(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.
(THEME UP AND OUT)
GK: I was in New York beginning a new chapter of my life, or so I thought -- for the first time since back in the Carter administration, I had money in the bank, and I owned a home, a studio apartment in a former pickle factory on the Lower East Side, and I had a beautiful office on the 45th floor of the Galaxy Building in midtown and a regular paycheck -- I was the executive director of the American Walleye Institute, promoting walleye as a gourmet delicacy to the culinary aristocracy of New York.
TR (FRENCH): (DUBIOUS, FINICKY, TASTING, WITH MENTIONS OF "WALLEYE" AS A FOREIGN WORD)
GK: Back in Minnesota, a walleye farming industry was raising genetically-engineered 250-pound fish in ponds, and they were counting on me to make the sale in New York.
SS (FLEXNER, ON PHONE): This is Diane in shipping. We have frozen fish ready to ship -- all we need is an address. Get my drift?
GK: I'm doing my best. I tried to promote a walleye ravioli. (TR ITALIAN, SUBDUED, QUIZZICAL, TASTING, WITH "WALLEYE," THEN SPITS IT OUT) I tried everything. I tried to work the walleye sushi angle.
TR (JAPANESE: (DUBIOUS, TASTING, MENTIONS OF "WALLEYE")
GK: One of the big new trends in New York dining is Canadian cuisine. The Cafe Saskatchewan. It's the hot new restaurant in New York --
SS (CANADIAN): Oh we know all aboot walleye, Mr. Noir. That's what Canadian cuisine is all aboot -- walleye. But let me tell you something aboot walleye. Canadian walleye is aboot ten times better. So you better be aboot your business before I give you the boot. (DOOR SLAM) (BRIDGE)
GK: In the midst of my making the rounds of New York chefs came a little piece of bad news. My assistant Suzanne broke it to me.
SS: You maybe want to sit down and take a Valium, Mr. Noir.
GK: Oh?
SS: A friend of mine at the Times says they're preparing a big article for the Science section on the dangers of walleye consumption.
GK: This is the one about the enzyme in walleye making you talk slow?
SS: That's right.
GK: I thought that that particular idea had been disproven. By scientists. Where did the Times people come to think that walleye eating leads to slow speech?
SS: Are you all right?
GK: Sure. I'm fine. (BRIDGE) So we hired a p.r. guy named Bingo Baumgartner to help us out.
TR (NY): The answer is TV. We'll get you on Barbara Walters.
GK: So he did and that didn't go anywhere.
SS (BARBARA WALTERS): What is this, herring?
GK: No, that's--
SS (BARBARA): It looks like red herring.
GK: It's not, Miss--
SS (BARBARA): It looks repulsive.
GK: It's walleye.
SS (BARBARA): What? Walnuts?
GK: Walleye.
SS (BARBARA): Walleye?
GK: Yes.
SS (BARBARA): Why would I want to eat walleye?
GK: Try it.
SS (BARBARA): You try it. I would rather eat raw rhubarb. (STING, BRIDGE)
TR (NY): Okay. So Barbara didn't care for it. No prob. We'll put together a Walleye Gala -- the Waldorf Astoria -- black-tie -- strictly A-list celebrities --- how about this? Meg Ryan, Maya Rudolph, Rudolph Giuliani, Johnny Walker, Walker Percy, Paris Hilton, Julie London, Harold Rome, Florence Ballard, Memphis Minnie, Stella Dallas, Gary Indiana, Eugene Oregon, Judy Chicago, River Phoenix, Victoria de los Angeles, the Dixie Chicks, the New York Knicks--
GK: Uh. Maybe not the Knicks.
TR (NY): Okay, nix the Knicks. How about Nicole Richie, Rich Dworsky, Starsky & Hutch, Anne Heche, H & R Block, Stone Phillips, Philip Glass, Jearlyn Steele, Steely Dan, Dan Martin, Martin Sheen, Mr. Bean, Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Wendy Wasserstein, Tina Brown, Black Sabbath, White Stripes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack Black, Blue Man Group ---
GK: But if you invite Blue Man Group, then it won't be black tie.
TR (NY): Hmmm. Good point... Okay. Scratch Blue Man Group-- we'll invite Ruby Tuesday, Tuesday Weld, Joe Friday, Rick Monday, Sonny Rollins, Rollie Fingers, Horton Foote, Cool Hand Luke, Luke Perry, Dolly Parton, Martin Scorsese, Daisy Duke, Dick Tracy, Tracy Chapman, Chip McGrath, McGraw Hill, Hal Prince, Prince, Prancer, Dancer, Dasher, Vixen, Vince Gill, Gilbert & Sullivan, Steve Martin, Marvin Gardens, Marvin Gaye, George Strait, Kate Moss, Hugo Boss, Lukas Foss, Ross Perot, Roe vs. Wade, Dennis Quaid, Zadie Smith, the Smith Brothers, the Lennon Sisters, Quentin Tarantino, Tina Turner, Tommy Tune, Tony Soprano, the Three Tenors, Count Basie, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Glass, Woody Allen, Anna Karenina, Nina Totenberg, and Mayor Bloomberg.
GK: You think Mayor Bloomberg would come?
TR (NY): If Nina Totenberg comes, why not?
GK: Good logic. (BRIDGE) So I was feeling good about the walleye business, sitting behind my desk and trying to look authoritative. And then the day before the Walleye Gala, the stock of World Wide Walleye started to fluctuate wildly. (CHORDS)
SS: Sir--- Wall Street is calling.
