Broadway's My Beat from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway's My Beat with Larry Thor as detective Danny Clover. Broadway, where darkness drains through the scarlet of neon before its cold night and the crowd gathers, the people of twilight till dawn, the crowd that coils upon itself then lashes out into the furious streets. You move with it, afraid to look back over your shoulder because the sound drifting by you, was it a laugh or a cry? There's nothing in between. It's Broadway My Beat. The message was handed to me at my desk at headquarters and the message was specific. The court chart of the Marbury apartments in Greenwich Village and the message had a code number to make the matter more easily classified. Murder translated into two digits. It is my department so I went there. The courtyard surrounded by slabs of building, nothing except the cascade of a fountain tossing the filtered yellow lights from apartment windows. That and a girl lying there, her fingers trailing in the water and a woman standing beside her being angry about the whole thing. Well, well I see you finally got here. I finally did. Who are you? Now it starts. Who am I? What am I doing here? What's this all about? How much of this is gonna be in the papers? Probably all of it. You call the questions, answer them. Val LaWalker, owner manager of the Marbury apartments. Look it up. Age? None of your business. And the girl lying there is a tenant, Hope Anderson. She's dead. Now what about the newspapers? That bothers you? Why? Look, listen to me. I've got an apartment house here, respectable, for girls only. Sure they can have men callers at certain hours. Who am I to warp young women by no men callers? But respectable. Understand that mister. The newspapers. The girl. Hope Anderson. I told you that. She's dead. I told you that too. Yeah you did and I believed you. Now try me on how come you're here. This way. I was on the balcony of my apartment, that one up there. I was sniffing the moonlight. I looked down on the fountain because it goes with the moonlight. Hope Anderson lying there didn't go with anything at all. Go on. I came down saw what happened. Then I posted a notice on the bulletin board no one allowed in the courtyard tonight. Then I call headquarters. Look mister, don't you want to look at that? The gun lying there? I saw it. How come you didn't see it? Yeah. Encrypt to the silencer. More about the girl Miss Walker. How do I know? She roomed in apartment 6 with, with, let me see, Jackie Logan. And Jackie Logan, tell me about her. Sure. She roomed in apartment 6 with Hope Anderson and she's been out all night. Now listen to me. If the newspapers get this it'll give my apartment house a bad reputation. Death by violence creates its own after patterns of behavior. For some the pattern is desolation, the paths of shock, then anguish, then emptiness. For Viola Walker it was none of these. An animal had crawled into a backyard and died. For her it was simply a matter of removal. But a policeman, a policeman has no choice. For him the pattern is known, laid out to be followed. So I followed it. The body of a girl who was once Hope Anderson was taken away. The gun that had killed her was turned over to the experts of death, the men in technical. And the policeman, the policeman went back to the Marbury apartments to talk to the good friend of a dead girl. Yeah, yeah Mr. Quover, I was Hope's friend. Girls like Hope and me, we don't have a friend in the world so we nail onto each other. That makes it bearable. Now that Hope's dead, how will it be, Jackie? Unbearable. For a while. Maybe for a long time. Want me to brew you some instant coffee under the hot water faucet? Sometimes it comes out good. Thanks, I'd like some. You'll have it in an instant. What I always say is what I always like about this town is you can always get hot water. This can get to be something desired, something hoped for. Here you are Mr. Quover. Thanks. Oh that's good. I missed mine this morning. Yeah, me too. Tell me about Hope, Jackie. Hope was a girl like me, only more attractive, more sought-after as the saying goes. And she did have other friends. Well, yeah. All right, let's start with them. I'd say there were two. That's right, two. And they were? Like in a novel, Mr. Quover. An older man and a young man. The young man with a fire inside him that could burn him up, the older man with a fire that was dying out. Rivals for the favors of Hope Anderson. I phrase it this way because I read novels in my leisure time. This is life-like. And their names? Care for another cup of instant coffee. Only their names, Jackie. There's something else you should know about Hope. And me, Mr. Quover. We never discuss names. Man is education, how they treat little animals, bank accounts, but never names. Sure you don't want any more coffee? No, but do something else for me, Jackie. Keep thinking about the names. And