AT RISE: The stage is dark, suddenly the lights are switched on by PAUL QUINN, police commissioner for the city of Chicago. He is in full uniform, tall, thin, and grey-haired, fifty years of age. He is carrying a bottle of champagne, an ice bucket and a small table which he places in the center of the room. He leaves and returns with four chairs. The lights flicker, then turn bright. He closes the door, places the champagne into the bucket on top of the table. A key is heard turning the lock. The door opens and TONY ACCARDO enters. He is fifty, very well dressed in a wide brimmed Borsalino hat, cashmere overcoat, silk suit, shirt and tie. He walks around the room slowly at first, in a wide circle, looking up and down at the walls, then faster and faster.

How? How? How? How?

Tony, on a buncha bibles inna church. I - don't - know - how!

Here? Down here? Continental Illinois secret bank vault on LaSalle Street?

LaSalle Street… Chicago.

Yeah… Chicago.

(JAKE GUZIK enters, also well dressed fat and fifty five.)

I got ya call. I come.

I got ya call. I come. But did ya call him like I told ya?

No. I called him…. He owes me.

How? How? How the hell in here?

Impossible.

(in his rage, he opens the unlocked doors and throws the boxes to the floor.)

Paul. You talked to him…. Will he?

Come? Sure. Will he do it? I don't know, Jake.

You don't Know? Ha! S'laugh you don't know! Geez I thought ya was smart my Mr. Police Commissioner City of Chicago cause you know how to buy biggest house Lake Forest, finest furniture, three Cadillacs in the drive…. That you know. I… me… took ya offa south side winter cold summer heat walkin' beat and made you my number two on my right! And you don't know?

Tony, please. My boys are driving him here now. But there's a blizzard. Snow is two feet thick on ice. He's the best! He can do it! TONY

(Still in a rage, takes out his wallet and opens it in PAUL's face.)

(Holds a large key up into Paul's face on a long gold chain attached to his belt loop)

Phil Moran will….

Phil Moran? Phil Moran? Is 'at foot stinkin' cripple all you guys got?

Yeah. Tony's right for now. But then… then he was so different. Before the war all us detectives were in one floor at City Hall. They called it the Dicks and Snitchers floor. The mayor wanted to know all and we were networked. If a gun bought a nickel's worth of Wrigley's or if a feather fell, our snitches snitched. If a dollar came into this city or a penny wanted out, the mayor's fist was quick.

And still is.

Did you kow this bank upstairs was once robbed? Right in daylight. Cleaned its cash. Phil and I were partners. They left some junk. I put it inna shoe box, spilled it on Moran's desk. A gun they dropped, comb, cigar butts, Thompson forty-five shells and more. He pushed 'em into a circle like puzzle parts. All the other cops turned their chairs around, knew it was his test. Ten minutes all it took. Then he smiled, wrote down who, what, when, where and how. Gimme the paper to read. Like reading next week's newspaper that hadn't happened yet. Some cheered softly, some clapped loud, whistled, shook his hand…. Without a phone call or a snitch. Used to call him R.D.T. The Real Dick Tracy.

You really love this guy?

Next night, me and the wife went to hear Caruso sing. At the end of the opera, I suddenly knew: God's hand put that great voice inside. God's hand puts gifts inside! A Caruso, A Moran don't need do night school to learn or a public library to pick a book. The way Caruso can sing, Moran can find out, Moran is….

Don't tell me on Moran cause on Moran I know! Longer 'en you! Hate on first sight twleve years old Sain Thomas Apostle, Fifth Fifth and Kimbark….Nuns couldn't pull us apart. Took a priest… two priests. On our first time seein white hot hate that's still boiin' on my stove right now!

Aw, Tony, can't ya see it? Somebody somewhere is spendin' our money. It's disappearing fast like dirty dishwater down a kitchen sink. Time Tony! It's time we ain't got.

Not just you Tony, everybody, anybody! That man makes machines, brilliant inventions that dynamite your rage out and up! And that's exactly what he wants here, tonight. So suck down the anger and glue the pain cause he has no reason to help us, but only he can.

