- A suburban couple discovers that they are pawns for a powerful crime syndicate. They try to break away from the cartel and go legitimate, but the syndicate doesn't want to give them up so easily.
- THE BORGIA STICK
A tall middle-aged man with a deep, mellifluous voice enters a funeral chapel and asks to see the bodies of Harrisons. The funeral house man opens the caskets at the man's request. It's a couple in their 30s who had died in some shocking fashion. Their story is told in flashback.
Tom and Eve Harrison are a flirty, loving couple who live a childless middle-class life in the suburbs of New York City and are chummy with their next door neighbors who have 4 children. The husbands commute to work together - by car to the train station, then by train into NYC.
At the city station, they separate. The neighbor heads off to his workplace. But Tom Harrison heads to the station's dressing rooms and emerges disguised as a older man with an old-fashioned hat and sunglasses, carrying a briefcase and an elaborately handled cane.
Using a rental car, he travels out of town to a bank in the suburbs. The banker is expecting him. He comments on Harrison's cane, so Harrison (using the name Bennet) explains that the cane's handle is from a goblet owned by the Borgias. So calls it "the Borgia Stick".
Then they get down to business - which turns out to be money-laundering. Tom's briefcase has $200,000 in cash to be deposited. He plans to draw over a million dollars in 60 days.
Returning to the city, Harrison goes to a small office with "Harrison Mail Order" on the door. It's full of toys and a single employee, a very reliable secretary.
After work, he is dropped off by his neighbor at his home where Eve waits with drinks. Their conversation is interrupted by the phone which rings only once. Eve retires to the kitchen while Tom dials a number and identifies himself to the other party as "Borgia Stick". The conversation goes on outside of Eve's hearing.
When it is over, Tom comes to the kitchen and surprises Eve by asking her she ever wondered about his identity and his background. He admits he wonders about hers all the time. He further shocks her by asking how long she's been with "The Company". Then he confesses that he's fallen in love with her and that he's doesn't want just The Company arrangement where she runs the house and helps advance his career. He wants children - and honesty.
But Eve resists, saying that she was just acting the loving wife. Tom angrily tells her to do just that - and "skip the extras".
Tom spends the next 3 weeks out of town on his money laundering business. When he returns home, he remains aloof with Eve and even retires to a separate bedroom.
Before he does, Eve reports that while he was away, a man named Prentice said that he spoke with Tom earlier and they agreed he was to to put in air conditioning, so he asked to see the house. Tom denied meeting the man.
One day, on board a ship at the docks, Tom details his plans to acquire a business with a lawyer while a curt, bald man listens. When the lawyer leaves, Tom seethes at the bald man who explains that he's under a lot of pressure to spend 2 million dollars a day - turn it into legitimate business funds.
Tom recommends to the man to leave The Company, but the man panics and reminds Tom twice that he never said he wanted to leave.
At the local train station on the way home, Tom is jostled by a man smoking a white pipe. The man seems to recognize him but calls him "Andy Mitchell". Tom tells him he's mistaken. The man says he was the spitting image of a man he knew an Andy Mitchell in Toledo.
Later, Tom and Eve head to a restaurant to meet with friends. In the parking lot, the man from Toledo shows up and greets them both. Eve says that he is Mr Prentice, the man who planned to install air conditioning in their home.
That night, jumping at any noise, Tom rushes to Eve's bedroom. They embrace. Both sense something is wrong, and Tom promises to go to The Company for help.
Tom arranges for a meeting with someone high up in The Company. As he commutes to that office, a white-haired man within orders the "Borgia Stick" file. It arrives shortly after Tom arrives. And soon thereafter, the tall man enters. He is man with the deep voice seen at the funeral home at the beginning.
During the discussion, it is revealed that Tom is indeed Andy Mitchell of Toledo. He had been accused of embezzlement but The Company had helped him avert prison. Also revealed is Eve's real name and lowly background.
Tom tells why he is there, speculating that the man with the white pipe is a government agent. The tall man seems genuinely concerned and immediately plans to have Tom sent to Rio. He adds that he will continue receiving the salary he was paid while running the mail order business plus a bonus of $83,000.
When Tom asks what's to happen with Eve, the tall man launches into a long, vague story of The Company's origins having to do with the Great Depression and the 200 or so men who had control of all the countries money. And how they were forced by FDR to spend money cuz they were law-abiding.
The Company looks to hold vast sums of money, too, and to make more by manufacturing disasters such as water shortages while they manufacture all the supplies needed to cope with it.
The tall man ends this story by claiming it illustrates that Tom and all Company members "must obey orders".
When the tall man asks if Eve "matters to you", Tom cautiously says she doesn't.