when you remember it, maybe it'll be better all around if you come to me at headquarters. Danny. Danny. Yeah? Hi. Oh, hello, Detective. Hi. Okay, okay. What about it? What did technical turn up with? Facts. You'll tell me, huh? Technical report to it. The gun found at the scene of the fountain was a luger of the type much sought after as souvenirs from the last and costliest war. It had been recently cleaned and had been fired only once. And you know what? Do it gently, Detective. What? It was only fired only once because there had been only one bullet in the clip. Said bullet was found post-mortemly to be the one that killed Hope Anderson. Now comes the good part. I'm clutching onto the desk. There were fingerprints on the gun. Fingerprints that can be and were identified. Last night we sent the prints and code to Washington. This morning they came back with a name and address. And it's who? Alan Harper, late of the US Naval where he served well and honorable. Address 8950 Madison Avenue. How did I do, Mon Lieutenant? Dandy to tag you. Just Jim Dandy. Yes? What is it? The doorman told me to ask at this apartment. I'm looking for Alan Harper. Alan is not here. Didn't the doorman tell you that too? He did but I need to find out for myself. I'm from... If you're a friend of Alan's, believe me, when I tell you that he's not here. If you're not a friend it would be rudeness to prolong this, wouldn't it? You didn't let me finish. I'm from the police. Oh, Alan's in trouble then. I didn't say that. Let's talk inside, shall we, Mr... Philip Warren. I'm Alan's stepfather. Inside, Mr. Warren? Yes, yes of course. Alan's mother is my wife. Perhaps if you told me what you want with Alan... You could make it easier for her. Exactly. Why do you think you need to do that, Mr. Warren? What frightens you about my wanting Alan Harper? Why, only that when a policeman comes to one's door one assumes there has been violence in some greater or lesser degree. Violence? Did I hear violence, Philip? Oh. This gentleman is from the police, Vera. Mr... Danny Clover. Mr. Danny Clover, my wife, Mrs. Vera Warren. The police? It's about Alan, Vera. Mr. Clover came to the door and said he was looking for Alan. I tried to find out why because I wanted to spare you. Spare me from what, Philip? I'm sure Alan never in his life did anything his mother could be ashamed of. What do you want with Alan, Mr. Clover? Is he here, Mrs. Warren? No. You may look for yourself if you find it compulsory not to believe me. Where is he? I don't know. That can't surprise you, Mr. Clover. Alan is a man. Vera. Let Mr. Clover speak himself, Philip. He hasn't finished. You were saying, Mr. Clover? I was saying where would Alan hide if he were wanted for murder? You see, I knew. I felt it. I felt it was something that... What could you have felt about Alan, Philip? Alan is my son. I only meant nothing, Vera. Nothing. You said murder, Mr. Clover. Who's murder? Hope Anderson's. Oh, yes. I read about it in the papers. And you think Alan murdered that girl, this Miss Anderson? His fingerprints were on the gun that killed her. Nothing. Nothing will make me believe my boy is a murderer. And I don't know where he's hiding. Hiding, that's your word. May Alan forgive me for using it. Vera. Show Mr. Clover to the door, Philip. I'm sure we have nothing else to say. Yes, Vera. Come, Mr. Clover. Please. Please. Mrs. Warren, if you know anything... Show me the door, Warren. One moment, Mr. Clover. Yes? Vera knows where Alan is. So do I. Why are you telling me, Mr. Warren? Because I believe it will go better with Alan if you find him. The life of a fugitive is not a savory one, Mr. Clover. The boy should have given himself up. The boy must have been... Where is he? He has a cabin on the beach at Montauk. He called Vera and told her he was there. Vera told me and I... Where in Montauk? It's rather remote, hard to find. I have it. I'll draw you a map. And he did, in a neat hand with landmarks and compass headings so that it would be impossible to miss the place. I stopped at a lunch counter for spud nuts and coffee until a Long Island train was ready to leave. At Montauk there was no cab waiting so I had to walk. The beach was narrow and pebbled, hugging the slow curve of the ocean. And to the left the high sand dunes here and there flecked with the remains of an early season's bonfire. It was warm for early spring and no movement but the pound and heave of surf and the spray. It was a speck down the beach. In a while it became a cabin and a figure standing there before it, a man dressed in flannel shirt and dungarees, no shoes. I walked up to him. Hello. Hello. Beautiful day, huh? Fine day for walking. Yeah it is. You're Alan Harper? All right. Yeah my name is Harper. Police? Uh-huh. You shouldn't have run Harper. Whatever your story is now it's a bad story. Bad from the beginning. What happened? You and the girl Hope Anderson. What reason did