(GUY NOIR 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: It was fall, good sleeping weather, and I was taking advantage of it, until I found a message on my answering machine one morning from a very familiar voice.
(BEEP)
SS (ON PHONE): Hi, Guy. It's me. Sugar. Remember? It's been too long. Listen---- I hope you're okay and everything, but I'm calling to see if you could help me out a little. I'm out in Vermont, Guy. I've got a new boyfriend who is putting on a benefit for the Wheat Gluten Foundation here and I'm trying desperately to get Bob Dylan to come and perform. It would be just so neat! Could you help? Please? (STING)
GK: It had been years since Sugar and I were an item and yet the mention of a new boyfriend aroused a volcano of jealousy in my heart (WOOD CRUNCH) and I punched a couple walls (WOOD CRUNCH) and then I put on the relaxation tape that my sister Georgina gave me. (SITAR, TABLA)
TR (INDIAN): In this life we come into the world naked and we leave without any clothes on. We take away only memories and we leave only footprints. We are at one with the universe. The universe is acting through us. So everything we do is simply what we would have done anyway. (HE CONTINUES, UNDER)
GK: I missed Sugar a lot. She was my last girlfriend. Why did we break up? I couldn't remember. Maybe her asking for my help was only a ploy to try to get us back together. I went to the airport and got on the next flight to Vermont. (STING)
SS (BREATHY): Welcome to Northeast Kingdom Airlines. I am Conifer and I'll be your flight attendant. Just a note that our airline has a zero-cruelty to animals policy and that means that we will not fly into airspace where birds have been reported. This may mean that we stay on the ground for up to six hours until the sky is clear. The jet fuel used on today's flight comes from oilfields where workers had full health benefits. And both of our pilots today are hearing impaired. (STING AND BRIDGE)
GK: I got to Burlington (JET LANDING) about three hours late, due to a Canada goose who appeared on the radar and forced us to land in Plattsburgh. And then some other geese stood around the plane laughing. (GOOSE LAUGHTER) But we made it to Vermont and there was Sugar.
SS (SUGAR): Guy!!!! Hi!!!!! Oh it's so good to see you!!!! Oh my goodness, you've lost weight.
GK: Well, times are tough in the private eye business, Sugar. People want to know something now they don't hire some shamus to snoop around in the bushes, they just Google it.
SS (SUGAR): Well, I'm so glad you've come. I'd like you to meet Glenn, my boyfriend.
TR (RICH): Hi. Sugar's told me so much about you. What a pleasure.
SS: Glenn is the head of the Gluten Foundation.
GK: Oh. How nice for you.
TR: Are you into glutens, Mr. Noir? Mind if I call you Guy?
GK: Let me think that over. (BRIDGE) I called Bob Dylan and I was sort of glad when he said no.
TR (DYLAN): Hey Guy. Can't make it to Vermont. Sorry. I'm on tour, doing one-nighters. Big stadiums. The great thing is that, like, I go out on stage and people like think I am singing "Subterranean Blues" and I am like singing "O What A Beautiful Morning" ---- it's cool. I am doing "Wind Beneath My Wings" and it sounds like "It Ain't Me, Babe". But it is me. You know? (STING)
GK: So I was going to have to break the news to Sugar that Bob wouldn't come, but I thought I'd wait until I found out how she felt about me. Meanwhile, I was staying at the Speckled Hen Bed & Breakfast run by a nice couple named Verna and Monty Stowe.
TR (LORRE-LIKE): I trust your room is to your liking, Mr. Noir.
SS (FLAT): I decorated it myself. Sewed the quilts on the walls and everything.
TR: And I made all of the lamps and lampshades myself out of old harness and telephone pole insulators.
GK: Quite original.
SS: Anyway, we serve breakfast at 7, Mr. Noir. And then it's our custom for all of the guests to stand up and tell a story.
GK: A story....
SS: Yes. We're all about storytelling. So many of our guests have said it makes their stay so much more meaningful.
GK: Speaking of meaningful, I was wondering if you might have any soap around.
SS: There's soap in your room.
GK: I know. Lavender soap with tarragon. I was hoping you might have some just plain old soap. A big white bar of it. Without flavoring.
SS: Oh. I don't think so.
TR: I don't believe I've ever seen anything like that. (BRIDGE)
GK: So I got in my rental car and looked for soap. (CAR) At the grocery they didn't have any.
FN: We have soap with aloe. Rosemary. Pecans. Saffron. Cheddar.
GK: You put cheese in soap?
FN: It's nourishing to your skin.
GK: Sir, my skin is nourished by nutrients in my blood. It doesn't have teeth. It doesn't eat things you rub on it.
