(GUY NOIR 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 UNDER....)
GK: It was May in Minnesota and the ice was slowly receding into the woods. It was still cold. Some tulips who jumped the gun had to be rescued and some migratory songbirds had to be stopped at the Iowa border. Crime was pretty low, people were just too depressed to even think about it. An enormous bald man in black Spandex shorts was found wandering around town talking to himself----
TR (JESSE): Rest assured, I will find out who I am and when I do, you jackals of the media wll be the last to know----- (FADING) Hooya----
GK: He was picked up and returned to the Old Governors Home. (BRIDGE) I was in Washington, working for a guy I used to know, a former private eye named Slim Testerone-----
TR: Hey. Glad you could come. It's like old times.
GK: How's that?
TR: You, me, Bugs, Tony, all the old crowd who used to hang around the Kit-Kat Club and watch the sun come up ---- we're all here in Washington now.
GK: I only came because I'm desperate, Slim. No-fault divorce pretty much wiped out the private eye business. Now I spend my days trailing guys who won big insurance settlements for back injuries and I watch to see if they pick up anything heavy. What kind of life is that?
TR: I got plenty of work for you right here in Washington.
GK: Doing what?
TR: It's an election year. There are people willing to pay lots o' cabbage for a little dirt on their opponents.
GK: Like what?
TR: I got a Congresswoman up for re-election ---- I hear she likes eating snails.
GK: Snails?
TR: Escargot.
GK: So?
TR: The district she comes from is not a big escargot district. It's more of a tunafish district. Canned tunafish.
GK: What does that have to do with anything?
TR: We get a photograph of her digging into a snail with a tiny fork and the headline is "Congresswoman Devours Expensive French Insects While Working Families Struggle To Find Health Care" ----- nice, huh? Or she orders frog legs and the headline is "Congresswoman Chews On Kermit While Classroom Sizes Increase".
GK: And this stuff works?
TR: The country is divided, Noir. 49-49: anything that can change the minds of 200 people becomes an issue. Eating French food is an issue.
GK: This isn't politics as we learned it in high school civics, is it.
TR: No, it isn't. You know how much your civics teacher earned in a year? Huh? Well, I earn that in one week. And so can you. You like money?
GK: I do. I've become very fond of it as it becomes more rare.
TR: Good. Here's ten nice new hundred dollar bills. The name of the restaurant is Elysees. I reserved you a table in the corner. The Congresswoman eats there every day. See what you can do. (BRIDGE) (RESTAURANT AMBIENCE)
GK: The Elysee Cafe is on Capitol Hill, a few blocks from the Rayburn Office Building, so it was full of Members of Congress who you could recognize by the exhaustion on their faces. I bumped into one by the cash register and by sheer reflex he whirled around and said----
FN (SOUTHERN): Hi there. Glad you could come. Your support means a lot to me. Appreciate it and if there's anything I can do, here's my card. ----- Oh.----- Sorry.
GK: That's all right.
FN (SOUTHERN): Forgot where I was. (FADING) Sorry.
TR (FRENCH): Monsieur Noir----- (FRENCH) (FOOTSTEPS)
GK: The maitre'd led me to a table about fifteen feet from where the Congresswoman sat eating a grilled cheese sandwich with one of her aides. She was dressed in green plaid slacks and a jacket from K-Mart. No jewelry. No sign of moisturizing. Briefcase was a canvas tote bag. Hair style: I guessed maybe twelve bucks, $15.95 tops. I looked around the room and I saw all the men sitting in the shadows, men like me, with tiny cameras disguised as cellphones, with tape recorders in their breast pockets. I put on my headphones and my tiny directional mike disguised as a salt shaker and I aimed it toward her and listened in to her conversation-----
SS: (FADING IN AND OUT SLIGHTLY, CHEWING FOOD, DRINKING) I wish I knew if that floor vote was coming today----- I booked myself a cheap flight at 7 p.m.
FN: Back home?
SS: Yes. I've got three meet-and-greets this weekend, four fundraisers, a radio call-in, I'm supposed to speak at an old folks home, and I have to mow my lawn.
FN: Don't forget we promised you'd run in the marathon on Sunday.
SS: Oh my gosh. I forgot all about it.
GK:. And just then the maitre'd walked up to her table with the plate of snails, as I'd paid him to do---- (TR FRENCH)
SS: What's this?
FN: Get this out of here.
GK: And I stood up to take the picture and I got a picture of a plate of snails flying through the air (CRASH OF PLATE. GK GROAN. BRIDGE) (HOSPITAL AMBIENCE) When I awoke, I was in the county hospital. And a man in a sharkskin suit was looking at me.