you have for killing her? None. That's why I didn't kill her. That's why my story is bad. I'll listen to it. She had just told me she was in love with me. Just then at that moment she made up her mind and she was sure of it. And just then at that moment she died. How? Shot. I guess it was a funny popping noise. Hope fell then something clattered at my feet. A gun, a luger, somebody threw it there. I picked it up and tried to fire at someone who was running away. Nothing. No more bullets. There's someone. Did you see? Oh! Alan! The picture held for an instant the boy clawing at his chest and the life spelling from him. And the pain sharp and precise and focused that pinched at my shoulder and flared out and it wavered, dissolved. I thought lying there looking at the single pebble that somehow was in my outstretched hand how red it was, how orange, how it spun like a million spinning lights and there was nothing. Nothing at all. You are listening to Broadway's My Beat written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin and starring Larry Thor as detective Danny Clover. The cream of the fun and songs on Arthur Godfrey's daytime shows are now brought to you in a half hour special Godfrey Digest every Saturday night on CBS. So if a date with the dentist, the hairdresser, with a traffic ticket in court kept you from hearing one of the daytime shows this week or if you want a fast half hour of Godfrey humor and songs by Jeanette Davis, Bill Lawrence and the Mariners, listen in every Saturday night to the Godfrey Digest on most of these same CBS stations. Broadway is a carnival of shadows that walk the neon Midway and scream when they've been cheated of an attraction. They bought it, they paid for it, it belongs to them, to the ravenous shadows. They told me Broadway felt that way about me. It made Broadway's front pages, they told me, how a kid found me on the beach at Montauk lying under a web of seaweed, how the body of Alan Harper was torn out of the fingers of the hungry tide. They told me how I'd been taken to a small hospital overlooking the sea and Broadway was wounded because a spectacle like that should have been played in Broadway's own gutter. Then a quiet voice told me I had a visitor, Sergeant Gino Tautaglia. Danny, Danny, speak to me. Good morning Sergeant Tautaglia. Good morning, good morning Lieutenant Clover. I hope you are in the mood for a visitor from the beyond. From the beyond? Yeah, from all the way beyond Manhattan. All my life I lived in New York, I never realized such a place like this existed in the outskirts. You can speak up Tautaglia, I'm not dead. Danny, how can I tell you how glad I am to hear that from your own lips? I've been visiting here for two days now, this is the first time they let me see you. There ought to be a law. What do you got in the package Tautaglia? Oh, a get well confection from Mrs. Tautaglia. Last night she went to the mix master and beat up an old Italian recipe that makes people get well. Here, Danny, it's for you. Thank Mrs. Tautaglia for me. You feel up to official business Danny in the physical wreck you are in? I'm up to it, the question is are you? Oh sure Danny, sure I'm in the pink. Well let's get down to official business. You need not think Danny that we have been lax at the department during your regrettable absence, we have been on the ball. Congratulations. Thank you. We have found for example that the footprints leading to the dune from which your assailant shot at you and the deceased Alan Harper, said footprints have been obliterated beyond recognition by the sands of time. That's a big ball. What else? The bullets extracted from you and the said deceased Mr. Harper have no similarity to any bullets living or dead that have been used in the commission of any previous murders or attacks. Jolly, anything else? No, no nothing Danny, except that the funeral of the deceased Mr. Harper is taking place this afternoon at 2 o'clock in the Orwell Cemetery. Oh, go tell a nurse I want my clothes to Tautaglia. Danny, you got it in your mind to leave, you can't do that. You are pale and bland and weak. Get my clothes to Tautaglia, I have to go to a funeral. Outside of Montauk it began to rain, a misty drizzle that seemed suspended, melting the houses and movement and sky into a sudden blur and it held. Later when we'd gotten back into the city and Tautaglia let me off at Orwell Cemetery, the rain seemed to have let up some but it was still there. The wet, the chill, the grayness. At the gate a man answered my question by pointing to a small group of people gathered about a mound of nearly turned earth. I waited. Then when they moved away when there was only one figure standing there, a woman, then I walked up to her. A woman with eyes closed against the shape of her son's final identity with the world. Mrs. Warren, Mrs. Warren, I didn't have a chance to tell you how sorry I am. I'm Danny Clover, Mrs. Warren, we've