

It's the glow of cyber-capital. So radiant and seductive.

I understand none of this.

Does it ever stop? Does it slow down?

Of course not.

Why should it? It's fantastic.

But you know how shameless I am in the presence of anything

that calls itself an idea.

The idea is time. Living in the future.

Look at those numbers running.

Money makes time.

It used to be the other way around.

Clock time accelerated the rise of the capitalism.

People stopped thinking about eternity

and began to concentrate on hours.

Measurable hours, man hours -

using labour more efficiently.

It's cyber-capital that creates the future.

What is the measurement called a nanosecond?

Ten to the minus ninth power.

-This is what?

-One billionth of a second.

I understand none of it.

But it tells me how rigorous we need to be

in order to take adequate measure of the world around us.

There are zeptoseconds.

Good, I'm glad.

Yoctoseconds - one septillionth of a second.

Because time is a corporate asset now.

It belongs to the free market system.

The present is harder to find.

It is being sucked out of the world

to make way for the future of uncontrolled markets

and huge investment potential.

The future becomes insistent.

This is why something will happen soon. Maybe today.

To correct the acceleration of time

and bring nature back to normal, more or less.

You have to understand.

The more visionary the idea, the more people it leaves behind.

This is what the protest is all about.

Visions of technology and wealth,

the force of the cyber-capital

that will send people to the gutter to retch and die.

What is the flaw of human rationality?

What?

It pretends not to see the horror and death

at the end of the schemes it builds.

This is a protest against the future.

They want to hold off the future.

They want to normalise it, keep it from overwhelming the present.

The future is always a wholeness,

a sameness - we're all tall and happy there.

This is why the future fails.

It can never be the cruel and happy place we want to make it.

What would happen if they knew

that the head of Packer Capital was in the car?

We know what the anarchists have always said.

-Yes.

-Tell me.

The urge to destroy is a creative urge.

This is also a hallmark of capitalist thought.

Enforced destruction.

Old industries have to be harshly eliminated.

New markets have to be forcibly claimed

and old markets have to be re-exploited.

Destroy the past. Make the future.

This is the thing about genius.

Genius alters the terms of its habitat.

Technology is crucial to civilisation. Why?

Because it helps us to make our fate.

We don't need God, or miracles or flight of the bumblebee,

but it is also crouched and undecidable.

It can go either way.

You've been talking about the future being impatient,

pressing upon us.

That was theory.

I am your chief of theory.

I deal in theory.

It's not original.

Hey...

What's original?

He did it, didn't he?

It's an appropriation.

He poured the gasoline and lit the match.

All those Vietnamese monks...

one after another in all their lotus positions.

Imagine the pain.

Sit here and feel it.

Immolating themselves endlessly.

To say something.

To make people think.

It's not original.

-Just now.

-What?

A report from the Complex. Concerns your safety.

A little late, are they?

This is specific and categorical.

There's been a threat, then.

Assessment, credible red. Highest order of urgency.

This means an incursion is already in progress.

Now we know.

Now we have to act on what we know.

But we still want what we want.

We want a haircut.

It's interesting, isn't it?

About men and immortality.

You live in a tower that soars to heaven and goes unpunished by God.

And you bought an aeroplane.

I've nearly forgotten this.

Soviet or ex-soviet.

A strategic bomber, capable of knocking out a small city.

Is this right?

It's an old Tu-160. NATO calls it Blackjack A.

It was deployed around 1988.

Carries nuclear bombs and cruise missiles.

These were not included in the deal.

And they wouldn't let you fly it. Could you fly it?

Could and did.

They wouldn't let me fly it armed.

Who wouldn't?

State Department.

The Pentagon, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The Russians?

What Russians?

I bought it black market and dirt cheap

from a Belgian arms dealer in Kazakhstan.

That's where I took the controls, for half an hour, over the desert.

US Dollars, 31 million.

Where is it now?

Parked in a storage facility in Arizona,

waiting for replacement parts that nobody can find.

Sitting in the wind.

I go out there now and then.

To do what?

To look at it.

It's mine.

People will not die.

Isn't this the creed of the new culture?

