(GK: Garrison Keillor; FN: Fred Newman; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell; WB: Walter Bobbie)
(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but high above the empty streets, on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions --- Guy Noir, Private Eye ---
(PIANO)
GK: It was April and I was in New York, at the Hoover Hotel in Murray Hill, what we call a budget accommodation, meaning no room service, no decor, and your shampoo comes in a little plastic packet and you have to request it at the desk. (COFFEE SHOP AMBIENCE) So you go in the coffee shop, you could hear tourists complaining bitterly about American hotels in many languages ----- (FRENCH, BITTER) excuse me, coming through ---- (ANGRY JAPANESE) excuse me, hot coffee, coming through ---- (DOUR RUSSIAN) excuse me, sir, watch your back ----- (EXPLOSIVE ITALIAN) watch your back, hot coffee (ITALIAN SHRIEK) ---- sorry, sir---- you okay? Sorry. ---- (MUSIC) I had come to the city on a missing child case ---- the usual ---- Midwestern daughter runs away to the city with guitarist boyfriend. (BRIDGE)
SS: But I love him, Mr. Noir. Have you ever been in love?
GK: Often, and I always got over it. And so will you, Kristin. You were just about to graduate from college and go on to law school. Why throw all that away, Kristin?
SS: I love him. Maybe love means not having to make sense.
GK: Kristin, are you on drugs?
SS: No!
GK: Are you on some sort of IQ suppressant?
SS: No!
GK: You eating Dumb Flakes for breakfast?
SS: No.
GK: You been listening to talk radio?
SS: No, I'm just in love. I can't leave him. I can't live without him.
GK: You can, though. You're a smart girl. This guy is a boat anchor. He's a concrete block with a chain.
SS: He's not. Django is so wonderful. He writes beautiful songs. He has a wonderful CD, called "Songs In The Key of Being". And he needs me.
GK: Of course he needs you, Kristin. But need isn't the same as love. You don't love somebody just because he's homeless.
SS: You don't understand, Mr. Noir. (BRIDGE)
GK: Kristin's dad was a big shot in the Lutheran mafia. What they call The Brotherhood. He was loaded. And as long as he was willing to pay my expenses, I was willing to stay. So I got a hotplate and a phonograph and made myself a cup of coffee (POURING) and put on a Charles Mingus record (NEEDLE ON LP, SCRATCHES, BASS FIDDLE SOLO) and sat back to experience New York -- (BASS SOLO) -- I love Charles Mingus. Other people worship ballplayers, I worship bass players. I got Ray Brown's picture on my wall, I got Milt Hinton, John Kirby.
(KNOCKS ON DOOR)
GK: Yeah, just a minute. (HE LIFTS THE STYLUS FROM THE LP AND IT SKIDS ACROSS THE GROOVES) Be right there. (FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPEN) Yeah?
WB: Your name Noir?
GK: Yeah?
WB: My name is DeBris. I'm a writer. I need some help finishing a book.
GK: I'm a private eye, mister. A gumshoe. I don't do books.
WB: This is a crime novel. I thought you could help.
GK: Well, come in. (DOOR CLOSE, FOOTSTEPS) Have a seat. ---- Funny, I always imagined authors as people in black pullovers with dandruff on the shoulders, and there you are all sleek and golden in a designer black suit the cost of which would feed an Indian village for a month.
WB: Well, you can't wear a village, can you.
GK: This your first book?
WB: You don't recognize me? from my book jackets?
GK: By the time I get a book, sir, the jacket is just a memory.
WB: I'm David DeBris, Mr. Noir. Author of the Danny MacDonald series.
GK: Danny MacDonald the dogwalker detective.
WB: Right.
GK: He trots around the Upper East Side with twenty pooches on leashes solving jewel heists and heinous murders of aged socialites and the like.
WB: That's him.
GK: Your books sell by the truckload. What's your problem? You forget the formula?
WB: A couple years ago, I took a break from detective fiction and I write a memoir, "The Heart Has Its Compass".
GK: I didn't see that.
WB: Neither did anybody else. It got a torpedo of a review in the Times and it sank without a trace. I put my heart and soul into that book, Mr. Noir, and my audience turned and walked away.
GK: Well, there are no guarantees in this business. You know that.
WB: Now I'm floundering, trying to write a crime novel again. Would you have a minute to look at this?
(TURNING PAGE OF MS.)
GK: I like your first line. "I've had my heart broken so many times, I can hear it jingle when I walk." That's good. The title though. "Fast Falls The Eventide". Don't your books usually have punchy titles like "The Blonde In 204" or "Close Before Striking" ---- "For Office Use Only" ----
WB: You don't care for "Fast Falls The Eventide"?
GK: Well---- it makes it seem like maybe the book is about Alzheimer's or something. ---- Look. This line here. "I was helpless as a moth in a raging stream in her arms made powerful by years of flycasting."
WB: I like that line.
GK: You don't think it's awkward?
WB: I worked for days on that line.
GK: Oh.
WB: It's a good line.
GK: How about here ---- "She leaned so close, he could count her eyelashes. 'You care so much you don't dare show how much you care,' she whispered, lighting a cigarette held loosely between her long tapering fingers with the crimson nail polish that for some reason brought to mind the hat of someone he had met once in Atlantic City or could it have been Baltimore."
WB: What's wrong?
GK: It just seems like maybe it could be tightened up a little.
WB: Who died and made you the Editor of the World? Huh? When did you become Jonathan Galassi?
GK: Well, you asked for my opinion.
WB: I didn't ask for you to be stomping on my heart and spitting on my soul, did I?
GK: I'm only offering suggestions. Read this line here.
WB: What?