Aw, Paul, I'm in control of me.

What's that?

Compliments of the bank manager upstairs. He heard we was meeting here tonight… real class.

Class, ass…. Does he know?

Naw. Only us three.

Did he give ya the list who owns the boxes?

(Jake gives Tony the list
which he reads slowly.
Then bursts out laughing.)

(Tony unlocks the box
with his master key, looks
inside, closes and relocks it.
He replaces all the boxes
he threw to the floor,
closes their doors, but doesn't
relock them.

(PHIL MORAN enters.
He is fifty. Grey haired,
tall and heavy.
His right foot is in a removable cast,
and he walks with a cane.
In his other hand is
a new automobile tire
still banded wit the manufacturer's
label. Phil speaks with two voices:
one velvet smooth begging to please you,
the other in sharp venomous snake
bites of uncontrollable rage.)

Buncha years! Buncha years. Tony boy. Where ya been hiding? Inna jail? Tony Accardo in jail? Naw, he's number one, got Chicago in his shoe. Where he walks it's gotta go. Right?

Hey, my boys treat ya OK? Yeah? Huh?

One for you, Tony boy. All they hadda say was: "Tony wants ya now." For my old Saint Thomas school boy chum, I'm outa bed ice cold two a.m. clothes on, outa door, inna your car. Whizzz! Even though I got a foot here shoots pain straight up my ass like a shot gun shell and I could a fell on the ice and break my other leg! But "Tony wants ya now!" So I come.

Thank you, Philip.

Philip? Philip? That ain't my name! Aaw. I'm jist plain old Phil to alla my friends. We are friends ain't we?

Right Paul?

Phil.

Phil.

Call me Phil!

Phil.

See! See! I knew he was friends! An that's why I brought ya Christmas presnt early. Jist for you Tony. Brand new black market tire the government's still rationing. It's a practical present. You can use it on your car. (In a sudden rage) or sell it for green cash high up money like the thousands of other tires you and your maf-eye-talians sold black market during the war while our boys was bleedin' overseas to make the world safe for you and your kind to steal us broke! Here! Here's your Christmas present!

(Phil rolls the tire at him full force.
Tony Dodges, it hits the wall.)

Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

(Turns red in the face, screams in
rage, pulls out his pistol and aims
it at Phil. Jake grabs Tony's hand and
pushes it down into the ice bucket
as Tony shoots six rounds into the
bucket. Paul wraps his arms around Phil
to restrain him as he threatens Tony
with his cane. Hot hate is seen in their
faces then disappears as Tony's rage cools.
Phil breaks into a strange, wide smile of
triumph, lips wet with drool, head back,
eyes closed, sounds of ecstasy.

Paul releases Phil. They stare at
each other in silent hatred.)

Peacocks!

Still? Still? Still peacocks? But look what ya got for it! Look what ya gettin! Early pension, sick pay. A no show City Hall job! We punch ya in, punch ya out! And Mayor Kelly's own bag man hand delivers ya paycheck twice a month!

But look what I got for it!

New York City doctors flown by air! Brainiest Cook County surgeons, latest sulphur drugs they put on war wounds. Nobody! Nobody! Nobody knows a cure. We tried and....

And I! I alone take the pain! Three operations and the bone is still rotting like a piece of dead pork inside a garbage can!

Paul. Time. We ain't got time!

Worst still is…my stink. Even in a winter taxi I roll down the windows fast…. At the movies, back to the backest row. And in the streets their sudden faces wrinkled old; mirror all the mean and evil in my life, what I was, am now and will become of me.

I didn't cut ya foot with the glass cutter, the shine did!

By the book! If you worked by the book! By the book and cuffed him!

By the book? You had ya foot on his neck while the other guy grabbed all the jewelry outa Peacock's window State Street side runs inside grabs more. I caught him.

And caught the jewelry, too. But not for long. The mayor took the best to Christmas up his teen aged high school whore and Tony there got the rest from you to magic trick it into cash.

Ya cracked that shine's neck with that foot! Murder, but not one word out case we covered!

