Lesson 12

[Robert Smith]

ROBERT R. SMITH GIVES GREAT CUES DRAMATIC REVEALS.

WHAT I LEARNED IS…?

The definition and nature of clues and how to have fun identifying clue trails and expanding the thriller map.

Looking back on what I have written, I think I provided mysteries then exposition and then elucidations.

My story is not a mystery thriller but a tale of the supernatural.

LIST OF MAIN MYSTERIES AND CLUES

1. MYSTERY; Need to know what the Golem is and what animates it.

Rabbi Gabbai animates the Golem and explains how it is animated but not what the destructive potential of the Golem may be.

2. MYSTERY: What are the magic spells and ritual used to animate the Golem?

CLUE: They are too forbidden to know, explains Rabbi Gabbai.

Later, Rabbi Solomon, sent to rescue Max tells him the magic is forbidden, best to just forget about the magic spells except, Rabbi Solomon tells Max the ritual uses to deactivate the Golem.

3. MYSTERY: The demon Astaroth animates the Golem, so will Max be saved from the demon/golem?

CLUE TRAIL – DIALOGUE:

MAX: (To Rabbi Gabbai.) Are you leading me into something satanic?

GABBAI: You are a gangster and you are worried that I may lead you into the satanic? I cannot lead you anywhere you don’t already want to go.

4. MYSTERY: Why does the Golem keep growing larger and superhumanly stronger?

LATER DIALOGUE:

MAX: Why is this thing (the Golem) becoming so super-human? If he gets any larger he will be King Kong.

RABBI SOLOMON: Worse. He grows larger because a demon indwells him..

MAX: A demon named Astaroth? Right?

RABBI SOLOMON: Right, The demon also feeds off your own desire for vengeance against Lepke and Reles That is why the Golem grows with each command you give to it as its master. But with each command you turn the Golem into more of an uncontrollable monster that will become your master.

5. MYSTERY: Will Max, ever use the Pulsa di-Nurah (Lashes of Flame) curse prayer to cause the deaths of his enemies?

CLUE TRAIL – LATER DIALOGUE:

MAX: (To Rabbi Solomon) Well, I can rid myself of the desire for revenge by saying the Pulsa di-Nurah prayer against Reles.

RABBI SOLOMON: No, destroy the Pulsa di-Nurah. You cannot pray for the death of another without it damaging your own soul and feeding the demon.

THRILLER MAP REVISED.

GENRE: Gangster-Thriller.

TITLE: “The Golem of Gangland”

SYNOPSIS

OPENING: In Heaven, the souls of Rabbi Solomon Levitsky and his partner-soul, (a redeemed gangster) Lou Tasca are called on a time-travel mission back to 1939 to save the life and soul of Rabbi Solomon’s gangster uncle, Max who is in trouble.

INCITING INCIDENT: In British Mandatory ed Palestine, after running guns to the Haganah, Uncle Max meets Arab terrorists who sell antiquities to finance their terrorism. From them, Max buys a large antique clay statue for his gangster boss Lepke Buchalter to sell on the antiquities black market. But the clay statue turns out to be a genuine Golem, a Frankenstein-like mass of clay that can be brought to life and is capable of horrible destruction when activated by ancient magic spells. REVEAL: THE GOLEM, a clay statue but it’s actually a monster looks like a 8 foot tall sasquatch only of clay rather than hair.

Although at first, Max doesn’t trust the corrupt Rabbi Nahoum Gabbai, the cleric’s ingratiating manner leads Max to invite him to his place where Gabbai activates the Golem into a dormant-state, using mystical Hebrew letters. AND

1. (REVEAL:)While Rabbi Nahoum Gabbai reads the magic spells to animate the Golem, MYSTERY; Need to know what the Golem is and what animates it.

Rabbi Gabbai animates the Golem and explains how it is animated but not what the destructive potential of the Golem may be.

2, MYSTERY: a ghostly nude man with wings appears and seems to dissolve into the Golem, whom Gabbai identifies as the demon Astaroth, who animates the Golem.

CLUE TRAIL – DIALOGUE:

MAX: (To Rabbi Gabbai.) Are you leading me into something satanic?

GABBAI: You are a gangster and you are worried that I may lead you into the satanic? I cannot lead you anywhere you don’t already want to go.

In the dormant state Max will bring the Golem by ship to New York in order to give him to Lepke. Gabbai says that Max will be the Golem’s master “so you need not fear the Golem or any other gangster because you have the Golem as your defender and I am also giving you a scroll with the sacred name of God to insert into the Golem’s mouth in order to awaken the Golem to full strength and obedience.” Additionally, (REVEAL:) Gabbai further presents to Max the text, translation, and transliteration of the “Pulsa di-Nurah” (Lashes of Flame) curse prayer for the death of any enemy.” With profound thanks Max remarks to Gabbai, “A prayer is not as fast as a gun but they die just as dead, huh?” Gabbai replies, “Yes, and it leaves no fingerprints.”

CLUE TRAIL – LATER DIALOGUE:

MAX: (To Rabbi Solomon) Well, I can rid myself of the desire for revenge by saying the Pulsa di-Nurah prayer against Reles.

RABBI SOLOMON: No, destroy the Pulsa di-Nurah. You cannot pray for the death of another without it damaging your own soul and feeding the demon.

Max resolves to keep the Golem for his own servant purposes. Even gives him a name “Friday” as in “his man Friday.”

