Anthracite

It was a great party, right up to the moment the man walked in the door and put a bullet in the guest of honor's head. Ray Pizulski, a low-rent car thief, escaped Anthracite, PA fifteen years before, and hasn’t seen Donna Santorello until, that is, they cross paths at a bash for the local crime boss who employs her as a high-dollar hooker. It’s this night that Floyd Cowley, a psychopath with a taste for flair, chooses to makes a spectacular hit on the birthday boy. His grand plan is spoiled by two witnesses: Ray and Donna. They flee the scene and over the next twenty-hours, run from one end of the city to the other, with Ray's street smarts foiling Floyd at every turn. After a confrontation that leaves Floyd bloodied and enraged, Ray and Donna split up. Ray heads for Anthracite, the dying coal town where he knows he can disappear. When Donna fails to get out of Philly, she trails him there. For the first time since high school, they're back in the place where he made his name as the town mutt and she made hers as the school slut. Though they didn't like each other before and things aren’t much better now, they're stuck with each other. Ray soon finds that Donna is nothing but trouble, as she can’t come to grips with her past. Meanwhile, Floyd picks up their trail and is in turn tailed by the mob guys who hired him and by Joe Carter, a determined Philly cop. They’ve all got Ray and Donna in their sights. “Anthracite” features a rare cast: Ray, at turns a tough-guy and a clown, but with a backbone of steel; Donna, the exotic woman who escaped abuse to achieve a moneyed life, only to find herself right back where her miseries began; Floyd, a coldly-disciplined maniac; Tony Zerby, the Philly street creep who becomes his foul partner in crime; Carter, the detective who makes it a personal goal to take both of them down; Mason Malone, the local crazy boy who grew up to become the local crazy man; and the town of Anthracite the stage where these players collide in a violent and twisted climax.