Four Rooms

GUINNESS GIRL

Happy New Year!

BACK TO TED: BACK AND FORTH

TED

Let me speak to Betty.

GUINNESS GIRL

Party's over, she probably went home.

TED

She lives there.

GUINNESS GIRL

Oh, well, I haven't seen 'em in a while.

TED

Do you even know who I'm talking about?

GUINNESS GIRL

Yeah... yeah... yeah... I know 'em, I know Eddy.

TED

Betty, not Eddy.

GUINNESS GIRL

Yeah... yeah... I know Betty too... Tall...

TED

No, not particularly. She's got curly red hair.

GUINNESS GIRL

No, no, no, no, no, I know, I know. Japanese girl.

TED

She's not Japanese! I just said she had red hair.

GUINNESS GIRL

Yeah... yeah... yeah... I know her.

TED

Well, then get her on the phone, it's an emergency.

GUINNESS GIRL

Who – who should I say's calling?

TED

Tell 'em Teddy from work's on the phone, and it's a major fuckin' emergency.

GUINNESS GIRL

Gotcha, Betty from work.

TED

Not Betty from work, I'm calling Betty! I'm Teddy. Just say Ted.

GUINNESS GIRL

Hi, Ted, I'm Margaret. You sound down. Has this not been the happiest of New Year's?

TED

(resigning himself to talking with Margaret)

No Margaret, this hasn't been my best New Year. This year's starting off pretty badly.

MARGARET

Awww, how come?

TED

Well, Betty – the chick whose house you're at, even though you don't know her – leaves me here all by myself on New Year's Eve. And first thing right off the bat, I'm fucked by a coven of witches.

MARGARET

An oven full of witches fucked you? Is that like at the circus when they stick all those clowns in an itty-bitty car?

TED

A coven. A coven of witches. Well, one witch in particular.

MARGARET

Was she an old hag with a mole, with hair growing out of it?

TED

No-no-no, she was... quite beautiful.

Margaret thinks for a moment.

MARGARET

Ted?

TED

Yes.

MARGARET

What's the problem?

TED

Well, admittedly, that was the best part of the night. It was pretty fuckin' cool, actually. But it was still an unnerving way to start off the night.

MARGARET

Sounds to me like a pretty great way to start off the night.

TED

Okay, let's just skip over the witches.

MARGARET

 – Skipping over the witches.

TED

So, later, in another room, some crazy sucking maniac sticks a gun in my face and forces me to play out some psychosexual drama with his wife.

MARGARET

He made you have psycho sex with his wife?

TED

No, he didn't make me fuck his wife, he thought I'd fucked his wife! He held me at gunpoint with a loaded gun!

MARGARET

What kinda gun?

TED

I don't know, I'm not a gun guy. It was big.

MARGARET

Like Dirty Harry's gun.

TED

Yeah, something like that.

MARGARET

Did it have a real long barrel or a short barrel?

TED

What difference does it make?

MARGARET

Well, for one thing it's the difference between a .44 Magnum and a Magnum .357.

TED

Who cares if it was a .44 or a .392, it was a fuckin' loaded gun, pointed at my fuckin' head!

Margaret takes this in.

MARGARET

You wanna skip over this part, too?

TED

I want you to get Betty on the phone!

MARGARET

Hold on.

(yelling to the room)

Anybody live here named...

(to Ted)

What's her name again?

TED

Betty.

MARGARET

Betty!

The sleepy room stirs. Betty wakes up from the floor.

BETTY

Yeah, whatcha screamin' about?

MARGARET

You're Betty?

BETTY

Yeah, I'm Betty, it's my fuckin' place, who the fuck are you?

MARGARET

I'm Margaret

(hands her the phone)

And this is Ted.

Betty takes the phone.

BETTY

Ted, what's the problem?

TED

What's the problem? I don't got a problem, I got fuckin' problems! Wanna hear?

BETTY

(yawning, wiping sleep from her eyes)

Sure.

TED

Well, most recently, there's room 716. There's a scary Mexican gangster dude pokin' his finger in my chest. There's his hooligan kids snapping their fingers at me. There's the putrid rotting corpse of a dead whore stuffed in the springs of a bed. There're rooms blazing afire... There's a needle from God knows where stuck in my leg, infecting me with God knows what, and finally, there's me walking out the fuckin' door right now! Buenas noches.

A RINGING SOUND happens that we haven't heard before. Ted's head turns toward it.

It's the guest board. And the top light, the penthouse, is ringing. It rings where all the others buzzed.

Betty can hear it distinctly on her side of the line. The sound fully wakes her up. They start talking Howard Hawks style again.

BETTY

(suddenly alert)

Is that the penthouse?

TED

Yeah.

BETTY

That's the Chester Rush party, they want something.

TED

Yeah, well, tough tity. They're just gonna have to wait, 'cause I'm out the door.

BETTY

(panicking)

Now, Ted, wait a minute. I know you're freaked, I know you're stressed. You've had a real bad night –

TED

Yes, Betty, I've had-a-real-bad-night –

BETTY

 – You say there's a dead body in a room?

TED

Yes, I did.

BETTY

No problem, this is a hotel, we've had dead bodies before, it's just the price of doing business. You said the hotel was on fire. Is it still on fire?

TED

No, it's out.

BETTY

Good, sprinkler system worked like a charm. Now, you wanna leave, you've had enough. Perfectly understandable. I'll take care of everything else. The only thing I ask is that you take care of Chester Rush. Then you can leave.

TED

Now, look –

BETTY

Ted, he's a very important guest of this hotel. In fact, he is the most important guest at the hotel. The Mon Signor used to be a haven for movie stars. Through the thirties and forties, and the first half of the fifties, more movie stars – if you break it down on a night-by-night basis – stayed at the Mon Signor than any other hotel in Hollywood. Now, we had some hard time in the eighties, even though we were the official hotel of Cannon Pictures, but we're coming back strong in the nineties. And a movie star clientele is important to that comeback. If we can keep stars of his magnitude happy, we're on our way. So, Ted, just take care of him, then you can leave.

TED

Look, I don't feel like –

BETTY

He probably just wants some champagne! You can do that, can't you? Please just take care of him, the entire staff of the Mon Signor is begging you!

Ted crumbles.

TED

Okay. But get your ass here pronto.

BETTY

You're a good man, Ted. Thanks.

Ted hangs up the phone. And picks up the board phone.

TED

Hello, Mr. Rush. Sorry for the delay. How can I help you?

FADE TO BLACK

STORY TITLE CARD:

"THE PENTHOUSE

THE MAN FROM HOLLYWOOD"