Plot by Lee Berman
posted April 1, 2009

Louis receives a cryptic suicide note from his estranged sister Zelda. It includes a list of people she wants him to inform, in person, of her death. He speeds to Zelda's apartment in the East Village. She's not there. He asks a neighbor, Eva, if she has seen his sister lately. Eva refuses to offer any information. He calls on the first person on Zelda's list: Dan, an ultra-Orthodox Jew. Dan claims he and Zelda were romantically involved, till she ditched him for no reason; he hasn't heard from her in over a year. Louis unintentionally breaks a crystal figurine, a gift from Zelda. He then informs Dan that Zelda is dead; bluffing, he adds that Dan is implicated. Dan denies this. Louis shows him Zelda's list. Dan studies it, and warns him that these are dangerous people. Louis then notices that Dan is carrying a gun.

Plot by Peter Aguero
posted May 27, 2009

Louis and Didi scurry into the apartment. There are no adults present. Didi puts the wig on her doll and smiles. She begins to play, ignoring Louis, who settles into the couch, head still clouded, trying to make sense of his situation. He drifts off, dreaming of Hannah’s slim fingers. Louis snaps awake, the apartment is dark, and Didi is asleep on his lap. There’s scratching at the window. It’s Bob and Dan, who lift the window, wild-eyed and grinning. Louis motions for them to be quiet, gesturing to Didi. They comply and sit on the floor. Louis carries Didi to an adjacent room with a daybed. On his way back, he steps on Didi’s doll. The head shatters. He sees that Bob and Dan have laid out some cocaine on the table. Louis leans over with a tortured look on his face.

Plot by Adam Molho
posted June 10, 2009

Pumped on cocaine, Bob, Dan, and Louis consult Zelda's list and decide to visit Dana, her shrink. A few blocks from her building, they see her walking her dog. Louis steps out of the car, goes up to her, and shows her Zelda's letter. Dana says she's worried; Zelda has stopped seeing her and won't return her calls. Louis points to Dan and Bob on the list and asks her if she knows them. She says Dan is a violent psychotic; Bob is madly in love with Zelda, and has proposed several times. She then takes Louis to her office, saying she has something to show him. It is a little clay ball that came in the mail, a gift from Zelda. Louis studies it, and it slips from his hands, falls on the floor, and breaks. Among the broken pieces, there is a little baby doll.

Plot by Cécile Saint-Paul
posted June 24, 2009

Bob bursts into Dana's office, takes the doll, and runs. Louis pursues him, snatches the doll, and gets in a cab. Bob and Dan pursue, but Louis's cab evades them. He finds a hotel and goes to sleep. There's a knock at the door, and it is kicked open. Enter Bill and Ada, she smoking a cigarette, he pointing a gun at Louis. Bill demands the doll. Louis doesn't budge. Ada approaches the bed and takes the doll. She looks at Louis, then at Bill, goes back to Bill, kisses him on the mouth, snatches his pistol, and points it at him, saying he can go now. Bill resists, and she strikes him with the butt of the pistol, which draws blood. Bill flees, and Ada locks the door. Louis tries to grab the doll, and as they fight over it, it falls and breaks.

Plot by Stephanie Schacht
posted July 8, 2009

The smashed doll reveals a piece of folded yellow paper. Ada raises an eyebrow, puts the gun in her handbag, lights another cigarette. Louis grabs the note and reads, aloud, “Metropolis Bank 000491625R.” Ada, without moving the cigarette or gun, heads out the door, where she finds Bill. Bill knows the Metropolis Bank. At Metropolis Louis tells the teller he is Zelda’s brother. The teller tells Ada and Bill to stay behind and directs Louis to another official, named Ira. They sit in Ira’s office and Louis plays with Ira’s Rubik’s Cube, explaining that Zelda is dead. He shows Ira the yellow paper. Bill and Ada rush into Ira’s office. Louis stands. Ada kisses Ira on the mouth and points the gun at him. He drops the paper. Louis drops the Rubik’s cube, hitting a photo on Ira’s desk. The photo falls, and the glass shatters at Bill’s feet.

Plot by Miriam Jacobson
posted July 22, 2009

Louis, Bill, and Ada are in the bank's safe with the code to Zelda's deposit box. Dana bursts in, shouting that they have no right to that code. Louis opens the box, Bill and Ada restraining Dana. There's nothing inside. Dana smiles. An hour later, they are all in Bill's warehouse, surrounded by art and antiques, Dana handcuffed to a marble statue. Eventually Louis, sick of all this dillydallying, grabs the gun, points it at everyone, and demands answers. He shoots in the air, accidentally blowing off the head of the statue to which Dana is handcuffed. Scared shitless, Bill reveals that he, Ada, Bob, Zelda, and a forger named Abe are involved in an international art racket: they steal masterpieces, replacing them with Abe's forgeries. Zelda has run away with a substantial portion of their profits. The door then opens and Abe enters.

