(THEME)
TR: 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 February, that cold gray month and I was scraping bottom. I'd taken temporary employment as a career counselor at the Indiana University School of Music. A dirty job but somebody has to do it. And tell people: the classical music world is shrinking even as the quality of players is going up so some of you bassoonists are probably going to have to find a job behind a desk. (VIOLIN PAGANINI) That's very nice, kid, but you can't make a living playing Paganini. You want to make a living with a violin, kid, you better learn to play and walk at the same time. And dodge waiters with big trays. And play the Anniversary Waltz (WALTZ). And stand by a table and play Happy Birthday. Think you can do that? (HAPPY BIRTHDAY VARIATION) And remember, there'll be people singing it so you have to play it a little flat. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FLAT) And people are going to request "La Bamba" so you better learn it. (LA BAMBA) And "Edelweiss". (EDELWEISS) I liked Bloomington. A very pleasant place for the most part. Not much angst going on. No deserted alleys with broken glass underfoot. No crime of great consequence. Until I met a woman named Brandi. (ORCH VILLAINOUS STRINGS) GK: She called herself Christina Brothers but her real name was Brandi. She was a violist. And she was bad. She was selling illegal hair steroids to string players. (HURRIED AND URGENT) I found her in a seedy hotel room with a man named Bill, empty bottles all over the place. She had a bag over her hair, Bill was mixing up the steroids in a plastic bowl. (SFX)
SS: Fine. You caught me. I'm using steroids. So what?
FN (FEY): Head to the left.
SS: So what's it to you, gumshoe? All string players use the stuff. (GUN COCKS)
GK: I can't help but notice that you have a revolver in your right hand and it's pointed at me, Miss Brothers.
FN (FEY): Head up and turn to the left.
SS: Hair is everything to a string player. If your hair isn't vibrant and attractive, you don't stand a chance.
GK: Is that gun loaded? I'm only asking--
SS: I guess there's only one way to find out.
GK: No, no -- there are other ways. You just look in the -- here, let me have a look-- what's wrong?
SS: What are you going to do with it?
GK: You're a violist, Miss Brothers. Violists shouldn't carry loaded weapons.
FN (FEY): Look down please--
SS: Don't make a move, Noir, or I'll blow a hole in your bodice.
GK: Just hand me the gun Miss Brothers.
SS: You seem to be perspiring, Mr. Noir. Rather heavily. It's sort of gratifying for a violist like me to see what holding a pistol in her right hand can do.
GK: It is. I'm perspiring because I see that cougar on the windowsill--
SS: Cougar? Where? (OFF) I don't see a--
(HURRIED AND URGENT, STRUGGLE)
GK: Okay. I've got the revolver and I'm looking inside the cylinder and it's not loaded and so -- there we are -- I'll just put the gun back in your purse, Miss Brothers, and we can (GUNSHOT, GLASS BREAKAGE)-- sorry. You okay?
FN (FEY): There-- we'll just let that sit for 20 minutes- (NEUTRAL TRANSITION)
GK: I reported the hair steroid scam to the Dean of the School of Music Gwyn Richards. He was 6'6 and looked like Superman, which I suppose is useful when your first name is Gwyn.
TR (WELSH): The Music School is in serious trouble.
GK: Oh?
TR (WELSH): Four years ago we got a two-hundred fifty million dollar gift to build a recreation center for string players. And against my better judgement, we built it. And guess what-- the quality of our string players has gone down. (VILLAINOUS STRINGS)
GK: I took a look at the place. (ECHOING FOOTSTEPS) It was vast. Thirty-six bowling alleys. (SFX) Basketball courts. (SFX) Handball, racquetball, (SFX) two swimming pools (DIVE). One with dolphins (SFX), one without. (PING PONG) And ping-pong tables and (VIDEO GAME) video games and a rifle range (SFX) and a 24-hour gourmet buffet (SERIES OF SPLORTS AND PLOPS) and an open bar (CORKSCREW, POP OF CORK, POURING)--
SS: Hello. I am Pepper Papadopoulos, Mr. Noir. I'm the manager of the Pete and Patty Peterson Performance Space.
GK: Performance space? Looks more like a playpen to me.
SS: It's a performance space, presented by Pete and Patty in perpetuity for the pleasure of string players.
GK: Wait a minute. I know you. From Kansas City But your name wasn't Papadopoulous then. (WAH WAH WAH) You were the assistant assessor of Post-Impressionist Art at the Art Institute of Kansas City.
