elect clowns -- get a circus

LARRY
You got stuff in common with Ted, right?  You can cook together with Ted, or you can take your clothes off and baste a chicken with him.

CAROL
Oh, right.  Oh, oh, well, what about you and Marcia, huh?  What does she teach you besides poker? - That's what I'd like to know, okay?

LARRY
Mud wrestling.  Is that what you want to hear?  Nothing, I'm her editor.

CAROL
Look, I think the time has come for us to reevaluate our lives.

LARRY
I reevaluated our lives.  I -- I got a ten, you got a six.

The CAMERA STOPS following them, and stays stationary while they walk away from it, up the street.

CAROL
Well listen, I think maybe I will go back to seeing my shrink.

LARRY
Oh, you don't have to see your shrink.  There's nothing wrong with you that can't be cured with a little Prozac and a polo mallet.

CAROL
Just -- I just would like to be alone for a while, okay, Larry?

LARRY
What are you talk...

CAROL
Just... just, I... I... Uh, okay?

LONG SHOT of Carol walking quickly away while Larry stands still, and watches her go.

INT.  A cafeteria - Day

A typical New York cafeteria, with tables and chairs set up all around the room.  In the background there's a long counter, where food is displayed; customers lining up.  At a slightly isolated table on the left, Ted and Helen are talking.

HELEN
So, I have this, like, really crazy father and everything.

TED
Oh, yeah?

CAMERA ZOOMS to a MEDIUM SHOT on Ted and Helen.

HELEN
And, yeah.  He's wanted, like, in three states.  He has a terrible driving record.  So we had to move from Virginia then to New Jersey, and...

TED
So, your father is wanted in three states for -- driving?  Really?

HELEN
Yeah, for driving.  Yeah.  So I moved to Hackensack, and then... Well, anyway, I was in all these different contests and I was even, uh, Miss, uh, Teenage Passaic.

TED
Oh, how wonderful.

INT.  Larry and Carol's apartment, the front hall - Day

The front door opens and Carol enters.  She puts her purse on a table and walks down the hall.

Framed pictures are lined up evenly on the wall.  Carol goes into a walk-in closet, to decide what to wear.  

The CAMERA PANS gently, silently back through the hallway, past the row of pictures with their glinting glass, back up to where Carol came in through the door on the right.

From the left, now, the tall anxious figure of Paul House emerges.

He begins to make his way noiselessly down the hall, toward CAMERA; toward the closet.

____________________________________

{Manhattan Murder Mystery}

-30-