the best things in life are free

PAUL
It's funny.  I found those glasses under my bed.

CAROL
That's because I must have dropped them and they probably got kicked under.

LARRY
Kicked under, right, because what she'll do, she'll drop...

CAROL
They were just --

LARRY
She'll always drop things and she'll kick them all around the house.

CAROL
They could --

PAUL
The mousse?

                     He walks away to the kitchen.

LARRY
She's always -- she's always kick...

                           Carol gives him an intense, meaningful look signaling him to stop rambling.

CAROL
(speaking up, toward the kitchen)
Anyway, I'd love to have some mousse.

LARRY
Yes, really?  Remember there was the time you kicked the mousse under the bed in the house.  Remember that?  It was...

                             Carol walks away, toward the kitchen.

CAROL
I remember.

LARRY
It took -- took six months to get the...

EXT.  A New York street - day

MEDIUM FULL SHOT of Carol, waiting under the awning of a building.  She hears a car stopping and she looks toward the street.

TED
(voice over)
Hi.  I'm sorry I'm late.  The traffic's murder.

CAROL
(hurrying to the car)
I know, but where... Where are we going?

TED
I looked up, looked up Helen Moss in the phone book.

                         Carol gets into the car, closes door.

CAROL
(voice over from inside the car)
Yeah.

TED
It was just H. Moss.

CAROL
Right.

TED
So I -- it's on Bank Street...

                           The car drives away.



EXT.  Bank Street - day

FULL VIEW of the corner of two very quiet streets.  A brick building with vines climbing.  CAMERA PANS away from the building to Ted's car parked on the other side of the intersection.

MEDIUM SHOT of the inside of the car, through the open window on the passenger side.

TED
There's her house.

CAROL
Right.  So we should just sit here and wait, huh?

TED
Yeah.

CAROL
Okay.

                                     They look at each other and laugh.

Slightly later.  MEDIUM SHOT through the windshield.  View is a little blurred by daylight reflection on the glass.

TED
Maybe he thought that if he, if he, if he divorced her, she'd -- she'd hit him for a ton of alimony.  Or maybe she, maybe she controls the family fortune.  What do you think of that?

CAROL
Oh, I don't know.  Yeah, maybe we're wrong, Ted.  Maybe we're just, you know...  I mean, maybe she died of natural causes, like the doctor said, and we're just two people with, you know, hyperactive imaginations, whose lives need a little shot of adrenaline.

                              Ted looks through the paper bag of snacks he brought.

TED
Does yours?  I'll tell you, mine needs something.

__________________________________________

{Manhattan Murder Mystery, 1993.  Producer:  Robert Greenhut.  Directed by Woody Allen.  Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman.  Starring Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Anjelica Huston, Diane Keaton.  Dist.-TriStar Pictures.}

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