met. I was at your home. Yes, yes I know you Mr. Clover. You want to talk to me, don't you? There's no hurry. Consider it this way Mr. Clover. Brief isn't a simple thing. It's made up of so much. The lost times and memories. Later. And there's this all mixed up with it. The only thing in my heart that I know the words for. Find out who killed my son. We'll do that. We'll do that Mrs. Warren. You see, when he came home, when Alan came home from the Navy, he found Philip there. Philip, my husband. I had married again. I didn't tell Alan. That's why Alan moved up to that cabin in Montauk. I tried to get Alan to like Philip. Philip understood. Did everything to make... Well, it was difficult. And Alan's friends. This is the thing we have to know. Somewhere, someplace, your son, your son touched another person because of the he was killed. I don't know. After Alan met Philip, it seemed he didn't trust me. His friends were his secrets. How about Hope Anderson? She was his friend. Your son told me that. His good friend, Mrs. Warren. He was with her when she died. I don't know. I didn't know. Listen to me. It could have happened like this. Whoever shot Hope Anderson had meant to shoot Alan. Whoever that was missed the first time. Killed Hope instead. Maybe. Maybe. We'd better go now, Mrs. Warren. It's starting to rain harder. Hugo, I'll be all right. Somehow the rain... Well, it doesn't matter. I'll be all right, Mr. Clover. Hold still, Danny. I don't want the knot in your tie should look sloppy. There. Well, Danny, if I do say so myself, I feel much better now you are arrayed in dry clothes. Thanks for helping me change, T'Taglia. My arm in a slimmer. What am I going to do with you, Danny? You rise out of a sickbed without permission, you go to a funeral, stand in the wet rain, get wet. Any one of these things could have waited. I wonder if she's still there, T'Taglia. I tried to take her home, but she wouldn't let me. Who, Danny? Mrs. Warren. It's still raining, T'Taglia. Exactly. And you are to stay out of saying. You hear me, Danny? Okay, okay. Good. Now I will bring you in a visitor who has been waiting to see you. Who? A dame, a lady. By the name of Viola Walker. Why didn't you tell me she was here? I thought it was more imperative you should get him to dry... Okay, okay. I said I'd bring her in. You. Go right in. It's positively outrageous the way a citizen is treated around here. How long do you think you can keep a citizen waiting? After all, you're only a public servant. You could write a letter to a newspaper, Miss Walker. You see? You see how you treat us? The innocent victims of injustice, the downtrodden. I plead for you, Miss Walker. Who could have done you an injustice? Give it a name. Jackie Logan. That's the name. That's the thing that did it to me. Jackie, what did she do? When you were at the Marbury Apartments, the apartments I preside over, I told you they were nothing if not respectable. Remember that? I remember. I remember a girl was murdered there too. Hope Anderson, wasn't it? I'm like a mother to those girls. They have no secrets from me. I keep none from them. You're hurt because Jackie kept a secret from you? She's no good, that one. She's rotten and ungrateful. She knows more about Hope's murder than you'll ever find out. I wanted you to tell me about it, to talk it over like mother to daughter, so that we could both share it with you, please. Thanks. And do you know what the snip did to me? She moved out, bag and baggage. And when I pleaded with her to come back, do you know what she did to me? You'll tell me anyway, won't you, Miss Walker? She slapped me and scratched my face. See? See? Look at this horrible scar. You've got to arrest her. Where is she? I made a point of finding that out. She's at the Kearney Hotel in the Bowery. A dirty, pest-ridden flea bag. Imagine. She left my elegant apartments for that. All right, Miss Walker. You can go now. But I'm not finished. I said you could go. Get out of my sight, Miss Walker. Jackie. Jackie Logan. Open up. It's Danny Clover. Jackie. Yeah. The place was a mess. Like a big wind had ripped him through there and died. Like that. And as if somebody had tried desperately hard to destroy everything he could lift or turn over, the bed had been slammed up into a corner and the headboard wrenched off so that the edge of the mattress touched the floor. And on it a girl, Jackie Logan, staring with unbelieving eyes. Thin lines of blood crisscrossed her face like some abstract design of horror. And over all of it, the pink and blue that stuttered through the window from a sign that read Kearney Hotel, your home away from home. Jackie. Jackie, what happened? He'll die. I swear it, he'll die. Tell me. Tell me, Jackie. Who was it? I'll get you some water. Here, drink this. I can't. I can't. We'll get you to a doctor. Don't touch me. Later then. Tell me about it. Nothing. I fell down. Look, someone tried