People will be absorbed in streams of information.

I know nothing about this.

Computers will die.

They're dying in their present form.

They're just about dead as distinct units.

A box, a screen, a keyboard...

They're melting into the texture of everyday life.

Is this true or not?

Even the word "computer".

Even the word "computer" sounds backward and dumb.

HE GROANS

You work out?

6% body fat.

Used to be my number. Then I got lazy.

What are you gonna do about it?

Hit the machines in the morning and run in the park at night.

Where is he now?

Who?

You know.

He's in the lobby. Torval.

He's watching them come and go.

Danko's in the hall outside.

Who's that?

Danko, my partner.

He's new.

I'M new. He's been watching your back for some time now.

Came over after those wars in the Balkans. He's a veteran.

What's he gonna say to you about all of this?

Torval.

That's who you're talking about?

Say his name.

What's he gonna say to you?

Just so you're safe.

That's the job.

Men get possessive.

What, you don't know this?

I heard the rumour.

Fact is, I technically speaking got off duty an hour ago, so...

it's basically my time we're dealing with here.

Do you find this interesting?

What?

Protecting someone in danger.

What makes you willing to do this? Take this risk?

Maybe you're worth it.

Maybe it's just the pay.

Pay's pretty good.

The risk?

I don't think about the risk.

You're the man in the crosshairs. I figure the risk is yours.

But is it interesting?

It's interesting to be near men somebody wants to kill.

You know what they say, don't you?

What?

The logical extension of business is murder.

Move a little left.

Move left...

Nice.

Perfect.

What kind of weapon did he give you?

Taser.

He doesn't trust me yet with deadly force.

How many volts at your disposal?

100,000.

Jam your nervous system.

Drop you to your knees.

Like this.

Stun me.

I mean it.

I want you to do it, Kendra. Show me what it feels like.

I'm looking for more.

Show me something I don't know.

Stun me to my DNA.

Come on, do it. Click the switch.

Aim and fire.

I want all the voltage the weapon holds.

Do it.

Shoot it.

Now.

I need to know where you're going.

Wait...and learn.

You smoke since when?

I took it up when I was 15.

It's one of those things a girl takes up.

It tells her she's more than a skinny body no-one looks at.

There's a certain drama in her life.

She notices herself. Then other people notice her.

Then she marries one of them. Then they go to dinner.

You're wearing a Pau Du Soir cocktail dress.

Yes?

It's navy blue.

Yes.

And that's your...

silver Lucide jewellery.

Yes, it is.

I'm noticing.

How was the play?

I left at intermission, didn't I?

What was it about and who was in it?

I'm making conversation.

I went on impulse.

The audience was sparse.

Five minutes after the curtains went up, I understood why.

Where is your jacket?

Where is my jacket?

You were wearing a suit jacket earlier.

Where is your jacket?

Lost in the scuffle, I guess.

You saw the car.

We were under attack by anarchists.

Just two hours ago, there were major global protests.

Now what? Forgotten.

There's something else I wish I could forget.

That's my peanuts you smell.

Didn't I see you come out of the hotel up the street

while I was standing outside the theatre?

Is that the hotel you wanted to take me to?

We don't need a hotel.

We'll do it in the ladies' room.

We'll go to the alley out back and rattle the garbage cans. Look...

I'm trying to make contact in the most ordinary ways.

To see and hear. To notice your mood.

Your clothes.

This is important.

Are your stockings on straight? I understand this at some level.

How people look...

what people wear.

How they smell.

Do you mind my saying that?

Am I being too wifely?

I'll tell you what the problem is.

I don't know how to be indifferent.

I can't master this.

And it makes me susceptible to pain.

In other words, it hurts.

This is good.

We're like people talking.

Isn't this how they talk?

How would I know?

My prostate is asymmetrical.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

You have to see a doctor.

I just saw a doctor. I see a doctor every day.

You just saw a doctor?

That's how I know.

Packer Capital's portfolio

is being reduced to near nothingness in the course of a day.

My personal fortune in the tens of billions

is in ruinous convergence with this fact.

And there's been a credible threat on my life.

It's OK.

It's fine.

