[THE DAMNED DON'T CRY!]

The Prodigal Daughter (part 3)

Game Date: Tuesday, 04 March 1947
Date Played: 20 September 2003


Jeff Gallaway, Jack Ryan and Gabi Rosini meet across the road from the Hotel Miramar before walking through the lobby and taking the lift to the fourth floor. Jeff and Jack stand either side of the door to room 411 while Gabi pounds the door pretending to be drunk and calling for Sarah. The door opens and a thugs pushes Gabi away. Jeff grabs the guy's collar and hauls him into the corridor while Jack, closely followed by Gabi, jumps through into the room.

Jack and Gabi take in the room. In front of them is a living room filling with movie equipment: high-powered lights on stands a movie camera and two guys, shocked into inaction, one packing things away, the other doing up the front of his robe. The lights focus on the central feature of the room, a wide couch with a woman's underclothes thrown over it.

Jack waves them into a corner with his pistol and steps forward into the room. Gabi backs him up. Jack and the thug tussle in the corridor.

From the living room, Jack sees into the bedroom. There's a naked woman lying face down on the bed barely covered by a robe. He notices the other man in the room and dives out of the way a split second before the man fires. The shot grazes Jack's ribs. Gabi keeps her pistol trained on the film technicians cowering in the far corner of the living room. Jeff and the thug in the corridor trade fists until Jeff fells the big guy.

Jack rolls back into the two and lets fly with the lead and the man in the bedroom crumples to the floor.

While Jack keeps the two cowards in his sights, Gabi looks about the bedroom. She finds a purse, holding a drivers license in the name of Vivian Sternwood, the contents of a makeup kit and several bottles of Gin. She starts trying to dress Vivian when --

-- It's in Montecello, 1943, standing over the sobbing form of an elderly friend used repeatedly by the German occupiers of the town. She hears the voices of men in the next room and remembers the pistol in her hand. Enough is enough. Time for revenge. She hears a Nazi coming through the door and takes aim, ready to --

-- Jeff calls to her, time to go. Gabi realises where she is and takes a big swig from the nearest Gin bottle. Jeff gathers the Sternwood woman over his shoulder and Gabi collects her things. Gabi flicks a dime onto the gunman's body. Jack collects all the film canisters her can see and takes them with him. The actor and the film technician remain in the corner too afraid to think what happens next.

They are out the door and down the stairs before they hear the police sirens wailing faintly in the distance. Jack flips the doorman a ten-spot and they are in the car and off.

They collect Norma from her apartment and drive Gabi's house to spend the night. In the morning, Jeff and Benny hit Vivian with a bill for their services amounting to $200. Vivian seems not in the least perturbed by recent events and tells them to send the bill to the house for payment. Jack and Gabi suggest that Norma leaves town for a while in case whoever planned this little scheme finds out she was behind spoiling it.

Jeff and Jack phone Nate and Benny and all four guys meet at the office to watch through the films before destroying them.

Case closed.