FN: Oh. Well, be testy then. (STING)
GK: I drove for awhile ----- I asked my GPS to find it.
SS (BRIT, ELECTRONIC): Calculating route.
GK: Soap. I looked in another grocery and they didn't have soap either.
TR (CAPOTE): We don't carry it because it's tested on gerbils.
GK: Soap doesn't need testing, sir. It's been proven useful over the past five or six centuries. Without aloe or anything in it.
TR (CAPOTE): Well, aren't we particular. (STING)
GK: And then I took a turn down a street in Burlington and came to a sign that said East Burlington. And something seemed to change. There were no Volvos or Toyotas around. Just old beat up Fords and Chevies. And the streetlights were dimmer. And there were little clubs with flashing neon signs that said, Cocktails. I went in one. (FRED SAX) (FOOTSTEPS)
SS (OLD DEEP): Yeah, what can I get you?
GK: Aren't you going to smile and say welcome to Joey's?
SS: No. What do ya want?
GK: Like a Pinot Grigio.
SS: Pino what? Never heard of it.
GK: I sort of like this. Gimme a Bud.
SS: Sure thing. (OPEN BOTTLE, POURS)
GK: And don't put a slice of lime in it.
SS: Put what? A lime? In beer?
GK: Some places they do that. You got anything to eat here?
SS: Beer nuts and cheese corn.
GK: Gimme some cheese corn.
FN (MAURICE): Hey buddy, mind if I sit down here? Got something I want to show you. Lookit this necktie. It's George Bush. See? And you pull on the tie and he waves bye-bye and disappears. Nice, huh? Got a backscratcher too. Gets all the way down to the itchy part.
SS (BREATHY): Hey sailor. My name's Francine. What's yours? Mind if I sit down and have a smoke?
GK: You're gonna smoke here?
SS: Yeah, of course. (SHE LIGHTS UP AND INHALES)
GK: Wow. It's been so long since I've seen a woman light a cigarette. It makes me dizzy.
SS: Hey, if you like that, how about you come up to my place? I could make you even dizzier.
TR (RICO): Hey hey hey. What you and him doing?
GK: Wow. You and Him. I love it.
TR: Hey, the name's Joey. I'm the man Anything you want, my man, I'm the man. You want somebody's nose twisted, I'm your twister.
GK: Well, I'd like some soap.
SS (DEEP): You mean, hand soap?
GK: Soap soap.
FN (MAURICE): You mean, like--- just soap?
GK: Soap.
TR (RICO): Get him some soap.
GK: No aloe, no tarragon. Just soap.
FN (MAURICE): Okay. Gotcha
GK: Just want soap.
FN (MAURICE): Okay. I'll have it for you tomorrow night. Eleven p..m. Meet me in back of the liquor store. I'll be in a '65 Coronado.
GK: So what's with this East Burlington neighborhood, huh?
SS (DEEP): What do you mean?
GK: You people ever go over to Burlington?
TR: Nope. No need to. Got everything we need right here in East Burlington.
SS (DEEP): I had a sister who went there and I guess she liked it. We never heard from her again.
GK: Ah. Well---- there wouldn't happen to be a hotel here, would there?
TR: Yeah. YMCA over there. Rooms for cheap.
GK: I'm not going to run the risk of getting in a fitness class or anything, am I?
TR: Nawwww. It's a YMCA. Old men in undershirts sitting around in the lobby and talking about the war.
GK: Which war?
TR: THE war.
GK: Oh. Okay. Probably they got soap there then.
FN: I'm sure they do.
GK: Okay. I'll just go over and wash up then.
(CLINK) (BRIDGE)
GK: I met Sugar for coffee and told her that Bob Dylan couldn't come.
SS (SUGAR): Oh, that's okay. I got Barry Manilow, so we're fine. You enjoying Vermont, Guy?
GK: Sure.
SS (SUGAR): Not really your kind of place though, is it.
GK: I like it just fine.
SS (SUGAR): I noticed the pack of cigarettes in your pocket. You been over to East Burlington?
GK: I was there last night.
SS (SUGAR): Stay away from that, Guy. The air is bad over there. They eat food additives. They don't wash their hands.
GK: I donno, Sugar. (BRIDGE) So the Wheat Gluten Festival was a big hit and that was nice.
FN (BARRY):
I make the gluten and the smoothies too
They make me feel all smooth and shiny new.
I am organic, beautiful and blonde,
I'm from Vermont, I'm from Vermont.
GK: Myself, I took out a cigarette and I sniffed it. Didn't smoke it, just sniffed it. And I chewed on a piece of beef jerky that was full of sodium nitrate and I washed up with just soap. It was kind of yellowish. The label didn't say what was in it and I didn't ask.
(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.