SS: You're wrong. I'm an economist. I was chief economist at the Menomonie Economy Dichotomy Committee.
GK: A Wisconsin economist. Ha. Try Miami.
SS: I don't know what you're talking about.
GK: You sold salami in Miami for your sister Salome's brother Tommy but then he got chummy with Naomi from Milwaukee and when Salome went for a tonsillectomy he left Salome in Miami and moved to Milwaukee with Naomi.
SS: I'm an economist, Noir. I won the Pulitzer Prize for the principles of perpetual prosperity.
GK: And what are the principles of perpetual prosperity?
SS: You get people to pre-pay.
GK: That's preposterous. Poppycock.
SS: The public policy committee of the Pulitzer Prize didn' think so.
GK: A bunch of pompous pipsqueaks.
SS: A preponderance of public policy people say the proprietary pre-pay principle is proper and perspicatious.
GK: That doesn't make it papal law printed on papyrus. (UNSETTLED PIZZ) And then I heard something from the next room and I slipped away and down the hall. It was coming from a locked door marked Electrical: Danger: Stay Out -- but using my credit card and a wad of gum and a bobby pin, I managed to open it in less than the time it takes to tell about it. (DOOR OPEN)(VIOLIN PLAYING SCALES SLOWLY, VERY SHARP)A young man was playing the violin and another man strapped to a chair was struggling to get free. (TR ARABIC CRIES OF PAIN).
GK: And then another fellow picked up a banjo (FN BANJO PLAYING DIXIE OVER VIOLIN SCALES) and then a bagpiper walked in (FN BAGPIPE) and then the man in the chair, weeping, in terrible pain, tugged at the uniform of a woman sitting next to him, who had a pen and a legal pad.
(TR ARABIC)
SS (FLEXNER, TRANSLATING): I, Ahmar Ahmar, confess that I plotted the subprime mortgage crisis in an attempt to bring down the satanic banking industry. I plotted the defeat of Mayor Giuliani and I instigated the Writers Guild strike and I kept the Mitt Romney campaign going so as to distract America from the war against terror. It was I who put the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder.
GK: Wow. You're getting some great results, Lieutenant.
SS (FLEXNER): Who are you?
GK: Noir's the name. Private investigator. (FOOTSTEPS) Same line of work, different techniques. So you gave up waterboarding, huh?
SS (FLEXNER): Waterboarding was so messy, compared to the violin. We've been getting confessions in just hours instead of weeks. Now we know who killed Jimmy Hoffa and who caused all the problems with Microsoft Windows.
GK: Well, keep at him, Lieutenant. Maybe eventually we'll find out who stuck that needle in Roger Clemens. (ALL IS WELL) The rec center, as it turned out, was financed by Homeland Security, to distract students from practicing -- since bad violin playing had turned out to be crucial to American security. I was on my way to tell the Dean when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
SS (BREATHLESS): Hi. I'm Heather. I play the bassoon.
GK: Well, that is one lucky bassoon, Heather. (LUXURIANT WONDER)
She was wearing a black silk blouse which she had neglected to button all the way to the top. And jeans, preshrunk by somebody who must have measured her legs with a caliper. --
SS: Heather Harper. From Hawaii. And you are--?
GK: Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered.
SS: Is that, like, a law firm?
GK: No, it's a song. Come here and let me sing it to you.
SS: What do you do, Mr. Noir?
GK: I do a lot of things. Some of which I haven't done for a long time but am anxious to try again. Mostly, I'm a private eye.
SS: Really? a private eye?
GK: Yeah.
SS: That's funny. I've been looking for a private eye myself.
GK: Well, here I am. Ready to travel, low rates.
SS: It's my boyfriend. Leon. He's been acting mysterious lately. I wonder if maybe he's been seeing someone else on the side.
GK: Heather, if he's seeing someone else, it oughta be a shrink.
SS: He's a violinist.
GK: Well, there might be the problem.
SS: I went to his apartment to return his laundry. I wash it and then I fluff and fold. He was gone.
GK: Drop him, would be my advice. A violinist is nobody to trust, Heather.
FN: Heather?
SS: Leon!
FN: I was looking all over for you.
SS: I was looking for you.
GK: Excuse me.
FN: Let's go play duets.
SS: Let's.
GK: Bassoon and violin?
FN: We'll come up with something.
(THEME)
TR: 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)