BE: That's a nasty bump on your noggin, Mr. Noir.
GK: How do you know my name? Who are you?
BE: I'm Agent Joe Young, FBI. I'm on the terrorist detail. Mind if I ask a few questions?
GK: It's against the law to get hit by a plate of escargot?
BE: One of the nurses said that you spoke a secret phrase in your sleep----
GK: Oh?
BE: Something like "Ollie Ollie in free"?
GK: Could be.
BE: What does that mean, "Ollie Ollie in free"? In English?
GK: It's ---- we used to say it as kids. When you were playing Hide and seek or capture the flag ---- and you had to come in for a minute, you said: Ollie ollie in free. It was like holding up a white flag.
BE: And it doesn't have anything to do with Allah? Or Islam?
GK: I don't think so. No.
BE: It doesn't mean "Allah Is Good"?
GK: How would I know?
BE: You're not part of this Al Qaeda Cicada Invasion?
GK: The what?
BE: Don't play innocent with me, mister. We're talking about biological warfare. Terrorists implanting billions of larvae in our soil. Big black bugs with red eyes and yellowish wings coming up out of the ground. What's going on? What kind of germs are they carrying? Huh? Tell me.
GK: They're carrying dumb germs. Secret IQ inhibitors. And it's too late to stop them. They've spread through Washington and now you people are going to find it hard to even balance your checkbook.
BE: You're on your way to Guantanamo, mister. (BRIDGE)
GK: But it was the government so the orders got mixed up and they sent me to Guadalajara instead. (TROPICAL BIRDS) Gave me a nice room overlooking the sea. (SURF) I woke up every morning when Consuelo brought me my coffee (SS SPANISH, TABLEWARE) and I read the newspaper, which was in Spanish, thank goodness, which I don't understand, and after awhile I went to the pool and out to the end of the diving board (PADDING IN BARE FEET, JUMPING, DIVING INTO POOL) ----- the pool was immense and it had an underwater music system (UNDERWATER CELLO PLAYING) and I did the backstroke back and forth listening to Bach and then I climbed out (WHOOSH OF WATER, PADDING OF BARE FEET) and ----
TR (SLIM): Hey.
GK: It was Slim Testarone. Sitting under an umbrella eating a pineapple. ---- With the FBI guy.
BE: How's it going?
GK: You look like a regular guest in those swim trunks. You doing surveillance?
BE: Nope. I quit the FBI and I'm a consultant now.
TR (SLIM): He's working for me and I'm taking a vacation. Been busy.
GK: Digging up dirt on people, huh?
BE: That's what we do.
GK: When did politics get so dirty?
TR (SLIM): It's always been dirty.
GK: You don't think it's gotten dirtier?
TR (SLIM): Naw, not really. What's happened is people became more self-righteous ----- they stopped smoking and started exercising and losing weight ----- and that made them less tolerant of the imperfections of politicians.
BE: Government is a business of contradictions, Noir. You can't please everybody but you have to try to convince them that you did. In a democracy, everybody gets to vote but everybody wants something different so government has to narrow down the available choices to two things that nobody wants. But if we take enough time doing it, they'll come to accept it. And that's what consultants do: we make sure it takes enough time.
GK: I miss the old days when I was a sleuth. A snoop. A shamus. When you'd get a call to come to the Shangri-La Hotel and there was a blonde in room 214 tied up with silk stockings, and her diamond pin was missing and there's a trail of birdseed and a pair of pliers and a copy of "Begin the Beguine" ---- and I'm the guy who has to figure it out and find the missing pieces. Trying to get a picture of a lady eating snails ----- it's not the same thing.
TR (SLIM): Well, what is?
GK: Some things are the same. Martinis. Beautiful women. Corvettes. (SPORTS CAR PULLS UP) ---- And who should pull up right then-----
SS: Hi, baby. Let's go for a ride. You prefer gin or vodka?
GK: You talking to me?
SS: No.
GK: Oh.
SS: Talking to this good-looking guy here.
BE: Gin for me, baby. Real dry. Nice cold glass.
SS: You like your glass cold?
BE: Like it real cold. And real dry. ----- So long, Noir.
GK: Bye.
SS: I didn't get your name----
BE: Edwards. Bob Edwards.
GK: I thought you were with the FBI.
BE: I just said I was. It was a script. Now I'm me.
SS: And I'm glad you are. I've been waking up with you for years, baby. Be nice to wake up with you again.
GK: Hey, wait----- (SPORTSCAR SPEEDS AWAY, FADES) It's not fair. And on my show----
(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a 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)