[Scene: A private detective’s office, 1930s New York City. The lone detective sits at his desk, staring at the cityscape out the window and sucking on a candy cigarette]
Detective: (Voiceover) <Nighttime in The Big City. How I loathe this cesspool of crime, this limbo of lost souls, this… (Rubs an arm across the pane of the partially open window) factory of filthy windows. The only thing that keeps me here in perpetual perdition is my innate, unerring, unceasing sense of justice. How I loathe that, too.>
(A silhouette rushes up to the office door’s mostly opaque pane of glass; Detective turns around sharply as the figure in the hallway rapidly bangs on the door)
Detective: (Voiceover) <A knock on the door, after hours. Can only mean one thing: Trouble, with a capital “T”. And a capital “R”, “O”, “U” – >
Reader: Hello?!
Detective: (Voiceover) <Come in, Danger.>
Reader: I know you’re in there; can I come in, please?!
Detective: (Voiceover) <Guess I forgot to say that first bit out loud.> (Takes out the candy cigarette to yell) Come in! (Voiceover) <Danger.>
Reader: (Rattles the doorknob) The door’s locked!
Detective: (Voiceover) <Right: I’d locked that to keep out Danger.> (Walks wearily to the door, unlocks it, and lets in Reader who collapses onto a chair, out of breath) So, what brings you to my humble rat hole, Factory Worker?
Reader: Huh? (Looks down at outfit of sweater and jeans) Oh yeah, guess I don’t look like your typical Dame in Distress. Or is it Broad?
Detective: (Locks the door again and resumes sucking on the candy cigarette) Whatever pleases you. I don’t judge who comes through my door, long as they’ve got a cause to tug at the heartstrings and the dough to back it up.
Reader: (Stands) Right, so: not here about that –
Detective: Then you have five seconds to convince me not to throw you out this window.
Reader: We’re on the ground floor, so I’m not too concerned.
Detective: Corrupt landlord of a corrupt system: I specifically requested digs with a view of the tops of the more modest skyscrapers for me to brood upon life’s miseries, and instead I get horn-blaring taxicabs and littering pedestrians. It’s a wonder I close cases at all in this milieu.
Reader: Can’t help that, but I’m actually here to do you a favor.
Detective: (Voiceover) < Favors don’t come cheap, and this scrappy ne’er-do-well looks to be driving a hard bargain; only question is, how much of my soul am I willing to sell – >
Reader: Since you’re now staring off into space I assume you’re in the middle of a rambling internal monologue that ultimately leads nowhere.
Detective: …You assume rightly.
Reader: Well knock it off: I came here to warn you that you’re in incredible danger!
Detective: Just a moment, please. (Places the candy cigarette in an ashtray and turns up blaring saxophone music) Need to set the mood – you were saying? (Perches casually on the edge of the desk)
Reader: (Shouting over the music) I was saying that your life is in danger!
Detective: Life is danger –
Reader: What?!
Detective: Fine. (Turns off the music) I said, life is danger: it’s the deal we sign up for when we’re thrust literally screaming into this harsh, brutal world. Unwillingly, I might add.
Reader: Yeah, well, this is a little more specific danger right now: you remember the gangster-you’ve-been-trying-to-outwit-forever’s second-in-command’s cousin’s drinking buddy who you tossed into a dumpster during the alley fight four chapters – I mean, two days ago?
Detective: (Thinks for a few moments) Oh, that little pipsqueak? Had a fresh mouth, matched only by a pretty sharp toothpick? Sure I remember tossing his keister out of my way in that brawl for the truth; why?
Reader: Let’s just say I have it on good authority that the pipsqueak’s got it in for you, so you’d better, you know, watch your 6:00.
Detective: (Checks watch) No, it’s 11:45.
Reader: Pipsqueak’s literally gunning for you, dude! Any minute now, he’s gonna burst in here and give you the what for!
Detective: Not quite following your lingo, but sounds like Pipsqueak’s got my number and wants to cash in my chips for me the hard way.
Reader: Yes! That! (Collapses back onto the chair)
Detective: And how, exactly, did you come by this useful information? Maybe Pipsqueak sent you here as a double-bluff, I wonder!
Reader: No, nothing here’s ever that convoluted: let’s just say I… know things.
Detective: Do you indeed.
Reader: Yes, and I know that Pipsqueak’s planning to come here tonight, at exactly midnight, and literally remove you from the scene in revenge for the humiliating dumpster dive!
Detective: Is that so? You seem to know an awful lot about it for someone claiming not to be in league with that nobody.
Reader: I know enough that you should get out of here in… (Leans over to peer at Detective’s watch) less than five minutes. If you value your life.
Detective: I do, but that’s beside the point right now. (Reaches into a desk drawer and takes out a peashooter to train on Reader) Right now, I feel like I’m being served a load of flimflam that I want to return to the chef, and maybe I really should consider you the threat, instead of little Mr. Featherweight.
Reader: (Stands slowly with hands slightly raised) Listen, I’m trying to prevent a tragedy here – you had no idea this guy was coming for you until I showed up, and now you do, so you need to get your caboose in gear and split!
Detective: (Also stands) Well, I think that this is all a bunch of hooey you made up just so you could get to my mother’s pearls!
Reader: What?
Detective: What?
Reader: I don’t care about those, I’m trying to save your life!
Detective: Aha! So you admit you know about them!
Reader: No – well I do, but –
Detective AH! HA!
Reader: Listen, I know everything about your weird little life, OK! I know about your childhood in the surprisingly comfortable orphanage; I know about your one summer as a carnie barker; I know about your tragic coming-of-age in the trenches of World War I –
Detective: (Gasps) ONE?! There’s gonna be more?!
Reader: – I know about your heartbreak when the one true love of your life ran off with the one true best friend of your life; I know about your only really solving one case with the others being lost to moral ambiguity; I know about it all.
Detective: (Chews on lip while pondering this) Are you an actual witch? Because it’s all right now: you’d only get prison time instead of the stake.
Reader: No! I can only say… your life is an open book to me.
Detective: Ha! I’m read by no one!
Reader: Wanna bet?
(The door bursts open with Pipsqueak’s arrival, another peashooter at the ready)
Pipsqueak: Gotcha! You – oh sorry, didn’t realize you had a guest.
Reader: Ah, fiddlesticks.
Detective: Pipsqueak?!
Pipsqueak: What in the – ? No, my name is Charles, and I’m calling you out!
Detective: Fine, go ahead!
Pipsqueak: I just – I just did.
Reader: Get outta here, man, you’re ruining everything!
Pipsqueak: Absolutely not! Not after what this busybody-with-airs did to me! I’ll never get that dumpster smell out of my hair and skin, never!
Reader: Yeah, you’re right: it’s pretty bad.
Detective: You had it coming! But you’ll never catch me alive, do you hear me?! No one will ever catch me alive, ahahahahaha! (Turns around and jumps out the window)
Pipsqueak: (Falls to his knees and tilts head back to face the ceiling) NOOOOOOOOOOOO – !
Reader: Easy there, buddy – he just hailed a cab and drove off.
Pipsqueak: (Tilts head back forward) Oh right; forgot I didn’t climb any stairs to get here. This place really is a dump, isn’t it?
Reader: You’re telling me.
Pipsqueak: (Stands and brushes off pants) Well, guess there’s no point in continuing my revenge spree if he’s just gonna keep jumping out windows every time I show up; I’m going back to the poker game I was losing to go do this. (Leaves)
Reader: Yes! Success! (Looks around the empty office) Wait a minute: there’s still 150 pages left in this thing.
