LIKE PULLING TEETH
In 1910 New York City a dentist accidently finds himself now a private investigator and eavesdrops on one of the greatest country-changing secret meetings, becoming a dangerous loose end.
The dentist is set up in business by his father-in-law. The large third floor corner office is only a block from a large private detective agency. The dentist learns a lot about the detective business from his detective patients.
The 1907 financial panic dries up any help for the dentist from his father-in-law. Business also dries up as people stretch their budgets.
The dentist’s solution is to subdivide his office. It’s easier to rent someplace that is not vacant, so he paints detective agency on the door and the front window, adds furniture.
Along comes a detective client and the dentist is backed into becoming a detective. Soon his dentist office is collecting dust as the detective work picks up.
A banker’s wife walks in, looking for a detective to find the goods on her philandering, master hunter husband. That is the only way to get a divorce back then.
Dentist starts following the banker, becomes obsessed. He closes the dentist office, sleeps days, shadows the banker at night. He knows banker is up to something.
Late November, 1910: Banker furtively leaves his office with a suitcase and a gun case. He changes cabs twice, ends up at a train station in New Jersey. He enters a private railway car with its shades drawn.
The dentist steals aboard the train. The train trip ends in Brunswick, Georgia. Out come 7 bankers carrying a few shotguns. They speak hunting talk when locals are nearby.
They boat out to Jeckyl Island. The dentist makes his way solo to the island. He discovers the purpose of their meeting. There are plenty of heated discussions.
One less banker leaves the island. Dentist tries, fails to find the banker. Dentist takes the train, heading back home. At the Washington, D.C. transfer, the New York paper headline is “Banker missing in hunting trip to New York’s Five Fingers Lakes”.
The dentist could unset that tale, and finds he is now a loose end to be dealt with. THE END
My dark comedy thriller, set in Duluth and Ohio, THE FAT LADY SINGS, is now also a novella. Sequel AFTER THE FEDORA is also in print.
Co-wrote and helped edit a true story pod cast series, DECEIVED.
Wrote short film JUST A TIC, which has been in festivals, TV, Amazon Prime, and Vimeo VOD.
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!BRAVE HEARTS
In 1840, an unconventional widow risks her life when she joins forces with a charismatic journalist, brutalized tenant farmers and a traumatized exile she rescues in Montreal, to stop the most powerful men in Scotland from violently evicting Gaelic Highlanders, unaware of her own family's complicity in the ethnic cleansing.
SETTLING THE BOOKS
Lured by the reading of a billionaire rare book dealer’s will, an investigator and four other heirs are sealed in an airtight panic room, and with only four hours air, must solve the centuries-old mystery contained in the book ‘The Castilian Cypher’ in order to escape.
All My Trials, Lord
In a drunken stupor a handsome young singer kills a taxi driver while visiting Spalding County, Georgia.
Playmate
In spite of her husband’s attempts to help her, a young female writer suddenly finds herself falling into a severe depression when snippets of painful suppressed childhood memories come out in her writing at the same time as the visit of her religious fanatic mother whose own haunting memories plague her causing both women to lose themselves in the process.
Jesus Called
Three women, one of whom is seeking what lies beyond death, live on a chicken farm in the rural South and attend a funeral for their neighbor who was eaten by a hog.
Tinker's Christmas
A clumsy teenage elf is ridiculed and alienated by other young elves when he fails every assignment until his mechanical skills are discovered after the reindeer develop chicken pox and Santa asks him to modify the train to deliver the toys which he does successfully with the help of an attractive female elf and a monkey.
Private Dancer
After her husband dies leaving all of his estate to another woman, a former middle-aged psychologist with the help of a friend opens a bar where they nurture those in their employ, each of whom faces challenging situations and must dance and sing as they attempt to keep their dreams alive.
Who's There?
A bizarre comedy within which a cynical, middle-aged woman is charged with caring for her eccentric mother and goofy sister who hold daily memorial services for husband/daddy's amputated leg.
The Experiment
Ambition, class prejudice and racism forever alter the lives of a poor white boy bound for delinquency and a young Afro-American athlete headed for stardom.
IT PAYS THE BILLS
Three sisters inherit a Hollywood talent agency offering a lot more than routine casting calls for their clientele.
