The Ninth Gate
A diminutive kitchenette. CORSO, one hand wrapped around a Scotch, uses the other to remove a TV dinner from the freezer compartment of his refrigerator and insert it in a microwave. He shuts the door, sets the timer, and strolls out into the living room.
A bleak bachelor pad: no pictures, ornaments or photographs, just books on every available shelf and surface. Against one wall, a desk with a computer on it. On the floor beside the desk, CORSO’s shabby canvas bag. On the desk itself, ‘The Nine Gates’.
CORSO goes over to the desk. He stares down at the book for a long moment, meditatively sipping his Scotch. Then, without putting his glass down, he opens the book one-handed and idly turns a few pages, pauses at THE ENGRAVING OF THE KNIGHT IN ARMOR RIDING TOWARD THE CASTLE.
We slowly MOVE IN until the screen is filled with an INSERT of the knight with his finger enigmatically raised to his lips.
14. TELFER HOUSE: SITTING ROOM, LIBRARY INT/DAY
CORSO, canvas bag on shoulder, is standing in the middle of a luxuriously furnished sitting room. The decor, which includes a smiling portrait of Andrew Telfer, is extremely opulent.
CORSO is looking up at the portrait when the door opens. He turns to see LIANA TELFER on the threshold with a business card in her hand. His appreciation of her looks is evident.
LIANA (whose photoportralt we saw in Scene 1) is a very sexy, thirtyish blonde with milky skin and a figure whose generous curves are far from concealed by her ultra chic black costume. She gives CORSO the once-over, then enters, closing the door behind her.
CORSO: Mrs. Telfer? (gestures at the business card) Bob Corso. Sorry to trouble you at a time like this.
LIANA comes over and sits down on a sofa, simultaneously motioning CORSO into the armchair that faces it over a coffee table. She puts his card down, crosses her lovely legs, and waits.
CORSO sits down with his beg between his feet. Opening it, he produces ‘The Nine Gates’. LIANA involuntarily stiffens at sight of it.
CORSO (cont.): It would be very helpful, ma’am, if you could tell me what you know about this book.
He holds it out. After a momentary pause, LIANA slowly reaches for the book, opens it at random, turns a page or two. She speaks with a slight French accent.
LIANA (casually): Isn’t this one of my husband’s books?
CORSO: Right. It was in his collection until very recently. He sold it to a client of mine. I’m trying to authenticate it.
LIANA: He sold it, you say? How strange. It was one of his most treasured possessions.
CORSO: He never mentioned the sale?
LIANA is fractionally late in answering. CORSO spots her hesitation.
LIANA: No. It’s news to me. Who bought it?
CORSO: A private collector.
LIANA: May I know his name?
CORSO: I’m afraid that’s confidential.
LIANA: I suppose he has a bill of sale?
CORSO: No problem there.
LIANA: Is this your job, authenticating rare books?
CORSO: And tracking them down.
LIANA (smiles): You’re a book detective.
CORSO (smiles back): Kind of. (pause) Do you recall when and where your husband acquired this book?
LIANA: In Spain. We were vacationing at Toledo. Andrew got very excited-paid a great deal of money for it. He was a fanatical collector.
CORSO: So I gather.
LIANA deposits ‘The Nine Gates’ on the coffee table and rises.
LIANA: I’ll show you.
CORSO rises likewise. Then a thought strikes him: swiftly retrieving ‘The Nine Gates’ and his bag, he stows one in the other as he follows her undulating hips to a door at the far end of the room, which she opens.
LIANA (cont.): Look.
She walks on ahead into the library in which Andrew Telfer hanged himself. CORSO is still eyeing her delectable rear view.
CORSO: Magnificent-
Reluctantly, he drags his eyes away from LIANA and surveys the crowded shelves.
CORSO (cont.): Really magnificent-
He goes over to inspect the bookshelves. In passing he glances up at the chandelier, which is still hanging slightly askew.
LIANA: Andrew used to spend many hours in here.Too many.
CORSO: Did he ever try it out?
He asks the question with an air of spurious innocence, looking around the room as he does so. LIANA frowns.
LIANA: I don’t understand.
CORSO (cont.): The book-did he ever use it to perform some kind of ritual intended to- well. produce a supernatural effect?
LIANA: Are you serious?
CORSO: Absolutely.
LIANA: A Black Mass, you mean?
CORSO: More or less. An attempt to conjure up the Devil.
LIANA: Andrew was a trifle eccentric, Mr. Corso, but he wasn’t insane.
She gives a mournful shrug, every inch the recent widow.
LIANA (cont.): It’s true he’d been acting strangely those last few days. He shut himself up in here-seldom emerged except for meals.
She draws a deep breath, glances at the chandelier.
