FADE TO BLACK.

INT. DOCKSIDE WAREHOUSE––FOURTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

MARSHALL stands with his back to the wall, his face flooded with shadows under the brim of his hat. He holds his Smith & Wesson poised, ready to fire. The tail of his trench coat flaps about gently in the draft coming in through the windows.

MARSHALL (v.o.)
The night began like any other. I was sitting in my dingy little motel room, counting out on the table how many bullets I had left. The air outside was too hot for thinking properly, and it was even hotter inside. The permanent sign for vacancy they had out front should have told me something. Anyways, that’s when I got the anonymous tip to come here to the dockside. No name. Just a voice on the phone. This is where you’ll find the dame, he told me. Well, all I’ve found so far is a whole heap of trouble.

THUG 1 (o.s.)
We know you’re in there, tag! Give yourself up or we’ve got a place for you on the bottom of the river!

MARSHALL (v.o.)
If there’s anything I hate, it’s being taken for a copper. Being a private eye, I get more gruff from those guys than I get from sleazebags like these guys. But I didn’t take this job for recognition and I sure as hell didn’t take it for respect. Well, if they want me a corpse they’re going to have to work a whole lot harder.

Marshall moves from his post and crosses the open mouth of an intersecting hall, firing shot after shot at the shadowy figures at the other end. Flashes in the dark.

INT. DOCKSIDE WAREHOUSE––FOURTH FLOOR CRATE ROOM

The door bursts open with a BANG and Marshall slips inside, stepping into the shadows behind a tall stack of crates. Crouching in the dark, he huffs heavily, then whips out the chamber of his revolver.

Marshall’s POV––6 empty holes. All out of ammo.

MARSHALL (v.o.)
Damn. Got too trigger-happy. Things are gonna get a little messier from here on out.

FOOTSTEPS crunching across packing peanuts.

Marshall snaps the empty chamber shut again and steps out from behind the crates, aiming his gun into the dark.

KINGSLEY stands there, a sinister grin flashing under the brim of his Panama hat. He holds a switchblade to the throat of DAME IN A RED DRESS. Her bottom lip quivers and she looks pleadingly at Marshall with her one blue eye that isn’t lost under a wave of luscious blonde hair.

MARSHALL
Give up the dame, Kingsley. It’s all over. I’ve got the drop on you.

Quick as lightning, Kinglsey snaps his switchblade shut again and pulls out from behind the girl a revolver of his own, which he aims straight at Marshall.

KINGSLEY
Bullets, bullets are no fun. Bullets, bullets hurt someone.

The two stand there across from each other in the dark, surrounded by boxes. The warehouse is deathly quiet now. Not even the faint sobs of Dame in a Red Dress can be heard.

MARSHALL (v.o.)
Now this is the part of the story where things get tricky. Because if anyone’s been listening to all these pearls of wisdom I’ve been running through my head for the past two hours, then that means that somehow I have to live to tell the tale. The tale of the Dame in a Red Dress and me making one dumb move and winding up at gunpoint with an empty revolver. Because nobody else here has got any clue what my voice-overs sound like and you can’t have a detective story without the detective’s hard-boiled voice-over, his words coming out all harsh and throaty like he’s been swilling lighter fluid every night for the past few years. It’s just not something that’s done. So that means I can’t die then––even though it sure as hell looks like that’s what’s about to happen. There has to be something that happens at the last minute. Some kind of an exit for me. A way out. A little something that maybe I overlooked before, but it comes back to me now and with a minute or two left till the end credits I can pull out the trumping card. But I look at my hand and they’re all low numbers, and I can see down the barrel of his pistol and I can see the look in his eyes and I know he’s holding Aces.

Kingsley cocks his pistol, slowly tightens his squeeze on the trigger.

MARSHALL (v.o.)
Just a few hours earlier, the city was burning up. A regular Dante’s inferno, this pit of scum and crime. But now it feels cold and empty. Cold like nothing I’ve ever known. And I’m still standing here with my useless revolver that’s helped me out of so many jams, and I’m still trying to rationalize to myself that somehow I have to make it out. That according to the rules, I’m not allowed to die. I mean, really, I’m not allowed to die. Right? [beat] Right...?

Camera pulls slowly up and away from the two men staring each other down.

FADE TO BLACK.