Stuart Kaminsky - Show Business is Murder

{HERV RENSCHEL, early sixties, lean and rangy, has a crew cut topping a lined face that bespeaks of his experiences from the Six Day War to being a political infighter. He prowls back and forth on the carpet before them.}

RENSCHEL:You guys crack me up.

MONK (turning):I try.

{Renschel stops and glares at the detective.}

RENSCHEL:I know about you, Monk, the black nationalist private eye.

MONK:I do my best to give everybody a fair shake, Renschel. I don’t wear my race on my sleeve.

RENSCHEL:What, you leave your kafir in the trunk?

KAGEN:If we could stay on point, gentlemen.

{Renschel leans against his messy desk.}

RENSCHEL:Are you interrogating any Arab organizations in this quest for the attackers?

MONK:If that’s where the case take us.

RENSCHEL:Somehow I doubt it will.

MONK:Doubt all you like. I know you were on a radio show the day the Journal leaked that Ten-Shun was considering the Bring Me the Head movie. You didn’t parse your words too much when you said that a judgment should be levied against Ross and Kagen.

KAGEN:He said that?

RENSCHEL:I have a right to my opinion.

MONK:But did you put your words into action, Renschel? Like that time after the ’92 riots when you and some of your more eager members jumped those kids coming out of Canter’s on Fairfax?

RENSCHEL:There had been two gang shootings in that neighborhood in less than a week.

MONK:So any blacks would do, huh? Only these guys were UCLA basketball players and you got the shit sued out of you.

RENSCHEL:I’m a big enough man to admit my mistakes, Monk.

KAGEN (gesturing):We all want the same thing here, find the guilty party.

RENSCHEL:I can say without fear of contradiction, the AJA had nothing to do with these distasteful incidents. I suggest, as I did to the police, that you and your UPN Herculot Perot here could better use your time following up leads elsewhere.

MONK:Like with Josef Odeh?

RENSCHEL (nodding):I’ll give you credit, Monk, you do your homework.

MONK:Like I said, I try.

EXT. WILSHIRE BOULEVARD-CONTINUOUS

{Kagen and Monk walk away from Renschel’s office building and toward the latter’s fully restored cobalt blue ’64 Ford Galaxie parked at a meter.}

KAGEN:This Odeh I gather is a leader in the Arab Community?

MONK:Yeah, he’s considered a moderate, particularly compared to your boy.

{Monk hooks a thumb in the direction of the AJA office.}

KAGEN:So why do we need to talk to him?

MONK:It’s pretty fascinating what you can find on-line added to some old-fashioned working the phones, Walsh. One of the service organizations Odeh sat on the board of was caught up in the Justice Department net around the hawala method of money laundering to the Al Qaeda. {Monk unlocks the car and the two get in.}

INT. ’64 FORD GALAXIE

{Monk cranks the car to life and pulls away from the curb.}

KAGEN:So this charity was a front that skimmed off money to the terrorist network?

MONK:That seems to be unclear. But the point is that Odeh was tainted and did some back-peddling. He proclaimed he knew nothing of money transferring, etcetera. He wasn’t arrested, but I bet he’s been under watch.

KAGEN:But he could be jiving, and he really was part of some scheme to move funds.

MONK:Something like that.

KAGEN:You gonna be more objective this time?

{Monk lets some silence drag.}

MONK:You’re right, Walsh, I was being unprofessional. I’ll be on point.

{Kagen winks at him.}

EXT. ’64 FORD GALAXIE: DAY

The car zooms along.

EXT. MASJID AL-FALAH ISLAMIC CENTER,

INGLEWOOD: DAY

{Monk and Kagen walk up the steps of the Center and stop at a locked door where there’s an intercom.}

CU

{intercom as Monk bends to it and pushes the button to speak.}

MONK (into intercom):Hi, I’m Ivan Monk with Walsh Kagen to see Jabari Hatoom. I had an appointment.

WIDEN

{Monk lets go of the button and the door BUZZES. Kagen opens the door.}

INT. MASJID AL-FALAH ISLAMIC CENTER-

CONTINUOUS

{Monk and Kagen stand in a foyer. A twentysomething east Indian woman, SUNAR, in her hijab-head covered, long dress-comes out to greet them. As is the custom, she does not offer her hand.}

SUNAR:Gentlemen, this way.

{Monk and Kagen follow the young woman past a spacious worship area with a podium, classrooms, and into a spotless stainless steel kitchen off a well-lit hallway.}

INT. KITCHEN-DAY

{Monk and Kagen are ushered in by Sunar who departs. JABARI HATOOM is African American, tall, balding, early thirties, and dressed in slacks and a shirt with his sleeves rolled up. He has the garbage disposal unit out and on a table, working on it with a screwdriver. He smiles upon seeing Monk.}

HATOOM:Homeboy.

{Hatoom puts down his screwdriver and embraces the P.I.}

MONK:Glad you could see us.

{They disengage. Monk indicates Kagen.}

MONK (cont’d):This is Walsh Kagen.

HATOOM (shaking the director’s hand):Man, what a pleasure. You don’t know how many times I’ve seen The Plunderers and One Deadly Night .

KAGEN:That’s flattering. And how is it you know Ivan?

HATOOM:He busted me.

{Kagen regards Monk.}

MONK:Long time ago, when I used to do bounty hunting.

KAGEN (to Hatoom):And you converted in prison?

HATOOM:Exactly.

MONK:Will you set up a meeting for us with Odeh?

{Hatoom is uncomfortable.}

HATOOM:I have not made the call.

MONK:I know it’s hard, Jabari, but you know good and well it’s the Muslim community that has to step up if there’s an extremist running around.

HATOOM:Is that just another way to say we have to be good, shuffling handkerchief heads? Being a Muslim is not synonymous with being a terrorist, Ivan. And depending on the political winds, freedom fighters become rebels become evil-doers.

MONK:Odeh put himself in the mix, Jabari.

KAGEN:What am I missing here?

{Hatoom and Monk exchange a look.}

HATOOM:Odeh demanded and got a meeting with Alan Ross two days ago.

KAGEN:Does everybody read that Journal rag?

HATOOM:A possible movie about bin Laden that would invariably put our community in a bad light was bound to draw attention, especially in these times.

KAGEN:But that’s the point; my idea is ultimately that the film is about tolerance. I’ll admit I’m exploiting bin Laden because, well, frankly, like any out-size madman, he’s great pulp material. I’m not a student of Sam Fuller and was an A.D. on a couple of Frankenheimer’s films for nothing. Look guys, great villains and the horrors they commit make powerful statements about us. From King Leopold and the Congo to Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge as depicted in The Killing Fields … that’s show biz, fellas.