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CONFIDENTIAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY • FRED SMITH DOUBLES DOWN (DOUBLE DOWN OR DIE)
TRANS WORLD AIRLINES
TWA
PASSENGER TICKET & SCENE STUDY
Passenger Name
SMITH / FREDERICK W.
Origin
ORD • CHICAGO
Destination
LAS • LAS VEGAS
Flight / Class
TW 419 • FIRST (F)
Scene 12 • “The Call to Memphis” (Summer 1973)
Cast: Fred Smith (28) • Roger Frock (35) • Binion's Casino Room Tone
BOARDING PASS
Date
13 JUL 73
Gate
K-6
Seat
03B
Status
ONE-WAY
NON-REFUNDABLE • FINAL RESERVES
SCENE 12 • “THE CALL TO MEMPHIS” • (SUMMER 1973)
Continued from Double Down or Die, Scene 11 — The Marker
INT. BINION'S HORSESHOE – PHONE BOOTH – NIGHT
Fred steps into a wood-and-glass Bell System phone booth, folds the door shut, and stacks a handful of dimes on the shelf. ROTARY DIALS. Through the glass, the casino roars.
INTERCUT WITH:
INT. FEDERAL EXPRESS HEADQUARTERS – MEMPHIS AIRPORT – SAME TIME
A dim hangar office: styrofoam coffee cups, ashtrays overflowing with Pall Malls, unpaid fuel invoices stacked like cordwood. ROGER FROCK (35), sleeves rolled, jams the heavy black receiver to his ear.
ROGER
(sharply)
Memphis control, Frock.
FRED
Roger. It's me.
ROGER
(relieved, then exasperated)
Fred! Where the hell are you? You said you'd call me back after the meeting. It's ten o'clock at night, and Linda's called the hangar twice. Did Chicago sign?
FRED
Chicago said no.
A long silence on the line. Roger lowers himself into a chair.
ROGER
Standard Oil says they padlock the pumps Monday. We owe twenty-five thousand, Fred. We have five thousand in the account.
Behind Fred, a slot machine triggers a MECHANICAL SIREN. A drunken gambler HOWLS: "HARD EIGHT! PAY THE LINE!" Roger goes very still.
ROGER (CONT'D)
Fred... what is that noise?
FRED
Silver dollars, Rog.
ROGER
Are you in a goddamn casino?
FRED
I'm in Las Vegas. The banks in Memphis are closed. This town isn't.
ROGER
(voice cracking)
Tell me you didn't touch the five thousand. Tell me that money is still in the account.
FRED
Not one dime of the company's money is in this building, Roger. The five thousand is right where you left it. I've got a hundred dollars of my own, and a thousand-dollar marker from a feed-and-grain man from Amarillo.
ROGER
A hundred dollars?!
FRED
And rules. I've got rules.
ROGER
Fred, I have ten pilots in the ready room asking if we fuel up or shut the doors. Do I ground the fleet?
Fred looks at his reflection in the booth glass. For a fraction of a second the mask slips — a twenty-eight-year-old watching the whole thing come down. Then his jaw sets like iron.
FRED
Nobody grounds anything. You keep those crews in the cockpits. Wheels up at oh-five-hundred. We sort packages and we fly.
ROGER
And if you're wrong?
FRED
Then I'll be the first man on the ramp Monday morning, telling them myself.
ROGER
And if you're right?
FRED
Then you'll get a call. Have faith, Roger.
CLICK. Fred exhales, straightens his lapels, and walks toward the blackjack pit.
[SCENE END]
SOURCE & DRAMATIZATION NOTE: Roger Frock’s Changing How the World Does Business has Fred Smith telling him, after the fact, that he flew to Las Vegas after General Dynamics said no, and gives the $24,000 fuel need (scripted here as $25,000) and the $5,000 account balance. Frock was not in Las Vegas. The call, its timing and all dialogue are dramatized.