"Hi, Mrs. Cooper." "This is Jeanette at Sentinel." "Well, it looks like you let another month slip by without sending in your payment." "Shame, shame." "Oh, of course I know you're home on disability." "Of course I know you've got doctor bills, but you have also got very good medical insurance!" "Oh, come on, hon." "Now, why don't you just do a little bit to carry your own weight?" "After all, this is America." "We've got all these opportunities, all this freedom." "We also have certain obligations, and this is one of your obligations as a good citizen." "I'll call you back tomorrow at 4:00." "I'll call at 5:00, and please don't let this go to litigation." "Well, if you won't send in your payment, you'll be forcing me to get the courts involved." "That could be very ugly." "Fine." "Have your money for me by tomorrow." "Okay, bye-bye." "Cooper case, telephone call number ten, 4:32 p.m., August first." "Oh, Mr. Clark, hello!" "This is Jeanette at Sentinel." "I have got good news for you!" "Yes, at my urging..." "Good!" "And send those checks in today." "You know how forgetful you can be!" "My pleasure!" "Bye-bye!" "Hello." "Hi, Jeanette, it's Bill." "Just checking in on my favorite new worker." "How are things going?" "Just great." "Oh, bottom line, New York is the place to be if you want to make a killing in today's market." "If I was good in Louisville, just watch my dust here!" "What?" "Friends?" "No, not just yet." "I will get out and meet people." "Stop fussing." "Listen, Bill, I need more of those litigation form letters." "I know we never sue, but we can threaten." "Those letters work wonders on some of these clients." "Guess what?" "I got that old hick Mr. Clark on postdated checks!" "Oh, I just know he's so forgetful." "The first check of his I deposit is gonna bounce right to Canada." "Then I'm gonna go after him for check fraud." "Oh, it always works." "Listen, Bill, can we talk commission?" "I really think that I'm..." "What?" "Oh... sure." "Uh, when you free up, can you call me back?" "Today?" "Even tonight's okay." "Sure." "Don't forget me." "Bye." "Hello, Mary Jane." "is your mommy home?" "She's not?" "Oh, that's too bad." "Well, you know, she's in trouble." "No, don't cry, Mary Jane." "No, I don't want your mommy to go to jail either." "$51 is such a tiny amount." "For grownups, I mean." "How?" "You do?" "Oh, for college." "Hmm." "No, Mary Jane, you keep your money for school." "But you tell your mommy to call me right away, okay?" "Bye-bye." "Yes, hello." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Who is this?" "My payment overdue..." "What payment?" "It's Rita Valdez, Miss Simpson." "This is a private line." "This number is unlisted." "Do not call me ever again, whoever you are." "Yes?" "It's so lonely and cold here." "So dark and alone." "Payment overdue." "I must make my payment." "Yes, Bill deceased." "As in dead." "I don't like pranks, Bill." "Some goon in your office has given out my private number." "Well, maybe this dead person knows somebody in your office who's a cleaning lady. I..." "Yes, Charles?" "A Mr. Michael Nelson from City Welfare has something for you, Miss." "Well, send him up." "Yes, Miss." "What if this prankster knows where l live?" "This is New York." "People get killed for a subway token in this town." "Well, could you check on it, please?" "Suddenly, I don't feel safe in my own apartment." "And this place is like a fortress." "Good-bye, Bill." "Uh..." "Uh, Jeanette Simpson?" "Uh, I'm Michael Nelson from the city." "Come in." "Oh." "Thank you." "Oh, my." "Oh, would you just feel that?" "Must be central air-conditioning." "Ah, you don't get this kind of cooling from window units." "It's a studio, but it has the luxuries." "Ooh, and a view." "Every unit at the Suffolk has a view." "is that the park?" "And the museum." "Yes." "What is it you have for me?" "Um, a payment." "To settle the account of Rita Valdez." "Now, wait a minute." "First a phone call, and now a check?" "Phone call?" "Did someone call from the city?" "No." "Forget it." "Shall we step into the living area?" "Oh." "It's lovely." "Thank you." "You see, Miss Valdez was one of my