LIANA (cont.): That morning I was woken by the screams of the maid: he’d hanged himself. (pauses, looks at CORSO) Whatever he was up to, I certainly can’t see him chanting mumbo-jumbo or trying to raise the dead.
The flippant tone of the last few words sounds rather forced. CORSO smiles at her faintly over his glasses, pats his shoulder bag.
CORSO: The Devil, Mrs. Telfer. This book is designed to raise the Devil.
15. TELFER HOUSE EXT/DAY
CORSO crosses the forecourt to the street. A man with a MUSTACHE and a scarred face is leaning against a limo parked outside the house, smoking a small cigar. They eye each other briefly.
CORSO reaches the sidewalk just as a cab sails past. He raises his hand too late to flag it down, looks around for another.
The MUSTACHE’s cellphone beeps. He reaches into the limo and picks up the receiver.
16. REFERENCE LIBRARY INT/DAY
The big reference library is divided up by freestanding bookshelves and has a gallery running around it at second-floor level. NUMEROUS READERS are occupying the rows of tables in the central area.
CORSO is seated at one of the tables with the ‘Nine Gates’ in front of him. Beside it reposes a large catalog and his notebook. The ‘Nine Gates’ is open at the frontispiece, which displays the title – ‘De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis’- and the words ‘Sic Luceat Lux’ separated by an emblem consisting of A TREE ENCIRCLED BY A SNAKE DEVOURING ITS OWN TAIL.
As we MOVE IN ON THE COILED SNAKE, we hear CORSO translating to himself in a low voice:
CORSO (O.S.): Sic Luceat Lux – Thus – let the light – shine-
17. REFERENCE LIBRARY INT/DUSK
Many of the tables are now deserted, and the shaded reading lights have been switched on.
CORSO shuts a catalog and gets up to replace It in the wall of books behind his chair, runs his finger along a shelf till he comes to another fat tome and removes it. He’s startled to see, framed in the resulting gap, the face of THE GIRL at Balkan’s lecture: short hair, green, feline eyes. The face recedes and disappears.
CORSO quickly rounds the end of the bookshelf: no sign of her. He looks both ways, but the aisles are deserted. Puzzled, he resumes his seat and opens the second catalog. Then, sensing that he’s being watched, he swings around.
Nothing outwardly suspicious, just two BESPECTACLED STUDENTS comparing notes In sibilant whispers. He looks right: a scattering of READERS. He scans the reading-room at large: still nothing untoward.
He turns some pages in ‘The Nine Gates’, comes to AN ENGRAVING OF A NAKED WOMAN RIDING A SEVEN-HEADED DRAGON WITH A CASTLE ABLAZE IN THE BACKGROUND. He consults the second catalog, which displays a small reproduction of the same scene with text wrapped around it, and jots something down in his notebook.
Wearily, he straightens and stretches, removes his glasses, pinches the bridge of his nose. As he Idly scans the reading room, his astigmatic vision gives him an unfocused glimpse of THE GIRL looking down at him from the gallery overhead. By the time he replaces his glasses, she’s gone.
18. CORSO’S APARTMENT HOUSE EXTINIGHT
It’s raining hard. CORSO trudges up the steps of his brownstone with the canvas bag on his shoulder and a bag of groceries In his arms.
19. ELEVATOR INT/NIGHT
CORSO rides the elevator up.
20. CORSO’S APARTMENT HOUSE: PASSAGE, APARTMENT INT/NIGHT
CORSO emerges from the elevator and walks down the passage to his door. He inserts his key in the mortice lock and tries to turn it. Nothing doing: It’s unlocked already.
Next, he inserts his key in the second lock and turns it. Not being double-locked, the door opens at once. It takes him a moment to digest the significance of this fact.
Just then he hears a muffled crash from inside the apartment: a window has been flung open in a hurry. He bursts into the living room. No one there, but the light is on. Dropping his shoulder bag and groceries, he dashes into the bedroom.
The window is open and the curtains are billowing out into the room. CORSO darts to the window, flings one leg over the sill and climbs out on the fire escape.
21. FIRE ESCAPE, SIDE STREET. EXT/NIGHT
Feet can be heard clattering down the fire escape. CORSO peers over the rail just in time to see a DARK FIGURE emerge into the side street beneath him and sprint off through the rain.
CORSO (yells half-heartedly): Hey, you!
He gives up and climbs back inside.
22. CORSO’S APARTMENT INT/NIGHT
CORSO scans the living room. The only immediate sign of the intruder’s presence is that the chair has been pulled away from the desk and one of the drawers is open.
CORSO pushes the chair back into place and shuts the drawer.
23. BERNIE’S BOOKSTORE INT/DAY
ON ‘The Nine Gates’ lying open on BERNIE’s desk. He’s reverently turning the pages with CORSO at his elbow.
BERNIE: Son of a bitch- Where did you get this?
