(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
(GUY NOIR THEME & SONG)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions - Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME UP AND OUT)
GK: It was one of those gorgeous fall days when the air is like a glass of cabernet and a guy takes a deep breath and suddenly delusions of grandeur sweep up your left nostril and into your brain and you get silly ideas. I opened my window and smelled the air and (A LIGHT BEAUTIFUL CHORD) suddenly I heard a voice -
SS: Kiss me, you fool. Thrill me. Marry me. Tear off my clothes. Let me be the mother of your children. The grandmother of your grandchildren. The aunt of your nephews.
GK: - and I turned around and instead of a babe, there was Carl the janitor.
TR: Something wrong with your window there? How come it won't close?
GK: Huh? It'll close.
TR: How come you got it wide open then?
GK: I opened it.
TR: What for?
GK: So I could breathe in the air that is rich and glorious like a glass of cabernet.
TR: Oh. Okay.
GK: Is that all right?
TR: Hey. If that's what you want, fine. If you're happy, I'm happy. (CLOSE DOOR)
GK: Happy? I wouldn't go that far. Deluded, yes. Happy? No. In addition to cabernet, the air also smelled like gas from the jacket I had worn the week before which I spent up in Brainerd looking around for the six million bucks that the KGB stashed up the re back during the Fifties which I'd learned all about from a certain Colonel Stolichnaya whom I had made the acquaintance of at the Five Spot the week before that (BRIDGE ... TIME TRANSITION ... DOOR OPEN, JINGLE. CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS) -
TR (JIMMY): Hey, Guy! Good to see ya. How ya been?
GK: Hi, Jimmy. Aw, about the same. How's yourself?
TR (JIMMY): Not so bad, not so bad. Hey, Guy, did you know it's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open?
GK: I didn't, no.
TR (JIMMY): Yeah, I just read that today. Interesting, huh? - I wonder why we're made that way. - Maybe it's to keep snot out of your eye. - Must be a reason. - What can I get for you?
GK: Bring me a vodka, straight up, no ice.
TR (JIMMY): Vodka coming up.
GK: I'm expecting somebody, Jimmy. A guy named Raskolnikov but he also goes under the name Rasmussen ... (MUSIC BRIDGE) I sat and let my vodka evaporate and watched the front door in the mirror and then I saw him in a back booth. The guy in the fur cap smok ing the cigarette. (LONG SERIES OF FOOTSTEPS) I'd never seen a fur cap smoke a cigarette before but there it was. And the guy was smoking one too. (FOOTSTEPS STOP) Colonel Raskolnikov? I'm Guy Noir. I got your note. The one you wrote in lemon juice and left on my doorstep inside the pumpkin.
TR (RUSSIAN): There is no need to introduce yourself, I know you quite well. Quite well. Good to see you again.
GK: You know me? From where?
TR (RUSSIAN): It was years ago. I was undercover at the time. We went out on a date. To a movie.
GK: I went to a movie with you?
TR (RUSSIAN): You took me out for a movie. Splendor In The Grass. And then dinner. And then after dinner, we -
GK: That was the time my car ran out of gas.
TR (RUSSIAN): Yes. That's what you said at the time.
GK: But that night I was with a petite blonde named Rhoda Harley.
TR (RUSSIAN): That was me, gaspodin. Look in my eyes. Remember how I fluttered my eyelashes? Eh?
GK: But Rhoda was small, blonde, she had a plunging neckline ...
TR (RUSSIAN): One of my better disguises, if I do say so myself ...
GK: But why did you go to all that trouble to try to get to me?
TR (RUSSIAN): We thought you knew something.
GK: Oh.
TR (RUSSIAN): And then, after I talked to you for a few minutes ...
GK: Anyway, what about this KGB cash up in Brainerd that you mention in your note -
TR (RUSSIAN): I would've revealed my identity then, but I was having such a fabulous time! (RUSSIAN GIBBERISH, EXCITED, SUGGESTIVE)
GK: All right, all right. Never mind with the details. Tell me about Brainerd ...