Makes me feel free in a way I've never known.

That's so awful. Don't say things like that.

Free to do what? Go broke and die?

Listen to me, I'll help you financially.

I'll truly do what I can to help.

You can re-establish yourself.

At your pace, in your way.

Tell me what you need and I promise I'll help.

But as a couple, as a marriage,

I think we're done, aren't we?

You speak of being free. This is your lucky day.

LOUD ELECTRO MUSIC PLAYS

-EASTERN EUROPEAN ACCENT:

-This is very crazy.

Take over whole theatre.

What do you think?

I don't know

I don't know either.

But I think it is crazy.

Looks like drug scene. What do you think?

Yes.

I think it is latest drug.

Called Novo.

Makes pain go away.

Look how good they feel.

Kids.

They are kids, exactly.

What pain do they feel that they need to take pill? Music?

OK, too loud. So what?

It is beautiful how they dance.

What pain do they feel, too young to buy beer?

There's pain enough for everybody now.

I don't believe I'm here.

You tell me when we leave. I'll take you out.

Where is he?

At the entrance.

Torval?

He watches at the entrance.

Do you kill people?

What do you think?

Like lunch.

What do we know?

-AUDIO SPEAKER:

-We know it's not a coup.

It's not an organized terror cell

or international kidnappers with ransom demands.

It's an individual.

Do we care?

We don't have a name. But we have a phone call.

The Complex is analysing the voice data.

It made certain assessments.

They're projecting a course of action on the part of the individual.

Why can't I work up any curiosity on the subject?

Because it doesn't matter.

Whoever it is...

that's who it is.

Eric.

Why are we here?

You ain't heard?

-What?

-Brother Fez.

What?

Dead.

No... What? Can't be.

Dead. Died. Earlier today.

I don't know this.

Funeral has been in progress all day...

The family wanted the city to have a chance to pay respect.

Record label wanted an exploitation event. Big and loud.

Street to street. Right through the night.

I don't know this.

How can this be? I love his music. I have his music in my elevator.

I know the man. What, they've shot him?

Fez has been having cardiac problems for years.

Since high school.

Been seeing specialists, been seeing faith healers.

The heart just wore out.

This ain't a thug down some alley.

The man has never been breathalysed, barely, since he was 17.

Hope you're not disappointed.

Disappointed?

That our man here wasn't shot!

Hope he didn't let you down.

Natural causes - now that's a let-down.

What happened to your stretch?

Let a fine machine degrade in public.

That's scandal, man.

Everything's a scandal.

Dying's a scandal, but we all do it.

I think I'm hearing voices in the night,

because I can't believe you're saying this.

HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS

# Coming from the streets To Mecca

# Death no matter where you go Come and get ya

# Coming from the streets To Mecca

# Death no matter where you go Come and get ya... #

Ask me do I love this shit?

Me being big as I am and a retro-nigger.

I have to love what I'm seeing.

Because this is something I can never dream of doing

on my thinnest day on Earth.

He liked having his clergy nearby.

He showed up in my office once with an imam and two white boys from Utah in suits.

He was always excusing himself so he could pray.

He lived in a minaret, for a while, in Los Angeles.

Yeah, I heard that.

I went to visit him once.

He built it next to his house.

He moved out of his house and into the minaret.

MUSIC CONTINUES RAPPING: # Getting shot is easy

# Tried it seven times Now I'm just a solo poet

# Working on my rhymes

# Kid used to think he was wise to the system

# Prince of the streets Always do things his way

# But he had a case of conventional wisdom

# Never say nothing the others don't say...

THEY SOB

# ..my soul's unfolding Oh, God, oh, man

# Living high at last Suckin the tit

# Milk of prayer and fast

# Man gave the news in a slanted room

# And it felt like a silver of icy truth

# Felt my sad ass soul flying out the mouth

# My gold tooth splitting down...to the root

# Let me be who I was I'm a fool who's lost but living

# Coming from the streets To Mecca

# Death no matter where you go Come and get ya

# Coming from the streets To Mecca

# Death no matter where you go Come and get ya. #

Argh!

I'm after you long time.

Son of a bitch. I glop you good.

