(GUY NOIR THEME & SONG)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but 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 the week after Thanksgiving and I was in New York to work security for the opera diva Renata Flambe who was about to do a world-wide live opera videocast from Madison Square Garden on New Year's Eve. I went up to her mansion on Fifth Avenue with its stone turrets and boulders and piazza, and the tour buses passing slowly by----- (TR P.A.: On your right the home of Renata Flambee, the soprano, and below is the dungeon where she kept her tenors) and I rang the bell (TOLLS THREE TIMES) and a dwarf appeared----
FN (DWARF): Hi. I'm Miss Flambe's dwarf. Do you have an appointment or shall I stab you in the ankle?
GK: I'm Guy Noir, Miss Flambe is waiting to see me.
FN (DWARF): Are you the interior decorator whose coming was foretold to me?
GK: No, I'm a private eye.
FN (DWARF): So you don't know about window treatments?
GK: Never treated one in my life. Sorry.
FN (DWARF): This way. (FOOTSTEPS, LONG SEQUENCE) Watch out for the viper. (HISS) (FOOTSTEPS, SEQUENCE) Beware of the mastiff.
GK: Where? (BLOODTHIRSTY SNARLING) (FAST FOOTSTEPS. STOP. KNOCK ON ENORMOUS DOOR) (DOOR OPENS) (FOOTSTEPS)
GK: Miss Flambe, the name is Noir, I'm your security detail--- anything you want----
RF: I need you to keep the press away. I have a big secret. My voice is gone. I can't sing a note. See? (EXHALE WITH SLIGHT LOW NOTE)
GK: That's it?
RF: That's all. And this. (EXHALE WITH WHIMPERY HIGHER NOTE).
GK: Have you seen a doctor?
TR (RUSSIAN): Yes. She has seen me. Dr. Nikolai Sergeivich Nikolsonuvabich. Madame is suffering from a crisis of the soul and also from consumption.
GK: Consumption!!??
TR (RUSSIAN): Consumption of cranberries.
RF: I couldn't help myself.
GK: So what's the opera you're singing at Madison Square Garden on New Year's Eve?
RF: It's an operetta. By Straus.
GK: Johann?
RF: Lester. Die Biergarten Ausgeschloss.
GK: Never heard of it.
RF: They're paying me sixteen million dollars for three hours of work.
GK: But what is it?
RF: It's an operetta. A piece of Viennese strudel with dukes in wigs and ladies in big gowns and bodices and a silly little plot about a conniving landlord and a missing handkerchief and there's waltzing and fireworks and Lippizaner horses and I only have to sing four numbers.
GK: For sixteen million?
RF: I know. It's outrageous. And they want to do another one on Valentine's Day.
GK: Well, I think we need to get you to a throat doctor.
TR (RUSSIAN): I am her doctor. I prescribe rest and steam baths and gallons of birchbark tea-----
RF: Go to the solarium, Mr. Noir. I'll meet you there. (STING BRIDGE)
GK: The solarium was at the other end of the mansion, over a drawbridge and past a den of lions(SFX) And a peasant maiden grinding corn (SS INNOCENCE, SFX) There was a thunderstorm. (THUNDER) And two men dueling (SFX) and an enormous flaming torch (SFX) and a blacksmith (HAMMERING IRON) and there was an old peasant woman who approached me.
SS: Hello. Can I trust you with a secret?
GK: Of course.
SS: If you betray me, I will put a curse on you.
GK: What sort of curse?
SS: I will make sure that the Minnesota Twins will not go to the World Series and the Minnesota Vikings will not go to the Super Bowl for a very long time.
GK: Well, I can live with that. What's the secret?
SS: My mistress, Madame Flambe, is under the spell of bad management. You must rescue her.
GK: From her manager?
SS: Yes, his name is Heinrich Fleischhund Boink-geschaft.
GK: Boink-Geschaft. I never heard that name before.
SS: I wish I had never heard it. Mr. Boink-Geschaft was the one who persuaded her to do the commercial for Karo corn syrup----
GK: Really?
SS: You've heard it?
GK: No.
SS: Listen.
RF (SINGS):
O mio babbino Karo
Corn syrup in a jar.
SS: And then there was the shoe commercial----
RF (SINGS):
How beautiful are the feet of them in shoes by Jimmy Choo.
(BRIDGE)
GK: My gosh, and he talked her into this?
SS: Did you hear her commercial for Wesson Oil?
GK: No.
RF (SINGS): Wesson's warmer,
Wesson's warmer.
It's purer than canola,
As good as olive oil.