TR (RUSSIAN): It's like this. Back in the Fifties, the KGB (HE FADES) decided we needed some drop sites - (MUSIC TRANSITION)
GK: He told me that the KGB had placed six million dollars in an steel garbage can and buried it in a frontyard in Brainerd so that when the Revolution came and the workers arose and threw off their chains, there'd be money for promotion and advertising.
TR: (RUSSIAN GIBBERISH)
GK: He said the garbage can also contained warm scarves and mittens and a phrasebook of slang like "Cool" and "Can you dig it?"
TR: (RUSSIAN GIBBERISH)
GK: He said it was buried under a cast-iron deer, next to a plaster squirrel and a blue gazing globe.
TR: (RUSSIAN GIBBERISH)
GK: He said you couldn't miss it.
(MUSICAL BRIDGE)
GK: Six million bucks. You take a deep breath of the cabernet air and suddenly you can imagine what six million bucks might do for you.
SS: Kiss me, you beautiful fool. Thrill me. Marry me. Or don't marry me. Whatever you like.
GK: For a guy with six million bucks, the pool of interested women expands to include women who are inappropriately young and inappropriately beautiful.
SS: How do you like my thong swimsuit? Do you like this? Do you? Or do you think it's too revealing? I'm just curious. How does it look from the back? Is it too suggestive? Tell me what you think. (BREATHY SAX and MUSIC BRIDGE)
GK: When you live in Minnesota, you don't associate women with bare skin, you associate women with ski sweaters and down parkas, and for a week I walked up and down the streets of Brainerd looking for those cast-iron deer, that plaster squirrel, that blue gazing globe ...
SS (MINNESOTA, OLDER WOMAN): I don't recall no gazing globe there. Nope. We've owned this place since - when was it, Ralph? Forty-eight, wasn't it?
TR (OLDER GUY): No, it wasn't '48, it musta been '49 or '50, cause '48, that was the year Arnold graduated and went into the Navy and we were still renting that house over on Poplar Street then, the Swanson's house.
SS (OLDER WOMAN): How could Arnold have graduated in '48, he was born in '29, the same year as the crash.
TR (OLDER GUY): The crash? What crash? That wasn't until '58.
SS (OLDER WOMAN): The stock market crash!
TR (OLDER GUY): Oh! Why didn't you say?
SS (OLDER WOMAN): He was born in '29, so he must've graduated in '47.
TR (OLDER GUY): No, it was '48. He was held back a year on account of his eczema.
GK: Fine. You don't recall anyone else in the neighborhood who -
SS (OLDER WOMAN): Eczema! You're thinking of Jimmy.
TR (OLDER MAN): Had a whole patch of eczema on his back and his left arm. That's why the Army wouldn't take him.
GK: Okay, thanks, for the information.
SS (OLDER WOMAN): And it wasn't the Swanson's house we rented, it was your uncle Nils's house.
TR (OLDER MAN): Well, the Swansons lived there for years before Nils owned it, we always called it the Swanson house.
GK: Good. Appreciate it. You folks take care. (MUSIC BRIDGE) I spent most of September in Brainerd and gradually the allure of six million dollars started to wear off.
TR (OLD MAN): Cagey bees? I don't know about that. Bees are smart in a way but I wouldn't describe em as cagey. You blow smoke on em, they're not cagey at all. (MUSIC)
GK: I walked up and down every street and never saw the deer, the squirrel, the gazing globe - all I found were old people who were hungry for a little conversation.
SS (OLD LADY): Well, you know, it's interesting you mention gazing globes because that's something you don't see so much anymore. Nope. You don't see those. You used to see em a lot more than you do now. That's for sure. We used to have em. My grandma had one. So did my mother. They each had one. I used to have one too. But we got rid of it, I don't know why. I guess because people just didn't have that sort of thing around anymore. Yeah. You used to see em more a long time ago, but not now. Nope. (MUSIC)
TR (JIMMY): So you never found the garbage can, huh? That's too bad.
