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)
GK: It was February, and here in the north, winter was singing its song, doing its dance, and gradually people were starting to revert to primitive ways, giving up on the high-fiber diets and going back to seal blubber (TR MOUTH FULL: It's chewy but it's not bad when you get used to it. SFX) and taking a less sympathetic view of the elderly. (SS: Go, Old One. We can no longer feed you. Go. The Great Spirit is waiting for you out there on the tundra. Leave your warm clothes here.) I was in my office, clinging to the radiator which (CLANKING, CLINKING) sounded like the Titanic going down and the delivery guy had arrived from Danny's Deli ----
FN: I'm sorry----you ordered a hot sausage sandwich and hash browns, and we're all out, Mr. Noir, so I brought over sashimi and brown rice instead.
GK: Not really the same, Wendell.
FN: I'm not Wendell, sir. I'm Winthrop. Wendell moved to Minneapolis.
GK: Really. Why would someone do that?
FN: Lots of reasons. Better coffee. More yoga studios. More wind socks and more whimsy.
GK: Whimsy?
FN: Yep. The whole cat video craze started over in Minneapolis.
GK: Huh.
FN: Some of the top professional cat videographers in the world live over there.
GK: Interesting.
FN: I guess you didn't hear ---- Minneapolis was just ranked the hippest city within a hundred miles.
GK: Within a hundred miles of what?
FN: Of Minneapolis.
GK: Well, I hope they feel good about that. Listen---- Winthrop ----- you got a cat?
FN: Yes?
GK: Take the sashimi back. I'll just get by on saltines for now. (BRIDGE) Winter is a slack season in the P.I. business. Crime is way down, misbehavior of all sorts is in decline. I was hoping for the phone to ring. And then my therapist Penelope came by.
JS: Hey. Guy.
GK: Oh. Hi. Good to see you.
JS: It's our weekly appointment.
GK: Right. Slipped my mind.
JS: That's okay.
GK: You sure you still want to be my therapist? I still can't
afford the full hour every week.
JS: That's okay. Five minutes is better than nothing. Okay. Clock's running. How's it going?
GK: Oh, pretty much the same.
JS: That bad, huh?
GK: Lonely. Keep getting crushes ---- never make a move for fear of embarrassing myself. But it's lonely. Nobody to talk to.
JS: Hey? Helloooooo?
GK: Except you. And of course I'm broke. I'm down to working security at the Eagles Club, that's how I get by.
JS: Okay. What else?
GK: And I'm tired of people. People call up and they complain to me about their problems----- I want to say, Get over it.
JS: I feel exactly the same way.
GK: You do?
JS: I'm sick of hearing people complain. Day in, day out, that's all I hear. People beefing, bellyaching, bewailing, crying and crabbing and carping, complaining, fretting and fussing, griping and groaning, grumbling and grieving, hissing and howling, kicking and kvetching, they lament, they moan, they're morose, they're peevish, panicky, petulant, they sob and squawk and scream and make a stink, they whimper and whine----
GK: So you get a lot of that, too?
JS: Right. And I'm expected to be patient, peaceful,
pleasant, persevering, perceptive, pertinent, a people person, a paragon of propriety, parental, non-partisan, with no peccadilloes, well-prepared, impartial, pitch perfect, polished, perpetually positive, perky, pious, practical, punctual, progressive, professional, and provide pastoral perspective and helpful precepts that promote progress.
GK: Sounds tiring.
JS: I am pooped.
GK: I can imagine.
JS: Well, our five minutes are up, Mr. Noir. That'll be fifteen bucks.
GK: Always a pleasure, Penelope. (DOOR CLOSE. BRIDGE) I always feel better when she leaves. It's good to have a therapist whose problems are worse than your own. (PHONE RING, PICK UP) Yeah. Noir here.
SS: Mr. Noir, it's Francine Feh.
GK: How do you spell that?
SS: F-r-a-n-c-i-n-e.
GK: No. Feh. How do you spell that?
SS: Just the way it sounds. F-e-o-i-g-h-e. It's Irish.
GK: Of course. What can I do for you, Miss Feh.
SS: It's not Miss Feh, it's Ms. Feh.
