The Conversation - Media Frenzy
Then ... Having just seen the Director's wife very much alive after 'witnessing' her apparent death Caul is doubly shaken when he picks up a newspaper at a street corner kiosk and reads that the Director has died in a car crash. By now the poor guy's head must really be spinning.
... and Now, in the movie capture above there's a phone booth next to the newspaper kiosk ... earlier in the movie we saw Caul using this phone - it was on the Sutter Street corner at Polk (map). There's no phone booth there now but wouldn't you know it, the newspaper kiosk is still there!
Then ... He rushes back to the Embarcadero Center in the Financial District in time to see the wife, who has now inherited ownership of her husband's property business, about to be swarmed by the local media.
... and Now, this is the same staircase at the west end of the lobby level of One Embarcadero Center where Caul had been turned away a little earlier.
Caul watches from the fringe as she pushes her way through, deflecting reporters and questions - "Do you suspect any foul play in the accident?" ... "Will your stock now give you controlling interest?" ... "What's going to happen to the company?" ...
But what really happened at the Jack Tar hotel? We are as confused as he is. Did her lover kill her husband then stage the car accident? Nothing seems to add up but Caul's fecund imagination conjures up the Director laid out in Room 773.