GK: What about?
SS: Worldwide Walleye is going up and down like a teeter-totter.
GK: What do they want me to tell them?
SS: Is something fishy going on?
GK: Where's the stock now?
SS: A hundred forty...wait...no... one-twenty...ninety-eight...eighty-nine... seventy-eight...sixty-seven...
GK: I'm getting nauseous.
SS: Seventeen...
GK: Seventeen!!!!
SS: Eleven...
GK: Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Let's go...
SS: Eight and three-quarters.
GK: Come on, baby. Come on.
SS: Nine.
GK: Yes!!!! You can do it.
SS: Eleven-point-five.
GK: Go, baby.
SS: Twenty-seven.
GK: Yes!
SS: Forty-nine--
GK: Yes!!!
SS: Ninety-four.
GK: Up. Up! Up!
SS: A hundred forty-nine.
GK: Up. Up. Come on.
SS: A hundred and four.
GK: Steady. Steady.
SS: Forty-one.
GK: No, babes. No, no no...
SS: Fourteen and three-quarters.
GK: Come on, sweetheart.
SS: Eight and a half.
GK: Don't tell me more.
SS: Two and a half...
GK: I don't want to know...(CHORDS, BRIDGE) I sat there on the 45th floor, stunned. My fortune was disappearing and then reappearing before my eyes. Suzanne tried to explain to me what was happening.
SS: Investors are looking for late-year capital losses so they're buying Worldwide Walleye because it's going down except they're making it go up.
GK: And she got on the phone and fifteen minutes later her good friend Allen Greenspan came by, who was going to come to the party with Woody Allen and Spanish Johnny.
TR (GREENSPAN): On the one hand, investors are buying up your stock because they are looking for capital losses and so paradoxically raising the price of the stock and thereby producing capital gains at least in the short term -- depending on whether the gains or losses are realized and recognized. This is an anomalous phenomenon that may or may not be associated with the subprime mortgage situation and collateralized debt obligations but the price of Walleye stock is going up... because it's going down. And vice-versa.
GK: What should we do now?
TR (GREENSPAN): I recommend that we wait and see what happens next. The results of taking action may be not so different from the result of not taking action.
taking
GK: You believe that?
TR (GREENSPAN): That is the principle that guided me through years as chairman of the Federal Reserve. (BRIDGE)
GK: And suddenly I had premonitions of disaster. (DARK CHORD) Nineteen twenty-nine. (TRAIN WHISTLE) Hoboes on their way west. (OLD HOBO MUTTERING) Men who used to be executives eating beans out of cans. (BEANS SPLORT, SCRAPE) The great depression...
TR (FDR): All we have to fear is fear itself...
GK: Men on the breadline. (MUTTERING MEN'S VOICES) All those old black-and-white documentaries that used to come on very early in the morning (DOCUMENTARY MUSIC) with those documentary narrators...
TR (ANNC): Hemlines were up and the stock market was down as a jittery nation looked to the man in the White House for a sign of hope.
GK: And then I thought about the man in the White House.
TR (BUSH): I am optimistic about the economy. I believe we are about to turn the corner into a period of strong sustained growth. (BRIDGE)
GK: And that's what convinced me to sell my stock in World Wide Walleye. For 44 and three-quarters and an hour later the stock was down to eleven and one-quarter and I felt like I'd escaped with my life. I also felt like maybe I should sell the apartment before the housing market collapsed, so I put an ad online and the next morning I had a call.
TR (RICO: Yeah, I seen your ad for the apartment. You're asking a half million.
GK: Right. I paid a quarter million but I've put quite a lot of work into it.
TR (RICO): How about I pay you one-point-six million?
GK: Why would you do that?
TR (RICO): I just want it really bad.
GK: Okay, but you're the only person who's made an offer -- it's not like there's a bidding war.
TR (RICO): I just really really like it.
GK: But I didn't post any pictures of it.
TR (RICO): I just like the description. "Real good shape...like-new kitchen"--
GK: You don't want to come and see it?
TR (RICO): No need. One-point-six million okay by you?
GK: I guess so.
TR (RICO): Okay, I just need your bank account number so I can wire you the money.
GK: Okay. (CHORD, BRIDGE) In the back of my mind, a small voice said, don't do it. But the idea of one-point-six million dollars sort of inflamed my brain. One-point-six. For me! Guy Noir! A guy who from time to time has to kneel down and harvest small change from the sofa cushions. So I gave him my bank account number and I heard him breathing as he wrote it down. (BREATHING) My brain said No No, and the seat of my pants said, Hey go for it.
TR (RICO): Did you say 6-3-7 or 6-7-3? (CHORD)
GK: A still small voice said, Hang up. A big loud voice said, one-comma-six-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero. (CHORD)
SS: You did what? You gave your bank account number to a man you've never met? A weird man with nasal problems?
GK: I don't know what happened.
SS: Real estate transactions are not conducted over the phone. Generally, there are documents involved.
GK: I know that.
SS: Nobody is going to wire one-point-six million to your bank account without getting your signature on a contract.
GK: I don 't know what happened to me.
SS: I called the bank.
GK: Oh oh.
SS: Zero. Plus ten-grand on your debit card.
GK: Oh my gosh.
SS: Guy--
GK: I know.
SS: Are you on some medication that makes you drowsy that means you should not be operating a motor vehicle? Did you hit your head or something? Did you eat Dumb Flakes for breakfast, or what?
(THEME)
TR: Join us again next week when we find out what happens next on -- The Adventures of Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(MUSIC OUT)