Covered your own stink ass! Alla time you was my partner on the street, you was his partner behind my back! Snitch told me daylight job at Peacocks. You made me wait in the car so they could finish their stealin. Then you could steal from them. They more they got the more you and Tony got. Years I collared the loot. How much ya steal crook? Ya gotta lotta money in a lock box down here. Cop no! Crook no! A goddam pet bitch dog short chained to you your maf-eye-tal-I-an master! I stink on the outside, but you have a Chicago cop smell inside that'll shit stink your cemetery grave and make the dead want to run.
 

(Phil spits into Paul's face.
Paul raises his hands in rage
and pushes Phil against the wall
and chokes him. As Tony pulls them
apart, Phil breaks into a smile of
triumph. Lips wet with drool, head
back, eyes closed, emitting orgiastic
sounds of intense pleasure.)

(In a rage, Jake pulls the lock boxes out and throws them to the floor at Phil's feet.)

Looka empty! Empty! Looka empty!

We want our money. You go find it.

Hard work. He-me drove tanker trucks down Canada. Grain alcohol on icy roads. We coulda burned and died in nowhere.

Sweat money we boxed in here! Prohibition years of sweat money!

And some smart piece of slime slipped in here and sneaked it out. Richer than the Rockefellers, now emp-ty!

You find him and it. You will find him and it!

C'mon Phil. You're the real Dick Tracy. Hell, ya got that special sight. Ya could shoot an arrow and hit the target on a dark night a mile down. Please…please Phil all we want….

Want? Want me to help you three topless garbage cans fulla shit inna hot summer? Why should I?

Two Three Seven, that's why!

Wait.... What have? You, you and you?

Box two three seven, one hundred and seventy, six thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars.
 

(Phil, stunned, removes his key chain
and unlocks his safety deposit box,
finds it empty and throws it down at
Tony's feet.)

If ya counted ya got inside. Ya get inside ya stole? Then alla this here tonight is a trick, a lie to steal my money?

No! This down here is our vault. We know cause we gotta know. Count Yes! Steal no!

You black scum hand of the devil! I want my money!

And we want ours. It's we now, Philip!

One for all and all in one!

Before tonight, I could spit my spit down onto the face of the world and curse it coast to coast cause I could pay first of the month rent forever. Now jist one night older, I gotta learn again to smile up at those I hated yesterday and long kiss brown shit paycheck ass…again…

Now! Now!

Then each week, the Captain's bag man would come inna my office. I dug my hand in and took like they was chocolate cookies after school. Years of chocolate cookies put safe in a box...now.

(Phil breaks down and cries,
then grasps Tony's hand and kisses it.)

'ats why you are here, to find out. OK, copper?

Yees... yes, sir.

Then now we begin. Philip how did you get a box down her?

Paul. He said it was the safest place in Chicago.

True.

Who knows?

Just the four of us.

How much?

Fifteen million seven hundred and fifty thousand.

Master key?

Only one and always on my chain.

Prints?

Wiped clean.

Security in and out?

All guards are Tony's boys in uniform, three eight hour shifts.

The bank?

Tell him Tony! It ain't in no history books and never will be!

Aw, Jake there ain't time!

Time in:

(Tony walks around the room,
pointing, recreating the scene.)

Right-down-here! Last day on nineteen twenty nine. A long table alla way from here to there, two lawyers to the left. Two accountants to the right, typists back. Alla these boxes pulled out and open showin' cash like Christmas candy inna store. And in the center on a high emperorer's throne sat Napoleon Bonaparte Capone conquering Chicago with whiskey cash. Banners broke, rich quicked to poor. They came through that door, bent like a defeated army returning home in shame. They begged and we bought cheap for cash. In that days swift victory Napoleon saved Chicago. Ain't in the history books never, but these two feet stood here then! And I was his general in victory standing by my emperor's side… inside this conquered city.

Tell him why here.

We bought this Continental Illinois Bank! But more than own we know each worker baby naked. Keys to lock square inch to inch. It is our Fort Knox times ten times ten. Impossible! It could not have happened! Not down here!

