Still Valley At 20,000 Feet - Mike Burns (good ebook reader .TXT) 📗

PARADINE
Yes, I do have somethin’ to show you, Mr. Lincoln. A matter which you been curious about before--you’ll get to know somethin’ about it, now.

Paradine reaches down to the briefcase, sitting by his left foot, chained and handcuffed to his left hand, as usual. He opens it, and brings forth the book Teague bequeathed to him, laying it open on the linen
(CONTINUED)
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tablecloth, from which a black slave has taken his plate and wine glass moments before.

PARADINE
This is what I carry around in the briefcase, Mr. Lincoln. An’ you done guessed right, last time we met--it’s what gave us the victory. The war IS over, Mr. Lincoln. An’ WE WON! An’ all your troops everywhere were frozen like fish in a goldfish bowl left out in the winter-time.

Lincoln doesn’t blink, barely breathes.

PARADINE
Now, now, don’t fret, Mr. Lincoln. We didn’t kill ‘em. Warn’t no need to. Once I learned how to use the book proper (touches it reverently), we were able to disarm ‘em all, and build stockades around ‘em, and I could wake ‘em up when we were good an’ ready to. Let ‘em wake up to bein’ prisoners of war. Mr. Davis and I felt that sparin’ ‘em was proper, since they could still be useful to us--when we forced your Congress to negotiate peace. Havin’ huge numbers of your defeated men was useful ’cause they were a guarantee of your Congress’s good faith in its dealin’s with us. As the negotiations went along, we’d release a few more of your troops each week and march ’em back to the border under armed guard, and release ’em to you . One o’ the terms of the peace was that your country pay reparations to mine for our losses. An’ part of those reparations we got by keepin’ all the money that was in the safeboxes of your paymasters in all those units we captured. ‘Lot of it went to entrepreneurs--your people call ’em carpetbaggers--who snuck into your country, set up legitimate businesses there, and are funnelin’ money back to the Confederacy--in just a few years, we’ll more than make back the money of YOURS that we invested--

PRESIDENT DAVIS (interrupting)
Mr. Paradine, there’s no need to divulge such things--

PARADINE
Nonsense, Mr. President, I’m only tellin’ HIM, and we’ll never let him go.

PRESIDENT DAVIS (angry now)
Mr. Paradine, that is classified, sensitive information--state secrets that only I am authorized to divulge...


PARADINE
See here, Mr. President, who won your war for you? Who is the Keeper of the Book? (pats it for emphasis) An’ I could punish even YOU for bitin’ the hand that’s fed you so well! Learn to leave well enough alone, MISTER DAVIS! YOU have YOUR job, I have MINE! Be thankful I don’t take yours!

President Davis, sullen and unrepentant, but no longer defiant, sits back now and subsides into uneasy silence.

As if the stage has been set for Lincoln’s “entertainment,” Paradine rises now, removing the cross and cord from around his neck, and holds it in his left hand, raising it to head level. He begins to read aloud from the book.

PARADINE
“I beseech ye, the Prince of Darkness, to take me to the place of my heart’s desire, to find (CONTINUED)
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the one I wish to find, and to exercise my will with regard to her--and to do this in the time it takes to tell of such a thing.”

He pauses, then adds, eyes still firmly on the book:

“An’ the book that I leave here, I leave in your all-powerful care. Let he who tries to touch it in my absence be struck down, deep down into earth, buried alive!”

FOCUS on Paradine. Flames lick at the eyeholes of Paradine’s hood, and to pour forth from the bronze cross in his left hand. Paradine flies suddenly upward, laughing maniacally, trailing flame, clearing the prison walls, and heads to the west, opposite the sun which is climbing steadily upward, though its light seems more wan and sickly now. The air in the prison courtyard and the image of everything within it shimmers and dances in the blast of heat Paradine has left behind.

Mr. Lincoln is speechless, eyes wide in horror. But even now, his eyes do not leave the book. He finally glances up, at one of the silver candle-holders on the table, and the tapered red candle that burns on top of it. Clearly, a desperate plan is forming in his mind.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Mr. Lincoln, please don’t get any foolish notions. My guard is watchin’ you intently. (turns, looks at the guard, and addresses him) Mr. Frazier, if Mr. Lincoln makes any move toward that book, give him one verbal warning, and if he doesn’t instantly move away from it, shoot him!

FRAZIER
Yessir.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Mr. Lincoln, I share your fear in some degree. I wouldn’t take Mr. Paradine’s book if he gave me an engraved invitation to do so. But he DID use it to give us victory. I couldn’t very well refuse. If I had, he’d have eliminated me and given the presidency of the Confederacy to someone else--maybe himself! He’s also used it to give us--certain other things. This cloud has its silver lining. At some point, I think his negative traits can be tamed, even...neutralized.


ABRAHAM LINCOLN
MISTER Davis, I see moral cowardice at work here. I saw in naked, bold detail who really is the power behind the throne in your so-called “nation,” just now. Even you don’t dare to move against him. The man is far gone into the clutches of evil. Don’t follow him into hell, dragging the Confederacy with you. If and when he comes back, have that man of yours shoot him! Shoot him yourself, if you be armed! If you will stand by my side in this matter, when I return to Washington I will put my political career and reputation on the line, and commit myself totally to a just, negotiated, genuine peace. This, what we have now, is not peace. This is a state of institutionalized violence! It’s immoral, sir. We cannot have aught than God for the king of our consciences. Do what’s right, man! That is the one thing I will beseech of you.


(CONTINUED)
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PRESIDENT DAVIS
I cannot, sir. He is...not evil. He is misguided. I will not surrender victory for the nation I have helped birth. Does a father throw away his children’s home and sustenance?

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Your home is burning down, sir. Your children are in danger...

Their frenzied conversation is interrupted by a blaze of flame descending from the air above the courtyard. Paradine is returned, and has one gripped around the neck of a woman.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Mary! Oh, my God! Unhand her, you devil! By all the white wrath of God’s righteousness, unhand her!