Plot by Maëlle Lenoir
posted August 5, 2009

Grilled by Louis, Abe reveals that he saw Zelda yesterday, and she told him she was going to meet a client today. What client? Jeff. When? At six p.m. Where? Astoria, Queens: 3372 33rd Street. Why? Abe doesn't know. It is 5 p.m. Louis rushes out, and trips on a toolbox, which makes him pull the trigger. Everyone freezes. The bullet hits a Ming vase, which explodes in a shower of golden leaves.

Plot by David Rando
posted August 19, 2009

Louis spies Zelda's inimitable pair of Chuck Taylors, spray-painted DayGlo Lightning Yellow, slung around the electrical wires overhead. He hurls a brick, hoping to dislodge them, but it misses and falls on a limousine across the street. Through the limo's broken window a man who looks like Mayor Bloomberg makes a cutting gesture across his throat, miming a Z. Louis knocks desperately at 3372. To his surprise, Dana opens it and rushes him in. Wham! A  setup. When he awakens Dana is wearing Zelda's sneakers, but not much else. She reveals that Zelda and the forgers replaced the Holocaust Museum's yellow badge collection with patches manufactured in China. Now, Zelda may be guiltily seeking illumination among NYC's underworld of experimental yoga parlors. Under the influence of psychotropics and Dana's psychosexual manipulations, Louis relives his quest as phantasmagoria, concluding with a vision of Zelda permanently contorted.

Plot by Matthew Saks
posted September 2, 2009

Louis awakens from a drug-addled dream of Pam Grier to find himself lying on a couch in someone's living room. Dana's bodyguard, Zed, is sitting in a chair across from him, smiling sadistically. Zed is stroking a long, steel Samurai sword made by the finest sword smith in Japan. Zed introduces himself and informs Louis that he has been tasked with killing him, but might cut off Louis's left ear first as an amusement. A TV in the background is on high volume--some 70s teen horror flick. As Zed approaches the couch, he slips on the wrapper from the Big Mac he ate for lunch and impales himself on his sword. Zed's dead, and Louis makes to scram but sees on the coffee table a WWII-era pistol with a tag: "Smithsonian, Zelda 209 West Houston." Louis drops the gun, which breaks in two.

Plot by Brad Lawrence
posted September 16, 2009

209 West Houston is the Film Forum. Louis stumbles up to the ticket booth. He asks the ticket girl about a “Smithsonian” and is directed to an unmarked side door. Inside there are people in Nazi uniforms. He is alarmed, until he is informed that they're ironic Nazis, they’re not really Nazis, but they are. Laughs all around. Louis, traumatized and frustrated at having been led to a dead end, turns to leave, but first pulls the broken Luger out of his pocket and sets it on a table. When he turns back there is a man in an SS uniform standing so close that Louis knocks the drink from his hand. The glass breaks. The man doesn’t care. He introduces himself--his name is Joe--and suggests that Louis's presence here signifies that Zed is dead. He shakes Louis's hand and directs him to a private room.

Plot by Jeff Scherer
posted September 30, 2009

Louis steps into Joe’s office and gasps. There are artifacts from the Holocaust displayed everywhere, including a glass case full of fabric yellow stars. Joe explains that the "ironic Nazis" are hipsters, trying to be shocking. He points to a television monitor. The Nazis are standing around holding drinks when a mob of ski-masked men storm in with bats and beat them bloody. One of the intruders looks into the camera and lifts up her ski mask. It is Hannah. She blows a kiss and holds up a tooth. Joe tells Louis the tooth is Zelda’s. He tells Louis to get him the teeth she owes him, before she loses all of her own. Louis backs away in horror, trips over something that feels like a body, and crashes through the window behind him, shattering the pane. He hears Joe yell, "Cacophony!"

Plot by Roni Levit
posted October 14, 2009

Louis lands on an awning and bounces to the ground, knocking Hannah unconscious and breaking her glasses. He drags her out of sight, behind some garbage bins, and checks her pulse. He caresses that face he finds so strangely beautiful. When she comes to, he threatens to beat her bloody if she doesn't tell him what's going on. Hannah explains: those teeth Joe wants are Hitler's teeth, which Zelda stole from a private collection but refuses to deliver. Joe's plan is to have Hitler's teeth implanted in his own mouth, for talismanic purposes. Hannah confesses: she is strangely attracted to neo-Nazis, and can't wait to kiss Joe with his new set of teeth. She and Zed broke into Zelda's hideout in Chinatown and extracted that molar with a pliers, as a warning: Joe wants Hitler's teeth and pronto. "Get up," Louis says, snatching Zelda's tooth. "We're going to Chinatown."