to kill you. I fell down. Why didn't he kill you? Hope Anderson's dead and Alan Harper. Why didn't he kill you, Jackie? He thought I was dead. He beat me. He thought I was dead. Who? Tell me who. That's gonna be my way. Because he thinks I'm dead, I got a good thing. Jackie, look, I can arrest you, even with you like this, for withholding evidence. Don't you know that, Jackie? I'm delirious. I don't know what I said. Nothing happened. He beat you because you know something about him. Because you know he killed Hope Anderson. And why? Is that why you were blackmailing him, Jackie? I fell down. Don't you want to get back at whoever did this? I done that. Ask her. Ask Mrs. Warren. Oh, get me a doctor. I'm not going to talk to him, Mr. Clover. The police ambulance came and took her away, and its siren was loud to cover the sound of her screaming. Then I went to the Warren apartment. The doorman told me that they weren't at home, but they'd gone somewhere, to Montauk, he thought. So I went there. This time it was night and rain, the sounds of desolation that only the wind and the sea can shape, and finally the cabin with its feeble yellow light washing against the darkness. Mr. Clover. And where you are, Mr. Clover? I came at the right time, didn't I? Mrs. Warren, maybe you'd better give me that gun. No, no, I was just showing it to my husband. See it, Philip. This is a souvenir of war Alan brought back. A Japanese revolver. It's clean and loaded. Alan was always a good boy. Neat. A good boy. Talk to her. Take it away from her. She doesn't know what she's doing. Don't try, Mr. Clover. Why don't you go over there and dry yourself by the fire? Mrs. Warren, I... I was just telling Philip that my son, my son built that fireplace with his own hands, stone by stone. I've been showing Philip things that were a part of my son's life. Mrs. Warren, I've just left a girl who said she told you something over the phone. Jackie Logan. What did she tell you? She sounded very ill, as if she were in great pain. She was. She'd been beaten so hard that whoever did it thought she was dead. No. Oh no. What did she tell you, Mrs. Warren? Was it that she was blackmailing your husband? What are you talking about? Are you out of your mind? You think us all out of our minds, don't you, Philip? Mr. Clover, me. How did you know that, Mr. Clover? I didn't, but it fits. Viola Walker came to me. Told me to arrest Jackie because Jackie had slapped her face and left her bored in bed. When I saw Jackie, I knew it was more than that. Viola wanted in on something. Blackmail. Maybe she should have seen what blackmailing did to Jackie. But Philip saw, didn't you, Philip? Oh, there are so many things to kill you for, Philip. For wanting a girl my son loved. You didn't mean to kill Hope Anderson, did you, Warren? Of course he didn't, Mr. Clover. Not the girl, but my son. And finally he murdered Alan, tried to kill you, and that poor girl Jackie. Oh, Alan. Alan! Watch out, Mr. Clover! This gun, Philip. Alan's gun. I'm going to kill you with it. Mrs. Warren. Mrs. Warren, give it to me. Don't. Don't stop me. Not that way. Give it to me. He's getting away. I said I'd kill him and he's getting away. The gun. Warren, stop! Don't be a fool, Warren. All right, Mrs. Warren. He's not dead. It's only a leg wound. Mr. Clover. Mr. Clover, you should have let me kill you. Broadway. Where the buildings of the night lean against the darkness in crazy, tilted angles. And walk carefully, kid, or you'll upset their balance. It's a street where you walk the high wire, or else you've got to play it safe in a cage. It's Broadway. The gaudiest, the most violent. The lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway. My Beat. Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover with Charles Calvert as Tartaglia. The program was produced and directed by Elliot Lewis. The musical score was composed and conducted by Alexander Courage. The cast tonight included Frances Chaney, Jodie Gilbert, Don Oreck, Ida Reese-Merrin, and Herb Butterfield. No one has ever devised a satisfactory, get-rich-quick plan. But your government has a plan whereby you can save money automatically and get a good return on your savings. It's the Payroll Savings Plan for the purchase of United States savings bonds. By means of this plan, your employer will set aside a small amount of money from your paycheck for the purchase of bonds. If there is no Payroll Savings Plan where you work, or if you are self-employed, you can sign up with the Bond-a-Month Plan at your bank. Under this arrangement, the bank buys a bond a month for you and charges it to your checking account. You'll find United States savings bonds are a profitable investment, and they're as safe as your government. Start buying United States savings bonds today. Joe Walters speaking. This is CBS where you dance to the music of Vaughan Monroe's Saturday Nights. The Columbia Broadcasting System.