GK: "He laughed bitterlyff"
WB: "He laughed bitterly. "Ha ha ha ha ha." It was the longest moment of his life, or one of the longest. Probably one of the top ten longest. At least No. 3 or 4. Her husky voice made the hair on his legs tingle. He walked to the window and looked out at the long shadows like accusing fingers, the sun setting, as it had every single day through the long sweep of time on our planet, our home in the universe, our beautiful bluish globe" ---What are you looking at me like that for?
GK: Looking at you like what?
WB: With that contemptuous look on your lips----
GK: I'm just listening----
WB: You are not, you're sneering at me.
GK: I am not.
WB: You're no authority. What gives you the right? Huh? Where do you get off ? Huh? You big bully. You---- (WB WINDS UP AND SLUGS GUY, GK OOFFF. SLOW RECOVERY)
GK: You know---- I didn't ask to see your book, mister.
WB: Okay, maybe it needs a little polishing---- but it doesn't need to be ripped to pieces-----
GK: Fine. Then go polish.
WB: I'm sick of you critics, you're like wolves, waiting for one of the herd to get tired and fall behind and then you leap on him and rip him to shreds.
GK: I did not rip anything to pieces.
WB: You were sniping at it.
GK: It's a little confused----
WB: Confused???? What are you talking about?
GK: Well, in chapter one, we're racing down the West Side highway with a tenor from the Met named Jimmy Bohn and then we're in Queens looking for stolen diamonds hidden in a boombox and then we're in Central Park with fashion model Jessica Adams hanging by a rope from a precipice and fighting off an attack by rabid fruit bats. And then there's a tugboat coming into harbor under the Verrazano Bridge with a poet deckhand in the bow. And suddenly there's somebody named Earl Montrose talking about how he needs to go out for a sesame bagel and cream cheese with scallions. It's not easy for the reader to follow all this----
WB: I take it you never heard of postmodernism.
GK: I don't think-----
WB: I take it you're stuck in the old linear style of narrative----
GK: Well, I just----
WB: You're completely unqualified to judge anything, as far as I can tell, Mr. Noir.
GK: You know, I just have to point out----
WB: You're out of your depth here.
GK: Mr. DeBris-----
WB: You just plain don't get it, do you, Mr. Smart Pants? Well, get this--- (HE WINDS UP, SOCKS GUY, GK OOF)
GK: Okay, I get it.
WB: Next time you want to look down your nose at somebody's hard work, think twice.
GK: Yes, sir.
WB: You and your supercilious attitude. You make me sick.
GK: I liked your first line.
WB: I'm cutting it. First thing when I get home. Out it goes. (DOOR SLAM) (BRIDGE)
GK: It was so nice and peaceful after he left, I was about to lie down and take a little nap. (RING) Nice thing about a small hotel room, you don't have to get up to answer the phone. (PICKUP) Yeah---- Noir here.
TR (ON PHONE): Yeah, this is Earl Lundberg back in Minneapolis. Just wondering how you're doin' with my daughter then.
GK: Well, it's a gradual thing, Mr. Lundberg. Rome wasn't built in a day. We're seeing signs of progress. I continue to be hopeful. Let's give it a few more months.
TR (ON PHONE): Okay. ---- You don't think they're shacked up together, do you?
GK: No, no. She's at the Barbizon Hotel for Young Women, Mr. Lundberg. Nice place. Very closely supervised. Lights out at 10:30.
TR (ON PHONE): So they're just sort of dating then?
GK: At the East Village Teen Rec center. Nice place. It's got everything. Games. Ping pong, darts, board games, Parcheesi ---- there's a stamp collectors' nook ---- a little library ---- there's square dancing----
TR (ON PHONE): Okay. Good to know. Well, lemme know how it's goin then.
GK: I will then.
TR (ON PHONE): Bye now. (BRIDGE)
GK: I lay on the bed, thinking about my good luck --- to be in New York on somebody else's dime ----- all expenses paid. I imagined walking through Central Park (TRAFFIC PASSING) and finding a beautiful woman suspended on a precipice fighting off fruit bats (BATS FLYING) ----
SS (OFF): Help! Help!
GK: Having a problem with fruit bats, are you?
SS (OFF): Please! Help me!
GK: I'll just use my bat whistle. (HIGH PITCHED SQUEAL) Disorients them. (BATS FLYING OFF) See? Simple.
SS (OFF): How do I get down from here?
GK: Jump.
SS (OFF): It's so far----
GK: I'll catch you. In my arms.
SS (OFF): Are you sure? Okay. One, two, three----- (SHE FALLS, HE CATCHES HER)
GK: Four. There you are.
SS: You're so strong. I've always had a thing about older men with great big wild eyebrows. I think I'm starting to fall in love. (A LONG RAVENOUS KISS)
GK: She kissed me so hard my eyeballs squeaked. A tenor walked past (TR TENOR) carrying a boombox (HIP HOP RHYTHM) and a guy looking for a bagel.
TR: Hi, I'm Earl Montrose. Where's the closest deli?
GK: And out in the harbor, the Edna May (BOAT ENGINE) came chugging under the Verrazano with a deckhand standing in the prow. A poet.
TR: O Manhattan city of many hats, O many-hatted city-----
GK: As Jessica and I watched from the deck of the S.S. Lusitania heading for Marseilles----- (OCEAN LINER HORN)
SS: I've never been to Europe. Have you, Guy?
GK: Many times, babes. Many times.
SS: What do you say when you go in a restaurant? How do you order?
GK: Don't worry, kid. I'll order for you.
TR: Your martini, sir. And a lemonade for the lady.
GK: Thanks, Antoine. And here's a ten spot for you.
(MUSIC)
TR: A dark night in a city that keeps its secrets, and there on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions, Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(MUSIC OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2002