GK: I beg your pardon.
SS: It's about my husband Fred.
GK: Mr. Feh.
SS: No, his name is Rasmussen.
GK: Okay.
SS: I didn't want to take a Scandinavian name when we
married. It was bad enough being married to him without people imagining that I was Danish too.
GK: Okay. So what's going on?
SS: He's driving me nuts. He's losing his mind. Premature dementia or something. He calls me up on the phone and says, "Francie, what's the one about the man who walks into the bar" so I have to go through all of the Man Walks Into The Bar jokes and then it turns out that he's thinking of a Dog Walks Into The Bar joke. And five minutes later he calls back and he says, "Francie, what's the one about the man and his wife who run into the bridge abutment and they go to heaven and they tee up on the golf course" ---- so I tell him that one ---- and five minutes later he calls back to say, "What's that phrase that means 'stupidity'?" ---- it's something something short of a something.
GK: Right.
SS: And that's the one I couldn't remember. So I came over here to ask you.
GK: Two bricks shy of a load.
SS: No. Not bricks.
GK: A few clowns short of a circus.
SS: No.
GK: A day late and a dollar short.
SS: No.
GK: A brain like a BB in a boxcar. Doesn't have both oars in the water.
SS: No, nothing like that.
GK: Doesn't have all the dots on his dice. He's driving at night with the lights off. Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if he were standing inside it. His dock doesn't quite reach the water.
SS: Wait. I remembered it. "Doesn't have all his pickles in one jar."
GK: That doesn't really make sense.
SS: Well, it does.
GK: You said something something short of a something.
SS: Well, this is the same thing.
GK: Doesn't have all his pickles in one jar? It makes no sense, Miss Feh.
SS: Ms. Feh. It makes sense to me. So nuts to you.
GK: You're on the clock here, Ms. Feh. You owe me---- twenty-five bucks for consultation.
SS: I owe you nothing, Mister. Zilch. Zero. Zippo. Nada. Nicht. Nuttin. Not a jot or tittle or iota, not a whit or a smidgen. Not a lick. Or a diddly.
GK: Twenty-five bucks, Ms. Feh.
SS: I owe you squat.
GK: You know, it's people like you who give humanity a bad name.
SS: Oh, go soak your head.
GK: I'm sick of people like you. Deadbeat. You hear me??? Sick of it!!! (HE YANKS ON THE CORD OF THE PHONE, PULLS IT OUT OF THE WALL) Boy, some people just burn my bacon. (KNOCKS ON DOOR) Who is it???
TR (MUFFLED): It's me from next door.
GK: Come on in, the door's unlocked. (DOOR OPEN)
TR: What did you do to my phone?
GK: Your phone?? Nothing.
TR: I'm on the phone with my sick mother and suddenly the phone is ripped out of my hands.
GK: I yanked on my phone. Not yours.
TR: Well, obviously my phone is attached to yours.
GK: Well, how was I to know that?
TR: Why would you yank the phone out of your wall?
GK: Because I was talking to an idiot and she got on my
nerves, that's why. What business is it of yours?
TR: Is that what you call a mature thing to do? Rip the phone out of the wall?
GK: Who asked you for your opinion? And what are you doing tied in to my phone line?
TR: Why should I even answer that?
GK: You want me to call a lawyer?
TR: Do you answer every question with another question?
GK: So what if I do?
TR: How did I ever get stuck next door to someone like you?
GK: You're asking me?
TR: Why don't you take a good look in the mirror, mister?
(DOOR SLAM)
(DOOR OPEN)
GK: You want to step outside and settle this?
(DOOR SLAM)
(DOOR OPEN)
TR: You know what your problem is? You ever hear of the phrase "If you put his brain in a hummingbird, it would fly backwards"?
(DOOR SLAM)
(DOOR OPEN)
GK: NO.
(DOOR SLAM)
(DOOR OPEN)
FN: Hey, would you guys please stop slamming doors? I'm trying to work.
TR & GK: Who died and made you king? (DOOR SLAM) (BRIDGE)
GK: It was that kind of day. A lot of motion, no traction. A lot of foam and no beer. A rocket with no load. I'm looking forward to March. (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.