GK: Who is this Heinrich Boink-Schaft? (STING) She was just about to tell me when a flying dragon came upon us (SHRIEK OF FLYING DRAGON, FLAP OF ENORMOUS WINGS) and she had to fight him off with a pitchfork (SS EFFORTS, SWINGS, DRAGON SHRIEK) and eventually she got the dragon down on the ground (SS FIGHTING, DRAGON) and she opened a gallon jar of peanut butter and scooped out handfuls of it (SFX) and threw it in his mouth and (SFX) dragons are not used to peanut butter. He hated the taste (SFX) and he had a peanut allergy( SFX) and he couldn't get it off the roof of his mouth (SFX). I think he was sort of relieved when she killed him. (BIG THRUST, DRAGON CROAKS) So----- peasant woman-----
SS: Yes???????
GK: Who is this Heinrich Fleischhund Boink-Geschaft?
TR (GERMAN): I believe you are looking for me???? (STING)
GK: He was a manager all right. He carried a small whip (SFX) and flicked it against his riding boots. He wore a monocle in his left eye and held the leash of a Rottweiler in his right hand. (LOW GROWLS)
TR (GERMAN): I have taken Miss Flambe out of the ranks of opera and brought her to the verge of world domination, Mr. Noir. Her net worth is an estimated four-hundred-fifty million dollars, thanks to me, and by this time a year from now, she will be the first soprano to become a billionaire.
GK: A short man stood next to him.
TR (BLOOMBERG): Hi, you may remember me, Mike Bloomberg. I am advising Miss Flambee on her investments and for your information, she is putting everything into blue chip stocks.
TR (KISSINGER): I am her secretary and thanks to me she is now the most famous western woman in China. One and one-third billion people are listening to her music. We are selling T-shirts, DVDs, BVDs, SUVs, you name it. It's huge.
TR (INDIAN): And also in my country too, Miss Flambe is very very important. One and a quarter billion people. And that is not chopped liver. (BRIDGE)
GK: I returned to the mansion the next day and Miss Flambe's voice was back to normal. She had been given a potion by a witch (SS CACKLE) and she inhaled the steam (SS: BREATHE, MY PRETTY. BREATHE) and she could sing again.
RF: (SINGS SCALE, FLAT) A little more. (STEAM)
SS: THERE, TRY THAT.
RF: (SINGS SCALE, SHARP) Too much.
SS: Okay, again.
RF (SINGS SCALE, PERFECTLY) Thank you.
GK: So you've been cured.
RF: Yes, but my heart has been broken. I just heard that I've been passed over for the Kennedy Center Honors --- they're giving it to Adele----- instead of me----- why Adele? What's going on down there in Washington?
GK: Millions of Americans have wondered the same thing, Miss Flambe. This year's honorees are Adele, Bjork, Cher, Dion, Enya, Fabian, and Geraldo. Washington is cutting back.
RF: Well, when I'm a billionaire, I'll donate a pile of money to them and they'll rename it the Flambee Center Honors and people will be brought to Washington to be flambeed.
GK: It happens already in Congressional hearings. (BRIDGE) That was Monday. I left her mansion and didn't hear from her again until the other day I was on the uptown B train from 42nd Street.
(DOOR OPEN. CROWD MURMURS. FN: STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS, PLEASE. (DOORS CLOSE) (TRAIN ROLLS)
RF: PEOPLE! I want to wish you all a very happy holiday and if you can find it in your hearts to put some spare change in my cup, I'd be so grateful, and so would my children. (SHE SINGS)
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
All of my investments, falling like a stone;
I was once a millionaire, and now I am broke,
In the bleak midwinter, that is not a joke.
GK: Miss Flambee-----
RF: Oh. It's you.
GK: I'm sorry. What happened to your blue chip stocks?
RF: Ha! They were blue tortilla chips. Worthless now.
GK: And the Biergarten Ausgeschloss----
RF: I never saw a penny. The promoters skipped town.
GK: But your commercials----
RF: They cancelled the contracts. I yelled at a child and the video went viral on the Internet.
GK: I'm sorry.
RF: It was my own child and I've been yelling at her for years, but it didn't matter.
GK: And what about China----India----
RF: Easy come, easy go.
GK: The DVDs, BVDs, SUVs?
RF: LOL. ROFLMAO.
GK: So what are you going to do now?
RF: I've been hired to sing on a radio show on Saturday.
GK: A radio show????
RF: I know. But I'm desperate.
GK: Which show?
RF: I forget the name. The Home On The Prairie, I think.
GK: I thought that was over years ago.
RF: I did too.
GK: Renata?
RF: What?
GK: Marry me.
RF: You mean it?
GK: Sure. I'll take care of you. I'll get you work. I know people.
RF: Sorry.
GK: No?
RF: I'm just not that kind of girl.
GK: Okay. Here. Here's ten bucks. Good luck. Bye.
FN: STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS PLEASE. ----
(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions.....Guy Noir, Private Eye.