cases-- uh, welfare cases-- and it has fallen to me to settle her affairs." "Oh, she died." "You knew?" "lt's in the computer." "Yeah." "Fell or jumped, perhaps, from her sixth-floor apartment." "It was tragic." "Made it all the way from El Salvador just to die on a sidewalk in the Bronx." "Illegal alien?" "No, no." "Political refugee." "Her husband was sentenced to death down there by a high judge, and she remained terrified of judges or courts, or even the law, right up to the end." "Fascinating, I'm sure." "Has this got anything to do with me?" "Well, Rita made me promise to bring you this, from her insurance policy, to settle things." "Why did she jump?" "Despair." "Or pain." "She had a brain tumor." "Such hallucinations." "All we found in her little tenement was, uh, that new washer and dryer she bought to take in laundry, a table, a chair and, uh..." "the phone... off the hook." "Here." "Oh, she was very superstitious." "That's, uh..." "That's supposed to be a guardian angel, someone to protect you when you're on earth and balance things out when you die." "Balance what things?" "Well, the things between here and the next place." "You know, if someone had harmed Rita terribly, this angel's supposed to come back and even the score." "Oh, please l don't take things from dead people." "But I promised." "As she lay crumpled on the sidewalk, I promised." "That's your problem, not mine." "These poor people." "If you only knew." "Maybe I know better than you think." "Know what better?" "Well, I wasn't born with central air-conditioning and a view of the park, no." "I had to pull myself up on my own, climb up, brick by brick, and on my way, I learned there are no real sad stories-- only leeches, pretending." "And I learned not to get involved with any of them." "And how did you learn that?" "By marrying a real bum." "Only for a year." "Oh, he would have been thrilled to see you." "There was nothing he loved more than his welfare check, a fifth of whiskey and me to kick around for the night." "I'm so sorry." "I had it coming." "Daddy told me." "There are two kinds of people in this world-- doers and takers." "And it's the job of the doers not to get taken in by the takers." "Not everyone is a taker." "These people I work with-- they're in such pitiable conditions." "A condition that you could get yourself out of if you were in it, because you are a doer." "Don't be suckered in so easily." "I know these types." "I hear their tales of woe." "I swear to God, you put me in any one of their places, and I could work my way out in no time." "I would get help, and I would get out." "You would?" "Yes. I would." "Hello?" "Now, you stop this." "This is nuts." "Don't you ever call this number again." "I know the law, and I know how to get the police involved." "Goodness." "Some crank." "Some awful person is trying to scare me." "But why?" "How?" "Out there in that jumble of buildings in some cement cubicle, someone is calling and pretending to be someone who's dead." "Who wants to hurt me?" "I have no idea." "Please... stay to dinner?" "Chocolate mousse." "Goodness." "Mmm." "You have a very special quality." "You make me feel... well... safe." "From the phone caller?" "Not just that." "Everything." "There." "There you are." "Time for sleepy dreams." "Oh, no." "Hello." "Yes, now, listen here." "Do not call this number again." "You're causing great discomfort." "No, I will not stand for it." "No, that is all." "Did they say who it was?" "A man. "Bill" he said." "is that your crank caller?" "No." "Bill is my boss." "Oh!" "Sorry." "No, don't be." "You were wonderful." "Why don't you stay?" "Stay?" "W-Well, l-l'm not propositioning you or anything." "It's just-- if you could stay, even for a little, till-till I fall asleep." "I'm just so jittery tonight." "Well... maybe I'll, uh... I can relax on the covers here." "Just for a little while." "Hello?" "It's so cold... and lonely here." "So lonely here." "Sola." "Lonely here." "Sola." "So..." "The scores must be even." "Must be even." "The scores must be even." "Must be even!" "Must be even...!" "Must be even!" "The score..." "My payment." "It's overdue." "It's