Once home, Tom and Eve wind up in a yelling match over her background, but quickly make up. Eve no longer seems defensive and seems more willing to be the normal couple that Tom wants.
The phone starts to ring steadily so Tom quickly explains what's happened to him. He thinks the phone will be new instructions for Eve. He advises her to follow along. Indeed, the caller instructs her to meet someone the next day.
She meets with the tall man who, at first, tries to trip her up to admitting to a strong bond with Tom, but he fails. So he instructs her to start her new assignment immediately, and without telling Tom.
A short while later, a despondent Eve sits at an outdoor cafe table. Sitting next to her is an amiable old man who senses her despair and asks if he can help. She refuses him.
As Tom waits at home uninformed and nervous, Eve starts work at a nightclub as a hostess with a dingy room in the back with a bed. A guest soon offers her money ($10!! - that's not a typo), and they walk to her room, but she doesn't want to follow thru. While trying to escape, she rushes out to the alley, and there, a man dressed as a chauffeur dispatches the man who has chased her.
Suddenly, the friendly, old man she met at the outdoor cafe appears. She realizes he's been following her and that he must be from The Company. He says she was foolish to hide her feelings. The Company people aren't monsters. They'll let her stay with Tom.
So Eve returns home to Tom.
But they are being recorded - by the neighbor who is with some government agency. He and his entire family had been dislodged from their home 2 years earlier in order to move in next to the Harrisons and surveille them. He discusses plans with other agents. He wants Tom to willingly testify against The Company, but Tom doesn't seem to be ready yet. And they are still in the dark about the man from Toledo (so his identify is still a mystery).
As the Harrisons start to pack, the neighbor is listening and recording to them. He seems to realize that Tom won't be testifying anytime soon, so he's decided to immediately go and arrest the Harrisons. Unfortunately, he left the basement door ajar when he left, and one of his sons noticed. The son finds the tape recorder and rewinds a bit and plays it, turning up the volume loud enuf for Harrison, who happened to go outside, to hear.
Both husbands see each other simultaneously. Tom rushes inside in time to get instructions by phone from The Company to leave immediately. Eve is horrified to see Tom get a handgun. Then the neighbor enters, unarmed.
The neighbor tries to warn the Harrisons not to trust The Company, but gets battered by Tom in return.
The Harrisons drive to the spot they were instructed to go to. They abandon their car and rush into a waiting limo. Inside, is the tall man.
He hands them passports with photos that don't look like them. They will after plastic surgery, the tall man explains.
They go to a posh clinic and meet the director/surgeon who tries to assure them that the surgery will be minor and they'll be ready to fly to Rio in a couple days. The surgery will be performed immediately.
While waiting in the foyer, Tom spots one of the bankers he dealt with sitting in a wheelchair in the patio. The man is heavily bandaged and non-responsive. After talking to the banker's wife, Tom spots the man with the white pipe from Toledo, who ducks into one of the clinic's doors.
Tom rushes inside and realizes the man had disappeared into the doctor's office. He rushes Eve into an empty room and tells her what he has just deduced. That The Company must have learned that the neighbor was an agent and was spying on them. So they used a company man claiming to know him from Toledo to scare them so they would go to The Company for help. Then The Company could bring them to this clinic, not for plastic surgery, but to be incapacitated like the banker. They might be doing the same to everyone Tom had contact with.
Tom manages to draw the man from Toledo into the room where be knocks him out. With his handgun drawn, they try to escape but are cornered by the tall man and 2 others. Unable to convince the Harrisons of his good intentions, the tall man lets them go. Once they are out of ear shot, he tells the 2 men "not on the grounds".
Tom and Eve escape the grounds and find themselves on the city train tracks, where they have a brief gun battle with the two men, leaving Tom wounded.
Suddenly, a machine gun mows down the two chasers. Tom and Eve see the lower part of a man with a machine gun approach. It's the neighbor. He levels the machine gun at them - and fires.
Bystanders talk as bodies on stretchers are put into ambulances. They say a woman was killed. Then the blonde hair of a woman whose face is covered is seen on a stretcher before it is slid into an ambulance.
The man from Toledo watches as the ambulances drive away.
Flash forward to the funeral chapel where the tall man is viewing the bodies. He leaves and tells a man on the street to close the "Borgia Stick" file.
In the funeral chapel, the neighbor appears in the casket area thru another door.
Next, he is seen in a hearse talking to the Harrisons who have been playing dead for the tall man. Tom is now willing to testify against the company. The neighbor says his agency will make sure the company isn't able to figure out who is testifying. That way, the Harrisons can move to a quiet town further away and start a new life. With a new neighbor.
END
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