Max returns to NYC with the animated but sleeping Golem in a crate. To convince Lepke that his Golem is the real thing, Max brings him to the Nazi Party Rally at Madison Square Garden to which gang boss Meyer Lansky has summoned Jewish gangsters to attack (but not kill) Nazis as they leave the Garden. REVEAL: The Golem has grown to 10 feet and prevails in the melee against Nazis and police and is impervious to their bullets.

After the Golem prevails in the melee that follows on 8^th Avenue, Lepke, now impressed, wants to possess the Golem and to be his master to use him to consolidate his deadly grip on the city of New York, but Max will not part with his prize and for the first time finds himself the target of his once-trusted boss.

TURNING POINT: Max drives away from Lepke’s hideout in a truck that holds the crated Golem. Lepke deploys his most ruthless hitman Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, a once supposed trusted friend of Max, to chase him down and kill, and seize the Golem for Lepke. A harrowing chase by Reles follows Max through the street canyons of Manhattan ending in a crash. REVEAL: At the end of Abe Reles’ car chase after the truck driven by Max. Max shouts to the Golem in the back of the truck: “Get out onto the road and stop that car that’s chasing us.” The Golem (now 12 feet tall) hears the command and jumps out the back of the truck in front of Reles’ car that spins and stops obliterating a newsstand. The Golem grabs and lifts the car and throws it which wrecks it, although Reles escapes and flees, the driver is dead.

some pedestrians are killed in the crash and by stray bullets fired by Reles which is destined to draw heat from the police.

MIDPOINT: Rabbi Solomon and Lou Tasca, at last catch up to Max. Rabbi Solomon conceals the fact that he is Max’s nephew visiting from decades in the future. They settle down for lunch in what they believe is a safe haven, a Mid-Manhattan Kosher Restaurant.

ABOVE CITED DIALOGUE HERE:

CLUE TRAIL – LATER DIALOGUE:

LATER DIALOGUE:

MAX: Why is this thing (the Golem) becoming so super-human? If he gets any larger he will be King Kong.

RABBI SOLOMON: Worse. He grows larger because a demon indwells him..

MAX: A demon named Astaroth? Right?

RABBI SOLOMON: Right, The demon also feeds off your own desire for vengeance against Lepke and Reles That is why the Golem grows with each command you give to it as its master. But with each command you turn the Golem into more of an uncontrollable monster that will become your master.

MAX: (To Rabbi Solomon) Well, I can rid myself of the desire for revenge by saying the Pulsa di-Nurah prayer against Reles.

RABBI SOLOMON: No, destroy the Pulsa di-Nurah. You cannot pray for the death of another without it damaging your own soul and feeding the demon.

In a drive-by tommy gun shooting, Reles, still our to get Max, shatters the restaurant, but Max survives. Rabbi Solomon and Lou also survive as they are super angels impervious to death.

TWIST: Reles’s deadly car chase and attack on the Kosher Restaurant compels Crime-buster Thomas E. Dewey to more urgently hunt down both Lepke and Reles.

TWIST: (It just got more dangerous with higher stakes.) In retaliation, Reles plans to assassinate Dewey – instantly, his plot is forbidden by the Syndicate’s commission (Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky) who now take out a contract on Reles with the intent to kill him before he can assassinate Dewey.

TWIST: To escape murder from a Syndicate, Reles seeks police protection so he surrenders to the police and Dewey, vowing to turn canary and sing,” meaning, snitch on Lepke and Murder Incorporated and the wider Syndicate.

TWIST: (The worst thing happens to Reles.) The mysterious death of Abe Reles is historical but here is how I treat it in the story. Reles is held in police protective custody until trial. While preparing to testify against Lepke and the Syndicate, Reles is mysteriously thrown from his 6^th floor hotel safe-room to his death in what looks like a mob hit done through corrupt police who were bribed by the Syndicate to kill Reles..

TWIST: (A new problem occurs.) What really happens in my story: Max, who wants revenge against Reles. recites the Pulsa di-Nurah (Lashes of Flames) death-prayer against Reles which the Golem overhears and takes as Max’s (his master) order to kill Reles.

The Golem scales the wall of the hotel, climbs into Reles’ 6^th floor room and tosses Reles to his death without any noise that would alert the police. The Golem climbs back down the hotel wall and escapes.

The reaction of the police to Reles’ death: “The canary could sing but he couldn’t fly.”

TWIST: Max learns that a contract has also been taken out against him by the commission for his insubordination to Lepke.

TWIST: Encouraged by Rabbi Solomon, Max also surrenders to the police and overcomes his initial gangster’s distrust of Dewey with his own promise to Dewey to do as did Reles, namely, flip and also testify against Lepke and the Syndicate with the hope of a shorter sentence and witness protection to follow.

TWIST/CLIMAX: Rabbi Solomon deactivates the Golem by removing the scroll with the sacred name from the Golem’s mouth and erasing a key sacred letter written on the Golem’s forehead. The Golem crumbles into a pile of clay, after which, Rabbi Solomon destroys the evil “Pulsa di-Nurah” curse-prayer and explains:

RESOLUTION: Rabbi Solomon explains to Max that by his ritual deactivation of the Golem he has spared Max from any of the growing danger to him by the increasingly destructive Golem and leaves a very thankful Max safely in police custody, ready to flip and testify against Lepke and the Syndicate and return to a devout Jewish life. Rabbi Solomon and Lou Tasca return to Heaven now that their Mission has been accomplished with Max totally unaware that Rabbi Solomon is his future nephew.