Broadway's My Beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the godiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway's My Beat, with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. Broadway's fury shrieks through the chasms of the city, and finally the edge of fury washes against a doorway in a side street. The door opens and a voice asks a question. Police? You answer the voice and it leads you down a littered hallway, pulls aside a frayed curtain half torn from its wooden rings, escorts you to the center of a wooden platform circled with pale anonymous faces, and says, there, there she is. Under the naked white glare of a single spotlight lies a girl in a glittering sequin-covered suit of tights. She's like a piece of sculpture torn from its pedestal, but the faint color of death that ellipses tells you it's a lie. Then the voice once more. We would have preferred to welcome you to the I.O.O.F.B. in another way in other circumstances, but now- The I.O.O.F.B.? The International Order of Fuzzy Bears. Oh, and you're the head bear? Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm only the fuzzy bear in charge of entertainment. Robert Grover, most people call me Bob. I sort of make a hobby of entertainment. That's why the fellas, the other fuzzies, voted me. Just tell me what happened, Mr. Over. Well, we were in the midst of our gala spring get-together. We always get together at the end of the hibernation period. Tonight, Mr. Over. What happened tonight? I'm trying to tell you. All of us fuzzies were having a jolly good time, very jolly, when, well, I don't know what happened. I really don't know, except that girl. Perhaps I can assist you. Oh, and you're- He's not one of us, Mr. Grover. He's only one of the entertainers here. Please, Mr. Over. I am Marvin the Great, a magician, a clairvoyant, a hypnotist. And the girl? She works with me in my act. I put her in a trance, command her to perform the wishes of our audience. And like this, I release her. See? He did it again, Mr. Grover. He's been doing that for an hour or so, and she won't come out of it. Some of the bears who have been studying hypnotism tried it too, but still she won't come out of it. Because she is not hypnotized. She is dead. Any fool can see that. Did you not see it too? You from the police? Yeah. Yeah, I'd say poisoned. The color of her lips, the blue tinge. Wait. Her eyes? I'd say poisoned. Wasn't you, Marvin? How the girl dies is beyond my realm. Who is she? Huh? Oh, I have her name here on my list. Just a moment, please. Here it is. This one is Jane Arnold, Jack and Jane Arnold. The other entertainers were... Give me that list, Mr. Grover. Why, of course, of course. How long have you been working with a girl, Marvin? Two years, maybe three. You knew her well, then? Only as a girl I hired to give femininity to my act. I only knew her well enough to call her on the telephone and tell her I had a job for her. Someone wanted her dead. Who would that be? Beyond my realm. One moment, please. I'm thinking. Huh? I'm thinking. I've got it. What? The murderer. Tell me too, Mr. O. You say she was poisoned. Well... Maybe. Absolutely. She was poisoned. Why else would she die without a mark on her? She was murdered by one of us. Either a fuzzy bear or one of the entertainers. The murderer is among us. Go on, Mr. O. Well, I knew if I put my mind to it, I could solve it. Before the show, we were all being jolly, very jolly. Liquids were flowing out of paper cups into our mouths, and some into the entertainers' mouths too. Someone slipped poison into a cup and murdered this Jane Arnold. But who? Have that and we've got it solved. Brilliant, Mr. Rover. For a fuzzy bear, that's brilliant. The glow wore off. The boys from technical arrived. Photographs and prints and questions and a thousand details that attend violence. At four o'clock in the morning, an edition was made. Anyone or everyone in the hall could have slipped poison into Jane Arnold's drink. I told the bears to go home. And so did I. At about nine, the routine started again. The questioning of the performers who had left the hall. Stop number one, the pull the bed down from the wall apartment of Celia Stewart, dancer. You say you're from the police? That's right. Please come in. Sit down, please. Thanks. Ernie! Ernie, we've got a visitor. Ernie's my husband, Mr. Clover. Ernie! You calling me Celia? You calling? Hide me, Mr. Clover. Oh, Ernie, come on. Come on, get up. Now, Ernie, stop it. Come on, we've got a visitor. There we are. This is my husband, Mr. Clover. Ernie, Mr. Clover. Hello. I fell down. Would you like a drink, Mr. Clover? Do