Plot by Daniel Levin Becker
posted October 28, 2009

The Nam Wah Tea Parlor is dark and silent when Louis and Hannah arrive. Louis carefully tests the door, which opens without difficulty. Once his eyes adjust to the darkness, he espies Eve in the corner, in lotus position, eyes closed. As he creeps toward her, a bamboo shoot snaps under his foot. Eve’s eyes pop open and she flashes Louis a lopsided smile: she is missing a tooth. Everything goes dark again. When Louis comes to, Hannah and Eve are gone. Han emerges from the shadows, grinning triumphantly. Eve has been posing as Zelda, he explains; Adolf-hipsters like Hannah don’t know the difference. Han's ruse has bought the real Zelda time to visit a place called the Russian Teeth Room. Han offers Louis a small fur bowl of celebratory tea. Louis refuses, pushing it away. The bowl tumbles to the floor but, to Louis's delight, does not break.

Plot by Samuel Frederick
posted November 11, 2009

Han feels bad for having previously drugged Louis and begins to open up. The Russian Teeth Room, he explains as they taxi there, is neither tearoom nor dentistry, but pretends to be both as a front for the mob. Han frequents it for authentic samovars and Vicodin.  He ultimately learned that they possessed Hitler’s teeth. Han told Zelda, who was planning to steal them, but hadn’t yet succeeded. At the Teeth Room Han and Louis find lone bartender and hygienist Kat weeping. She tells them that Izzy, leader of the Zionists for the Absolution of Nazis (ZANAZ)--a heretical Catholic organization attempting to hasten the Apocalypse by "saving" Nazis, converting them to Judaism, and sending them to Israel--has just been there, leaving with Hitler’s ivories. Han’s cell rings. It’s Bill. Ada has received what might be a message from Zelda. Louis steps on a cockroach as they leave.

Plot by Kate Malone
posted November 25, 2009

Tipped off by Bill that Zelda is in pursuit of the tooth-stealing agents from ZANAZ, Louis and Han speed to the East Village. They stop by a thrift store on the Lower East Side and buy old fedoras, trench coats, and sunglasses. Disguised, they buzz at the address Bill gave them, "28 Avenue B, Apt. B1." They give the password, "Schadenfreude," through a mail slot, and are allowed in by a wild-eyed man with a cane, Woo. He slips a brochure into Louis’s pocket, and warns him to be careful. Louis and Han enter and find seats in the back of a darkened room that has been made into a makeshift theater. In the dim light Louis can just make out the initials ZANAZ on the brochure, and inside, a photo of Zelda. As he turns abruptly to whisper to Han his fragile chair shatters under his weight.

Plot by Rory Scholl
posted December 9, 2009

Woo helps Louis stand and hands him a towel to wipe the blood from his scratches. Several ironic Nazis are on stage, surrounding a cloaked figure who holds a jar containing what looks like a brain. A dog barks behind the curtains, then a gunshot, then nothing. Woo removes his robes, revealing his Nazi costume complete with a Luger at the hip. Louis fingers the brochure again. Out of nowhere, Bob runs past Louis and tries to grab the gun from Woo. In the confusion, Louis runs to the stage but trips over a floodlight and falls at the feet of the cloaked one, who drops the jar. It shatters as the brain flies across the room and hits a ZANAZ poster. Woo is standing over Bob and aiming the Luger at his head. Louis sees Dan crouched by the exit door as Woo pulls the trigger.

Plot by Miriam Jacobson
posted December 23, 2009

Bob is dead. Woo turns to shoot Louis, but Dana, emerging from backstage with her dog, shoots Woo in the knee. She puts her gun to Woo's head: Where are the teeth? Izzy has them. Where's Izzy? At work. Dana turns to go and Woo shoots her in the back, then takes aim at Louis again, but is distracted by a glimmer. Zelda appears, holding an Uzi in one hand, in the other a freshly stolen porcelain beer stein commemorating the 1936 Olympics. As the ironic Nazis cry "Himmler's stein!" Zelda shoots Woo in the shoulder. He collapses. Rushing to greet his sister, Louis trips on Woo and stumbles onto Zelda, knocking off the Nazi beer stein, which shatters. Zelda and Louis exit the building, along with Dana's dog and Dan. They hail a cab to Izzy's jewelry shop on 47th Street.