Today you are cremed by the master Andre Petrescu. The pastry assassin.

This is my mission worldwide to sabotage power and wealth.

For years, I'm waiting for this.

Freshly baked only, you know.

I passed up the President of the United States to make the strike.

I can creme him any time,

but you are a major statement.

Very hard to zero in.

Argh!

You lack of humour, Mr Packer.

You live up to reputation, OK?

But I am kicked and beaten by security so many times,

I'm walking dead.

You know they put me a radio collar when I was in England,

to save the Queen.

They tracked me like a rare crane.

But please, believe one thing.

I cremed Fidel three times in six days

when he was in Bucharest years ago.

I am an action painter of cremed pies.

I...

dropped from a tree on Michael Jordan one time.

This was the famous Flying Pie.

Museum quality.

Video for the ages.

I quiched the fucking sultan of Brunei in his bath.

They put me in a black hole until I was screaming from my eyes.

OK, let's go.

Do you play?

Not really my game.

Rugby... Now that was my game.

You play?

Some.

I like the action and the pain.

Pump iron now.

Of course you understand...

there's still someone tracking you.

Still someone out there.

This was a petty incursion.

The whipped cream.

Technically irrelevant.

I understand.

Next time, no pies and cakes.

Dessert...is over.

Yeah, he's out there.

And he's armed.

He's armed and you're armed.

This is true.

You'll have to draw your weapon.

This is true.

Let me see the thing.

Let you see the thing?

OK.

Why not, you paid for it, right?

Manufactured in Austria.

Nice.

Smart tool. Scary smart.

Voice recognition.

That's right.

You what? You speak and it knows your voice?

That's right.

The mechanism doesn't activate

unless the voice print matches the stored data.

Only my voice matches.

Do you have to speak German before it fires?

No, but the voice is only half the operation.

You're saying there's a code as well.

Pre-programmed spoken code.

What is it?

-Nancy Babich.

-GUN BEEPS

GUNSHOT

We are here.

But how come you're such a stranger lately?

Hello, Anthony.

Long time.

Long time.

I need a haircut.

You look like what...

Get in here...so I can look at you.

Never seen such ratty hair on a human.

I woke up this morning and knew it was time.

You knew where to come.

Said to myself, "I want a haircut".

Maybe you want to eat something first.

I could eat something.

I have takeout in the fridge that I nibble at when I get the urge.

So, you married that woman?

That's right.

That her family has got like money unbeknownst.

Never thought you'd get married so young, but...what do I know?

I have chickpeas all mashed up and eggplants with rice and nuts.

-Give me the eggplants.

-Yeah. Good.

Your father did not tell your mother until he had to.

He went fast once they found it. He was diagnosed and then he went.

You were four years old.

-Five.

-Exactly.

And you?

You're keeping well?

-CHUCKLING:

-You know me, kid. I could tell you I can't complain.

But I could definitely complain.

The thing is, I don't wanna, cos...

there ain't time.

Let me think what I have that we could drink.

Water from the tap. I drink water now.

I have a bottle of liqueur that's been there don't ask how long.

I could drink some of that.

Because if your father himself walked in here

and I offered him tap water...

oh, God forbid, he would rip out my last hair.

Maybe we could ask my driver to come in. My driver's outside in the car.

Oh, we could give him the other eggplants.

I drove a chequered cab.

Big. Bouncy.

I drove nights. I was young. What could they do to me?

Night is not so good if you have a wife and child.

Besides, I can tell you, it was crazy enough in the daytime.

I loved my cab.

I drove 12 hours nonstop.

I stopped only to pee.

A man is hit one day by another taxi. Comes flying into my taxi.

I mean, he was flying in the air, crashed against the windscreen.

Right there in my face. Blood is everywhere.

I never left my garage without my Windex.

I am Acting Secretary of External Affairs in a previous life.

I said to him, "Get off from there.

"I cannot drive with your body on my windscreen."

I ate at the wheel.

I kept my sandwiches in tinfoil.

I ate at the wheel also. I could not afford to stop driving.

Where did you pee, Ibrahim?

I peed under the Manhattan Bridge.