Time out.

But it did! How, Phil?

Last time you guys looked?

Only twice a year, to do a count on new cash.

Then who tipped ya? Gotta snitch?
 

(TIMMY MORAN enters. He is the night janitor with mop and pail. He is twenty four. Handsome with a permanent smile as if sewn on his face. He wears striped workman's pants and a khaki army jacket with silver crosses in the lapels.)

Paul, the guard upstairs said you wanted to see me?

You workin' here? A... a janitor, my son?

He asked me for a job, I got him a job. I'm his godfather, remember?

Aw, Dad. It's just for a few weeks. I'll be in the seminary in Montreal in February.

Ya should be proud of him.

I'm proud of ya. If you hadn't found the money, we'd never known.

Money?

Fifteen thousand in our cash. Timmy found it cleaning the men's toilet. Mr. Slime dropped it in the crapper. You son waited till nine a.m. gave it personally to the bank president. The bills were pencilled T.A> in the corner so we knew. Tony came. Whizzzz with his key opened our boxes. Empty! If hadn't been for my godson we'd never know.

You found fifteen thousand dollars all alone, at night, and you gave it back? Why didn't you tell me?

Because you'd never let me give it back!

Ya gonna make a good S.J.

You're goddam right I'd never let ya give it back! Have you looked at my doctor bills lately? Aah. Religion has rotted out ya brain!

Dad. It was only money. Not yours! Not mine!

Whooaaa! Whoaaa!! I don't believe any of this!
 

(He grabs Timmy by the throat and holds him against the wall.)

(Hand cocked like a gun, points at Tony, Jake, and Paul.)

I stole all the money in this vault? I am the thief? O.K. Mr. Magic Detective Chicago Police. I confess! But chastity, obedience and poverty? Spend millions inside a Jesuit seminary in Montreal? How? Why would I need it?

Shame.

You stole....

My own father's money that I would eventually inherit anyway? Since you never told me it existed how would I know it was here?

Me, Tony, Jake helped him steal our own money? The pain in your foot has gone from your dumb ass to your stupid head.

Timmy, if you're the thief, then I'm Santa Claus in July times ten.

When the guards stripped searched ya they shoulda returned this.
 

(Timmy takes the Bible and with eyes closed, opens it and points blindly at a page.)

King James would close his eyes, then open the Bible and point. And at that point God would give him divine guidance.

Read what ya picked, son.

"Lay ye not up treasures of this world where moth and rust consume and thieves break through and steal."

And steal, and steal, and steal!

Mr. Accardo, my mother gave me this Bible on the day I went to war. I served as a chaplain's assistant. The power of God inside this book turned sniper's bullets away so that I might live now only to serve my God. Please... please take this as a gift: my mother to me to you.
 

(Tony, proud and smiling, takes the Bible and embraces Timmy who picks up his mop and pail and prepares to leave.)

Altar boy Saint Thomas once, remember, Phil?

And that ain't gonna be in the history books neither.

(Timmy, exiting, suddenly turns around in the doorway, arms outstretched as if embracing all three men, stares at each for a second, then in an outburst of religious fervor)

Remember. Remember and believe gentlemen! God loves you e-normously!

(The men smile at him as he exits. Phil picks up his empty lock box and shows it to Tony.)

Broke! Alla money I put inside, bit by bit, piece by piece, year by year… gone. Tony, I'm workin' for ya, not beggin' at ya. Pick up my doctor bills please? Jist my doctor bills?
 

(Tony, smiling venomously, opens the bottle of champagne, pours four glasses and proposes a toast.)

Gentlemen. To that cunning thief we are going to catch and kill! A true genius who broke in here, stole all our money and got away. If he were here tonight I'd offer him champagne and toast his maggot mind. Gentlemen: to this slime demon, shaped by the devil's own hand in the lowest pit of hot hell! Drink! Drink! To his death!
 

(They drink and smash their glasses against the wall like ancient knights committing to combat. Then sit around the table.)

Put the pieces on my desk, Paulie.