overdue." "...payment overdue." "It's overdue." "Where is my àngel?" "Where is my angel?" "Where is Michael?" "Michael..." "Michael!" "Michael!" "Hmm?" "What's all the mess?" "Look, if you're in on it, just tell me what you want." "In on what?" "This Rita game." "The last call, the caller mentioned your name." "Now, I don't believe that the dead can talk." "But I do believe that there are some among the living who can be very cruel." "But why would anyone want to be cruel to you?" "Well, if they thought that I had something to do with someone's bad luck-- like this Rita's dying or something-- l don't know." "But you didn't." "Right?" "I didn't bring that Rita any more problems than she had created on her own." "Good." "Then let's get this settled once and for all." "Your last call to Rita, when was it?" "I don't know." "Won't your computer have it?" "No." "Sure, it will." "Come on." "Let's get the information." "Come on." "You'll rest much easier when you see that you're not responsible." "Ah." "Rita Valdez, last call July 10." "I sometimes record my calls." "And you recorded your last call to Rita." "Perfect." "Now, where's the tape?" "I'm not sure." "is this the one?" "I cut the wires." "Well, I'm pretty handy with these things." "Alo?" "It's Jeanette at Sentinel." "Do you have a payment for me yet?" "No entiendo." "Uh, sorry, my-my English." "They sometimes say they don't speak English, but they all do." "Really." "Really?" "Miss Valdez, it has been three months." "Please, l-l so sick." "Your payment is overdue." "You must make your payment." "My head, it-it hurts so bad." "I'm afraid I have to put your case up for litigation." "Please, the words too big." "We never really sue." "It means you have to go to court." "See the judge." "No!" "No!" "No!" "Judge kills." "Someone from a court of law will call you soon." "The courts, they kill, and my head..." "Call to Valdez, July 10, 4:15." "Now, how was I supposed to know that she was really sick, or what a judge meant to her?" "How?" "You could've asked." "At 4:15, she dropped the receiver and jumped." "Are you saying... that I...?" "No." "You just didn't listen." "Not a grave sin." "Not normally." "Uh, now wait a minute." "You are not my judge or jury." "I'm sorry, but I am." "Things must be balanced, so the dead can rest." "Rita must rest." "I am getting the doorman." "Please don't fight." "Don't fight." "It's gonna hurt enough without the fighting." "Charles?" "Charles!" "Did my payment arrive?" "is Michael there?" "Alo?" "What do you want, money?" "You know, Rita never had air-conditioning." "And it got so hot in there." "Especially in the daytime." "Oh, and the lovely view." "No..." "No, she had a sixth-floor view of the back of a sewage plant." "All day, all night, such ugly street noises." "Oh." "No, no nice furniture." "No, nothing at all." "But she did have that." "And she had that new washer-dryer." "Took in neighbors' laundry for a living." "You're behind in your payments." "But you said you could catch up." "No, this is a trick." "Some kind of hallucination." "You've hypnotized me, haven't you?" "No, wait-- l remember her hair." "It wasn't like that." "And that nice robe." "No, no, it was more like... that." "No." "It's impossible." "You've drugged me." "You've made me see things that aren't there-- stop it." "No... no, Rita..." "Rita couldn't speak like that." "Come here." "Let me show you." "What happen?" "I no understand." "I... I Jeanette." "I no talk like this." "I'm not Spanish!" "Somebody help." "Of course." "I'll help you." "I've been assigned to your case, after all." "You trick me." "I no can be like this." "This is trick." "You trick me!" "Oh, and this." "Oh, it hurt." "Oh, it... it beating... inside... I know..." "I'm so sorry." "Must be for you." "Go on, answer it-- l'm right here." "Alo?" "Miss Valdez, this is Jeanette at Sentinel Collection." "Your payments on that washer and dryer are way overdue." "And I need to know just what you intend to do about that." "Miss Valdez?" "Answer me." "Answer me right now, or I will have to take drastic measures." "I will have to get the courts involved." "Answer me..." "Answer me!"