GK: Yeah. Wasted most of September looking for it.
TR (JIMMY): You care for another vodka, Guy?
GK: No, thanks, Jimmy.
TR (JIMMY): So how come this KGB guy, this Raskolnikov, told you about this stash of money, anyway?
GK: What stash of money?
TR (JIMMY): The six million in the garbage can in Brainerd.
GK: I don't think there was any six million.
TR (JIMMY): You don't?
GK: I think he was trying to throw me off the track.
TR (JIMMY): Throw you off the track of what, Guy?
GK: That's just it. I don't know.
TR (JIMMY): Huh. Interesting.
GK: I think that, without being aware of it, I was on the verge of finding out something that the KGB didn't want me to know, or the CIA - he could very well be a double agent here - and so to keep me from finding it out he sent me off on this wild goose chase in Brainerd. (DOOR OPEN, JINGLE, CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS) Oh, hi, Sugar!
SS (SUGAR): Hi, Guy. Hi, Jimmy.
GK: You look kinda down, Sugar? Something the matter?
SS (SUGAR): Nothing that would concern you, I'm sure.
GK: Awwww. Come on, Sugar. Don't be that way. Sit down. Jimmy, bring the woman a beer.
TR (JIMMY): One beer, coming up.
GK: So what's going on?
SS (SUGAR): I broke up with Brent. Last night. I told him I didn't want to see him ever again. I gave him back the ring he gave me.
GK: Awww. I'm sorry.
SS (SUGAR): No, you're not.
GK: I am. I don't like to see you unhappy. What happened? Did you argue over something?
SS (SUGAR): No, I just saw the truth that's all. He had the wool pulled over my eyes. I thought he cared about ballet and films and good books and gourmet food - ha! his idea of gourmet is putting salsa on the beans and wieners.
GK: Well, guys can change, you know -
SS (SUGAR): Guys do not change. All they care about is football and beer and sex.
TR (JIMMY): Here's your beer.
GK: Well, that's not all I care about.
SS (SUGAR): It is too. I remember the first time I went out on a date with you. You took me to a movie, and then to dinner, and then your car ran out of gas -
GK: Oh, it did not.
SS (SUGAR): It did too. And that's how I got into that relationship with you. Ten years of nothing.
GK: It hurts me to hear you say that.
SS (SUGAR): Ten years of you telling me that as soon as you got your feet on the ground, we'd buy a house and get married. That's what you said. And it was just garbage, Guy. Garbage.
TR (JIMMY): Speaking of garbage, did you ever get any clue where that six million dollars was, Guy?
GK: I did, Jimmy. I found a park where there had been houses before and I saw in some old photographs some cast-iron deer and a gazing globe and I located the spot which was right beside a swing set and I stuck a rod in the ground and probed a few spots a nd finally hit something hard about four feet down that sort of clunked when I hit it and I went back at midnight and I dug and I hit the garbage can and I tried to chop it open with the shovel and it turned out to be a gas main.
TR (JIMMY): Ah, so that's why you smell of gas -
GK: Yeah, it's not coming from me. It came from the pipe.
SS (SUGAR): (SWEETLY) What was it you were saying about six million dollars, Guy?
GK: It's up in Brainerd, Sugar. I just gotta find it. And when I do - hey - guess who I'm gonna come looking for?
SS (SUGAR): Really? You mean it?
GK: Of course I mean it.
TR (JIMMY): Hey, Guy, did you know that there are no words in the English language that rhyme with month, orange, silver or purple. You can't rhyme any of em. Interesting, huh? I was just reading that. Month, orange, silver, and purple. (THEME)
SS: A dark night in the city that keeps its secrets, where one guy is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions - Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(MUSIC OUT)
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor