TR (ANNC): A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But one man is trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME)
GK: It was April, and I was in New York, working on a job for the Metropolitan Museum of Art who had received a gift of 78 cubist paintings ----- Picasso, Braque, Leger, and Juan Gris ----- worth an estimated one billion dollars, and it was a gift of historic proportions, but there was one problem.
FN (NYER): Mr. Noir, this Wyndham Wharton in shipping and receiving at the Met. The truck with the 78 cubist paintings came today, but the paintings weren't cubist.
GK: No?
FN (NYER): No, they were paintings of bears.
GK: Not Picassos?
FN (NYER): Bears dancing in the woods. Bears at a picnic. Bears on bicycles. Bears parachuting from airplanes. Etcetera.
GK: Who delivered them?
FN (NYER): A man in a truck.
GK: Was there an address on the boxes?
FN (NYER): Our address.
GK: And there were 78 of them?
FN (NYER): Correct.
GK: And you don't think there was.....
FN (NYER): No, there wasn't.
GK: Or that someone might've.....
FN (NYER): We looked into that.
GK: Or any possibility that.....
FN (NYER): No.
GK: So there's a billion dollars worth of cubist art drifting around New York.
FN (NYER): Correct. And the mayor is going to be here in one hour along with the donor of the cubist paintings to make the announcement. And if I can't come up with 78 cubist paintings by then, I will be sliced up into cubes and served up on toast. (STING, BRIDGE)
GK: I figured it was an honest mistake. An invoice got misplaced. Wrong labels. Rather than a theft. Just to be sure, I called a fence named Benny.
TR (GODFATHER): Any art heists, they come through me, if someone boosted it, it'd be right here in Jersey City, and we ain't seen no cubist art around here. What is cubist art anyway?
GK: It's an artistic idiom that expresses reality in abstract structure that displays several aspects or perspectives simultaneously in the form of cubes.
(PAUSE)
TR (GODFATHER): Oh.
GK: And the simultaneity suggests a Fourth Dimensionality.
TR (GODFATHER): Right. Ain't seen none of that.
GK: Well, let me know if you do.
TR (GODFATHER): You got it. (BRIDGE)
GK: I visited the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street to see if possibly they'd received shipment on some cubist art and(TRAFFIC, PASSING PEDESTRIANS) I found a demolition crew out on the sidewalk. (ENGINE REV)
TR (NYER): TAKE IT OUT, JIMMY.
GK: What are you doing? (ENGINE REV, WINCH)
TR (NYER): Step back ----
GK: What are you doing?
TR (NYER): Knocking it down.
GK: The Museum of Modern Art??? You can't do that.
TR (NYER): TAKE IT OUT, JIMMY. (ENGINE REV)
GK: It received architecture awards.
TR (NYER): Not from me. (CRASH AND CRUNCH, BREAKING GLASS, ENGINE REV, CRUNCH AND CRASH) (BRIDGE)
GK: The demolition of the building was like a cubist movie, glass shattering and falling and reflecting the sky (SFX), and I headed over to Times Square, which has its own cubist identity. It makes me feel like a cube. A square one. (CELLPHONE RING) (PICK UP) Yeah? Noir here.
TR (GODFATHER): Yeah, it's me. Benny. Listen, I got an associate over there on 49th Street who is missing a big shipment of paintings. His name is Joey and he sells T-shirts and snow globes and he ordered a shipment of bear paintings. Seventy-eight of them. All kinds of bears. Some of 'em with hair.
GK: Where is he?
TR (GODFATHER): Little hole in the wall offa Times Square. (STING, BRIDGE)
GK: I got down there as fast as I could. (FAST FOOTSTEPS)
GK: Hi. I'm Noir. Benny sent me. Is Joey here?
SS: No, I'm his wife. Mrs. Joey.
GK: You expecting him back soon?
SS: No, he's really upset ---- he ordered 78 paintings of bears cause he loves bears, you know ----- and they brought in this other crap ----- buncha amateur stuff by Georges Brack-you and Jew-an Griss and somebody named Pickass.
GK: Right.
SS: Who is Pickass?
GK: Well, listen, I think I know where your paintings are, so how about I take these off your hands and I'll pay you a hundred bucks for your trouble and we'll deliver the bear paintings in an hour?
SS: Okay, but how do I know you're legit?
GK: I'm doing you a favor. Why would I want to take this junk and give you back your paintings if I wasn't legit?
SS: I'd like to see the bear paintings first.
GK: I'll get them here in half an hour.
SS: You know what would improve this Pick-ass would be if I sprayed some glitter on it----- (SPRAY) ---- Now that brightens it up, doesn't it? (SPRAY)
GK: Please don't do that.
FN: Hey, how much is this picture?
GK: Who are you? Get away from that. It's not for sale.
FN: Who are you?
GK: I just bought it.
SS: You did?
GK: Here's twenty bucks.
FN: Twenty-five.
GK: Forty.
FN: Forty-five.
GK: Fifty.
FN: Sixty.
GK: Beat it.
FN: I like that painting. It looks like a (HAND OVER MOUTH)-----
SS: What'd he say?
GK: He said he'll see you later. (CELLPHONE RING, PICKUP) Yeah, Noir here?
TR (BLOOMBERG): Mr. Noir, this is Mayor Bloomberg. As you may know, a number of New York officials were arrested this week on charges of corruption. Not me, other people. And if we allow 78 cubist paintings to be swiped from under our noses, the name of New York will be blackened across the country. We will be compared to Chicago, a city of petty thugs and confused hot dogs. Find that art, Mr. Noir.
GK: I have, Mr. Mayor. And I'm trying to protect it from someone who is trying to swipe it.
TR (BLOOMBERG): Okay. I see him on my video screen. Have him move a few feet to his left. On top of that manhole cover.
GK: Where are you calling from? Can you see me?
TR (BLOOMBERG): I have cameras.
GK: Sir---- would you mind standing over here?
FN: What's the problem?
GK: No problem. Just stand there. Thank you very much. (CLANK, FN CRY OF FALLING. CLANK SHUT)
TR (BLOOMBERG): Is he gone?
GK: He's gone, sir.
TR (BLOOMBERG): Good. I'm on my way.
GK: And by the time I'd paid $60 for the Picasso, I saw the Mayor flying down from the sky, the red cape around his shoulders (DESCENT, FLUTTERING, AND STOPS)
TR (BLOOMBERG): Hi. Came as fast as I could but you know, it's getting hard to find phone booths to change clothes in.
GK: And that's how the cubist art wound up at the Met, a billion dollars worth. The Met paid me a couple T-shirts and the donor, Leonard Lauder, gave me an envelope that I assumed would have a check in it but it was a ziplock bag filled with samples of his skincare products. Oh well. I still have the Picasso I bought for $60. I expect to hear from them shortly.
(THEME)
TR (ANNC): A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But one man is trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME OUT)