William Goldman

The gun had blanks, the knife, a retractable blade. Hardly original, but effective enough. I think you'll agree. I'm told you are a graduate student. Brilliant, yes? You are an historian, and I am part of history. I should have thought you would have found me interesting. Frankly, I am disappointed in your silence.

I had alexia as a child. Alexia is a disease...

Highest marks. At any event, my writing is childish still, but I'm a fanatic about spoken language. I envy you your school days. Enjoy them fully. It's that last time in your life no one expects anything of you.

Oh, please don't worry. I'm not going into that cavity. That nerve's already dying. A live, freshly-cut nerve is infinitely more sensitive. So I'll just drill into a healthy tooth until I reach the pulp. Unless, of course, you can tell me that it's safe.

You're weak. Your father was weak in his way, your brother in his, now you in yours. You are all so predictable.

I was in a state of hysteria, you know.

Don't you want to take a closer look than that?

You see, uh, in a sense, one becomes more emotional with age. First after a lifetime of being taken by friends and enemies alike, and then just when you think you have your possessions sure, your health begins to go.

That is, of course, the ultimate theft!

I don't yet know who it is I'm after. Until I do, you'll have to wait in Washington for instructions.

My father died when I was nine years old. He was a miner. He died of lung disease. I became rich at twenty-five, and the first thing I did was to buy that mine, close it down, and give every miner fifty thousand dollars to retire on. You *will* wait in Washington, Mr. McCarty. You *will* choose a penthouse suite, and I *will* put one million dollars into a Swiss bank of your choosing. And when the time comes... two million dollars a bullet.

I'd been married to my Rebecca for forty-seven years. When she died, I decided I never wanted that pain again. One thing I knew about Christy, she was going to outlive me.

For eighty years, I've tried to live... a decent life. I've given a billion dollars to charity. If this comes to trial... none of that will be remembered. I'll just go out... the joke of the world.

Will you listen to me whine? I apologize, Mr. Frank. Bother me all you want, just do your job. And I'll try to do mine.

I'm sorry I've missed. I belive in the Old Testament, sir. There's nothing wrong for an eye for an eye for a terrible deed is been done, The deed such as yours.

I went over there; I talked to them. They said Hunt hadn't worked there for three months. Then a PR guy said this weird thing to me. He said, "I am convinced that neither Mr. Colson nor anyone else at the White House had any knowledge of, or participation in, this deplorable incident at the Democratic National Committee."

I never asked about Watergate. I simply asked what were Hunt's duties at the White House. They volunteered he was innocent when nobody asked if he was guilty.

The story is dry. All we've got are pieces. We can't seem to figure out what the puzzle is supposed to look like. John Mitchell resigns as the head of CREEP, and says that he wants to spend more time with his family. I mean, it sounds like bullshit, we don't exactly believe that…

Hunt's come in from the cold. Supposedly he's got a lawyer with $25,000 in a brown paper bag.

If you're gonna do it, do it right. If you're gonna hype it, hype it with the facts. I don't mind what you did. I mind the way you did it.

Look, I'm tired of your chickenshit games! I don't want hints! I need to know what you know!

It's just profile information, mostly. We know, for example, that he works for Mullen and Company, or did work for Mullen and Company, as a writer. He's also a novelist; we know that he works in the office of Charles Colson at the White House…

A little while ago I was talking to a couple of the lawyers assigned to represent the burglars.

They never would have been assigned to represent the burglars had anyone known that the burglars had arranged for their own counsel. Only, the burglars couldn't have arranged for their own counsel since they never even made a phone call. So, if no one asked you to be here, why are you here?

And he can ask me an address. Now, is the man interrogating me or is he lost? What kind of story do I write? What kind of deduction do I make from that?

She's an awfully good reporter. I don't remember her getting that much wrong before. Do you?

I think it's Magruder because at one time he was the temporary head of the Committee to Re-Elect before Mitchell.

Boy, that woman was paranoid! At one point I - I suddenly wondered how high up this thing goes, and her paranoia finally got to me, and I thought what we had was so hot that any minute CBS or NBC were going to come in through the windows and take the story away.

Bob, listen, I think I've got something, I don't know what it is. But somewhere in this world there is a Kenneth H. Dahlberg, and we gotta get to him before the New York Times does, because I think they've got the same information.

So if the break-in was just one incident in a campaign of sabotage that began a whole year before Watergate…

This isn't so crazy. This whole thing didn't start with the bugging of the headquarters.

And a year before, Nixon wasn't slaughtering Muskie, he was running behind Muskie, before Muskie self-destructed.

I was wondering if Hugh Sloan was being set up now as a fall guy for John Mitchell? What do you think?

No, do you have to see him that way? Can't you just call him up on the telephone and say you want to have a drink with him? Just feel him out? You say the relationship is over. What the hell do you have to lose?

All these neat, little houses and all these nice, little streets... It's hard to believe that something's wrong with some of those little houses.

You've done worse than let Haldeman slip away: you've got people feeling sorry for him. I didn't think that was possible. In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and go step by step. If you shoot too high and miss, everybody feels more secure. You've put the investigation back months.

No, heh, but it's touching. Forget the myths the media's created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

No, I have to do this my way. You tell me what you know, and I'll confirm. I'll keep you in the right direction if I can, but that's all. Just... follow the money.

You'll have to figure that on your own.

It was a Haldeman operation. The whole business was run by Haldeman, the money, everything. It won't be easy getting at him, he was insulated, you'll have to find out how. Mitchell started doing covert stuff before anyone else, the list is longer than anyone can imagine... it involves the entire U.S. Intelligence Community. FBI... CIA... Justice... it's incredible. Cover-up had little to do with Watergate, it was mainly to protect the covert operations. It leads everywhere. Get out your notebook, there's more. Your lives are in danger.

I was at a party once, and, uh, Liddy put his hand over a candle, and he kept it there. He kept it right in the flame until his flesh was burned. Somebody said, "What's the trick?" And Liddy said, "The trick is not minding."

The people behind all of this were frightened of Muskie and that's what got him destroyed. They wanted to run against McGovern. Look who they're running against. They bugged offices, they followed people, planted false press leaks, passed fake letters... they canceled Democratic campaign rallies, they investigated Democratic private lives, they planted spies, they stole documents... and now don't tell me that all of this was the work of one Donald Segretti.

In my day it was called the double-cross. In simple context, it means infiltration of the Democrats.

You'll have to find that out for yourself. I'm taking great risk meeting you here. I don't like newspapers. I don't care for any inexactitudes or shallowness.

If it didn't deal directly with the Watergate break-in, they didn't pursue.