(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 (DOG SNARLING) ---- get away ---- get away from me (DOG SNARLING) ---- hey, let go of that ---- (DOG SNARLING) ---- that's my script! ----- (DOG SNARL, RIP, (THEME UP AND FADE)
GK: Noir's the name. Guy Noir. It was a dark night, October, and I was on the case of a young woman who had written a memoir and lost her iPad and I'd found it in the bus station and I'd just come back to my apartment at the Shropshire Arms and was thinking about supper (FLY CIRCLES) --- and I saw the old housefly who's been around since July. Hey. (FLY) You're supposed to live about one month --- What's going on? (WEAK FLY) You're supposed to die. Want me to help? (FLY) Want me to hit you with the sports section or lifestyle?
SS: Hi, Mr. Noir.
GK: Whoaaaaaaaa---- (CLINK OF UTENSIL) Mona! What're you doing here???
SS: Hi. Surprised to see me?
GK: You scared the stuffing out of me.
SS: I didn't think guys like you ever got scared.
GK: Guys like me were born scared, Mona.
SS: I came to see about my iPad.
GK: The iPad with your memoir in it---- I just found it tonight. In the ladies room of the bus station.
SS: Oh wow. Thanks. How much do I owe you?
GK: Well, let me figure it out. A hundred bucks for labor. Fifty bucks for an extra large dress and high heels, ten bucks for the wig.....Mona, what's the revolver for?
SS: I'm going to put it in the memoir. The book needs action. Gunshots, a police chase. It's too introspective. Hand it over. Now. (STING)
GK: You shouldn't be messing around with guns, Mona. You're an English major. Violence is only a metaphor to you. You're likely to accidentally shoot a cloud or a childhood memory.
SS: Give me the iPad.
GK: Listen to me---- your memoir is fine, as is ---- the part about your painful adolescence, how it felt to be chubby, the bad boyfriends, how your English professor encouraged you----
SS: Anyway, I want it back.
GK: Well, let me look around and find it. Sorry, the place is a mess. (RUMMAGING) (BRIDGE) : She stood facing me, pistol in hand, and didn't see the fly who was hovering up near her left ear, who seemed to be fascinated by her earrings. And when he flew into her ear, (SS SHOCK, GUN DROPS ON FLOOR) the gun fell to the floor and I grabbed it.
SS: What was that???!!!! A housefly???!!!! OMG. Give me my iPad.
GK: Mona, if there's one thing I'd change in the memoir ---- I'd take out the part about your parents owning a summer house in Connecticut and sending you and your siblings to private schools. You could lose that. And also the picture of your tattoo.
SS: That's going to be the cover!!!!
GK: It's not a very good tattoo.
SS: I'm naked in that picture. You didn't notice that? That's what's going to sell the book, Dummy.
TR (RICO): Yeah, Dummy. Drop the gun, Noir, or I'm gonna have to ruin that nice houndstooth sportcoat of yours with a big exit hole.
GK: Rico! You're involved in this?
SS: He's my agent.
GK: Your what? He's no agent. He's a penny-ante scam artist and a swindler and a----- and a----
TR (RICO): The word you're looking for is agent. Me. Mister Ten Percent.
GK: Where did you find this creep, Mona?
SS: I put out a call on my Twitter feed and he tweeted back.
GK: You've got no heart, Rico---- to take advantage of a writer----
TR (RICO): Hand over the iPad with the memoir, Noir. And keep your opinions to yourself.
GK: Okay. There you go. (HAND-OFF) You're making a big mistake, Mona.
TR (RICO): Don't listen to him, kid. He don't know nothing. (BRIDGE)
GK: She stood there and her eyes burned with anger.
SS: My parents were artists, teachers, liberals---- they were such idealists, always doing good things for other people--- I could hardly breathe ---- so I turned to galloping narcissism as a way to be my own person.
GK: Couldn't come up to their standards, huh?
FN: Well, we're very proud of you, Mona. Both your mom and I.
SS: DAD! Where'd you come from?
FN: We're looking forward to reading your memoir, honey. As soon as it comes out and you send us a copy.
TR (RICO): Well, la di da. Ain't that sweet. Step aside, Pops. No sudden moves from you.
FN: A gun is no match for the force of non-violent resistance, mister---- hand over my daughter's iPad.
TR (RICO): Oh yeah? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
SS (MOM): Take a look behind you, Mister. He's non-violent, I'm not. This shotgun is loaded. Both barrels.
SS: Mom!!!!
SS (MOM): Hi, darling. Give me the iPad. (FLY) And shut the window, you're letting the flies in.
TR (RICO): What you want with this iPad, huh? It belongs to your daughter----
SS (MOM): It sounds to me like it needs some editing.
SS: Editing! One of my chapters has been published in the New (BEEP) Yorker (BEEP) Magazine. Jeeze. Give me a break and get out of my life. (FLY) Would somebody swat that fly, please? It's bothering me.
GK: You got a newspaper?
SS: No, I get the news off an iPad.
GK: Give me the iPad then. Thanks. (FLY, WHANG, GLASS BREAKAGE). Got him.
SS: You busted my iPad!!! My memoir! It's gone.
GK: You didn't back it up?
SS: No!
TR (RICO): Oh boy. Talk about bad timing.
FN: You can rewrite it, honey. Hemingway lost a novel on the train. Ralph Ellison lost one in a house fire.
SS: Oh shut up.
TR (RICO): We are going to sue you for damages, Noir. Five million bucks worth.
(GK SWINGS, KONK, TR GROANS AND FALLS).
SS: You- you hit my agent.
GK: I've been wanting to hit one for a long time.
FN: Come home, honey.
SS (MOM): Mr. Noir---- you were the last one to read the memoir ----- how about you try rewriting it?
GK: Okay.
SS (MOM): We'll pay you.
GK: It's a deal. (BRIDGE) So I've been busy writing Who I Really Am by Mona Fenton, which is supposed to come out next week. The only way to write a book that fast is to borrow from other writers, so I've incorporated parts of Pride and Prejudice with Jane Fonda with Nancy Drew with the Helen Keller story. I like it. Lots going on. It's a real page-turner. (FLY) And he's been reading it. I think he can read. He walks back and forth, back and forth, line by line. (SFX) He flutters his wings at the good parts. (FLY LOW BUZZ) You don't care for that? Okay, scratch it. "It was on that day I learned to trust myself and my feelings and not care what anyone thought." Okay, gone. I think this book is what is keeping him alive right now.
(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but high above the empty streets, 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. (MUSIC OUT)