This is where I peed exactly.

I peed in parks and alleys.

I peed in a pet cemetery once.

Night is better in some ways, I am certain of it.

I was here, what? Probably four hours a day.

Helping my father cut hair.

Nights, I drove my cab. Oh, I loved my cab.

I had a little fan that worked on a battery,

because air conditioning?

Forget about it in that day and age.

And then I had a drinking cup

with a magnet that I stuck on the dashboard.

I had my steering wheel upholstered, very nice, in zebra.

And my daughter, with her photograph on the visor.

I give this guy his first haircut.

He didn't want to sit in the car seat.

His father tried to jam him in there.

He was going "No, no, no, no!"

So I put him right where he's sitting now.

His father pinned him down.

I cut his father's hair when he was a kid. Yeah, I cut his hair.

But where is the chief of security in this situation?

I realised he's not with us.

We are alone.

I gave him the rest of the night off.

You have protection, right, in the car?

Protection?

Protection. You know what that means?

-I had a gun, but I threw it away.

-But why?

I didn't want to make plans. I wasn't thinking ahead.

Didn't want to take precautions.

You know how that sounds? How does that sound?

I thought you were some kind of big shot

that destroyed people in a blink of an eye.

But you sound pretty iffy to me.

This is Mike Packer's kid that had a gun and threw it away?

What is that?

Yes, what is that?

Yeah. In this part of town, and you had a gun.

There are steps you must take to safeguard yourself.

In this part of town?

You cannot walk five metres after dark. You would be careless.

They'd kill you straight away.

You'd be reasonable with them? They'll take a little longer,

tear out your entrails first.

What happened to your eye that it got all twisted that way?

I can see. I can drive.

I passed their tests.

You were beaten and tortured.

An army coup.

By the secret police.

Or they thought they executed you. Fired a shot to your face.

Left you for dead.

I loved my cab.

I gulped my food.

I drove 12 hours straight, night after night.

Vacations? Forget about it.

But what did I do for protection?

I need to leave.

How come?

I don't know how come.

That's how come.

But let me do the left side, at least. So both sides are equal.

I'll come back. Take my word for it.

I'll sit and you'll finish.

Ibrahim, tell me this.

Yes?

These stretched limousines that fill the streets...

I've been wondering...

Yes?

Where are they parked at night?

They need large tracts of space.

Out near the airports or somewhere in the Meadowlands.

Long Island. New Jersey.

I will go to New Jersey. The limo stays here.

Where?

Next block, there will be an underground garage. Limos only.

I would drop off your car,

pick up my car, then drive home, through the stinking tunnel.

Early in the morning, you could see, right here,

teams of men in white overalls...

they are washing limousines. A marketplace of limos, rags flying.

METAL DOOR CREAKS

GUNSHOT GLASS SHATTERS

Eric Michael Packer!

GUNSHOT

GUNSHOTS

Nancy Babich.

GUNSHOT

GUNSHOT

What are you doing here?

That's not the question.

The question is yours to answer. Why do you want to kill me?

No, that's not the question. That's too easy to be the question.

I want to kill you

because I want to count for something in my own life.

See how easy?

You're not a reflective man. I live consciously in my head.

Give me a cigarette.

Give me a drink.

Do you recognise me?

I can't see you clearly.

Sit. We'll talk.

Yes.

I'd like that.

Sit and talk.

I've had a long day.

Things. People.

Time for a philosophical pause.

Some reflection.

Yes.

POWERFUL GUNSHOT

You're not familiar with that weapon.

I fired that weapon.

That's a serious weapon. Whereas this...

I'm thinking of installing a shooting range in my apartment.

Why not your office? Line them up and shoot them.

You know the office, is that right? You've been in the office.

Tell me who you think I am.

I don't know. Who are you?

Maybe if you'd tell me your name.

You wouldn't know my name.

I know names more than faces. Tell me.

Benno Levin.

That's a phony name. It's phony. It's fake.

It's fake, it isn't real.

But I think I recognise you now.

You were at a cash machine outside a bank,

some time around noon.

You saw me.

You looked familiar. I didn't know why.

Maybe you used to work for me.