Plot by Michael Titipuchal
posted January 6, 2010

Louis asks his sister what the fuck. She wanted to die, she tells him. She should be dead right now. The cab stops in front of Izzy's shop and everyone goes inside. Izzy's in the back with Al, a surly youth with a trinity of inverted crosses tattooed across the front of his neck. The teeth are there, laid out on a swath of crimson velvet. Götterdämmerung bleeds into a sermon on the radio. "You're too late," Izzy says, and starts swallowing molars, speaking in tongues. Zelda draws the Uzi, squeezes the trigger until she's been spun 360 and is firing into the ceiling. Louis dives for cover, colliding with Dan and landing on Dana's dog, breaking its little back. Al goes down, air wet-whistling through a bullet hole in his trachea. When the smoke clears, Izzy's absconded with the teeth. "Don't follow me," says Zelda, and is gone.

Plot by Sherri Eldin
posted January 20, 2010

A loud thud comes from the store's back room. Dan and Louis run to find Izzy, who crawled back there, wounded during Zelda's rampage. He gurgles, "Museum...Orchard," and dies. Dan takes Izzy's face in his hands and pulls out a fistful of Hitler's teeth, which Izzy was storing in his cheeks. But some are missing. As they run out of the store, Louis decodes Izzy's dying words: Tenement Museum, Orchard Street. In pursuit of a cab, Louis trips over something scurrying at his feet. He crashes to the ground, chips his front tooth, and looks up to see what it was: Didi. She throws herself into Dan's arms, sobbing that Eva, her babysitter, has been carting her around the Diamond District in search of Didi's missing mother. "Take me home, Daddy," she sobs. Dan gives Louis a perplexed, frightened look and runs off with the girl.

Plot by Tal Michael
posted February 3, 2010

The Tenement Museum is packed. On his way to the information booth, Louis bumps into a child, Rob, and knocks off his PSP, which breaks. Rob wails: that cost him $400. A museum guard comes over to see what's going on. This, it turns out, is Jim, who's on Zelda's list. Jim is concerned: Zelda hasn't been to work in weeks; she's in charge of the museum's restoration department. Jim is very fond of Zelda--and of her daughter Didi. Shocked but not showing it, Louis says Zelda sent him, a carpenter by trade, to help with the Levine Apartment bed. Relieved that Zelda is okay, Jim directs him to the restoration workshop. Louis enters; it's pitch-dark and he switches on the light, to find Joe and Bill smiling at him, their guns drawn. He feels a pair of soft lips on his neck, then teeth, and passes out.

Plot by Steve Zimmer
posted February 17, 2010

Louis awakens from a dream alone in a brightly lit room full of stainless steel tables and shelves from the Bowery Restaurant Supply. They hold an odd mix of repair and medical supplies, including solvents and organic acids. One shelf holds jars of what appear to be teeth. The jars are labeled with initials and dates that are all in the last 2 weeks. There are also older jars with yellower teeth. In one corner of the room is a stack of boxes; one is open, revealing its contents of 16 perfect replica 1936 Olympic beer steins. Louis tries to stand and realizes he’s tied to a chair. He’s able to hop the chair across the room toward a table with a ragged metal edge. But his chair catches a rut, falls over and breaks, partially freeing him. Outside the door he hears rushing footsteps and Zelda’s voice.

Plot by Frieda Klotz
posted March 3, 2010

Zelda enters with Hitler's teeth. She explains that Joe is planning to make forgeries of those teeth and sell each set for three million euros to unsuspecting Nazi fetishists. Now that she has the originals, she's going to fly to Austria and run her own racket. She offers Louis a chance to join her. But before he can reply, Joe and Hannah burst in, holding Didi. Joe puts a gun to Didi's head and threatens to kill her unless Zelda hands over Hitler's teeth. Zelda is about to comply, when Didi slips out of Joe's grasp and runs to Louis, who trips and stumbles into Joe who, dodging Louis, staggers into a shelf of jars which crash down on his head, knocking him unconscious. Zelda grabs Didi and runs out. Louis takes the gun, and he and Hannah exchange a long lingering lovelorn glace. Then she vanishes.

Plot by Brian Lemarié
posted March 17, 2010

Louis gets a text message from Zelda: come to my apt. But Jim is at the door, obstructing his exit. They fight and Louis manages to escape, but as he speeds uptown he suddenly notices Jim, Bill, Finn, Don, Jon, and Gus pursuing him. He makes a detour and ends up in the housing project on Pitt Street, where, hiding in a recycling bin, he eludes his pursuers and darts to Zelda's apartment. She isn't home, but the door is unlocked. He finds Didi on the couch, asleep, and a note from Zelda, saying she's gone to catch her flight and would he please look after of her daughter. He spots a crystal figurine like the one he saw (and broke) at Dan's place. Examining this object, he unintentionally drops it and it shatters. Didi wakes up, sees Louis, and asks him to tell her a wake-up story.