you think it's too early to have a drink? Thanks, not now. Waldo would never join me either. He was a good boy. Did you know Waldo, Mr. Clover? No. He was a good boy. He was a fine boy, Ernie. But he ran away. He ran away, Celia. Why did he go? You, you, Mr. Clover, tell me why he ran away. I don't know. Mrs. Stewart. Waldo and Ernie were a team, a ventriloquist team. The best. The best, Ernie. Waldo was... Oh, Ernie is a ventriloquist and Waldo... Waldo sat on my lap and talked to me. No one talks to me anymore. I do, Ernie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do. You don't understand, do you, Mr. Clover? Ernie had a dummy, Waldo. That was the act. Somehow Waldo got lost. We'll see what it's done to Ernie. Why doesn't he get another one, the make one? Oh, you'll laugh. He's done that. He can't get another dummy to talk to him. Oh. About last night, Mrs. Stewart. I read about it. I'm sorry about it. Why did you leave before the entertainment was over? If you've seen my act, you'd know why. Besides, I had Ernie to take care of. Ernie was there? I don't leave Ernie alone, Mr. Clover. Did you know Jane Arnold? Of course. Dozens of us, Mr. Clover, in New York, entertainers, we call ourselves. We work club dates and conventions, social. We bump into each other sometimes. I see. I didn't kill her. That's what you're trying to ask me. Everybody liked her. I liked her. She liked Waldo. I liked her. Mr. Clover. Uh-huh? Have you seen Waldo? No? No one has seen Waldo. Where is he, Susan? Where is he, Susan? Where is he? His body, his hands, his eyes pleaded in a beggar's whimper. Then he gave up. Ernie crumpled to the floor again, and the agony inside him took hold and shook him. His wife watched him for a moment, went over and spoke quietly to him. Ernie, get up, Ernie, please. Get up. Ernie. And I got out. The second on the list of entertainers was Joe Lilly, described as a comedian, sight or talk. Can be reached through Rialdo Agency on West 45th. At the agency, a scrub woman told me no one was in. They were never in. I wanted Joe Lilly to try Charlie's Bar and Grill. That's where the clients hung out, waiting for a call, moaning it up and waiting for a call. At Charlie's Bar and Grill, they pointed out the comedian to me. They knew that because he was the only one in the joint laughing. Hey, don't it kill you? Don't it kill you when it hurts, huh? When a dame says to them, but Chief, what do we do when the fellas kills you, huh? Close your eyes because I got another one. Joe? Joe Lilly? Yeah, who else, friend? It would go away because I'm entertaining a group of friends. A point killer. The fellow furs are lousy with point killers. A word, Joe, that's all I'll need, a word to a policeman. Hey, don't go away, friends. Let's catch the man's routine. Could be a lot of rich material in it. That's right. Don't go away, you're my friend. Last night, Joe, you had a... Had a call? Yeah, I had a call at the I.O.O.F.B. Ask me what the initials stand for. Go on, somebody ask me. My girl was murdered there. Gene Arnold? Yeah, I read about it. The mayor had an item about it. You didn't get a chance to go on, did you, Joe? No, I didn't. All those fuzzy bears were deprived of a finale of shock entertainment. Fuzzy bears! Why did you leave? Well, I saw something was amiss with a girl, so I left. I figured a murder was a tough act to top. How did you know it was murder? How did you know it right off like that? I read in the mirror how you knew right off. You got a good notice, friend. You knew, Jane? Well, we worked benefits, parties, street corners. I've teased her, that's how much I know her. Not well enough to kill her. You drank with her before the show? Everybody drank with Jane. Everybody drank with everybody. Maybe you forgot. Maybe you were alone with her in her dressing room, and you gave her a drink. I didn't forget. I wasn't alone with her in her dressing room because there was no dressing room. There never is. We dressed in the men's library. You went right home? I came here. My friends will be pleased to tell you because I bought them a drink on a cup. Where were you before the show? Here. Every day, all day, I don't make a move. There isn't someone knows it. My home away from home. Don't leave it, Joe. We may give you a call to entertain down at headquarters. Hi, Danny. Hello, it's a daglium. What have you got? Among other things, Danny, a theory. A theory as to the decease of Jane Arnold. Okay, okay, let's have it. Got you on tender hooks, huh? Now, this theory that I got is not my own but belongs to the case book of my favorite magazine, Detective Frisbee Navatney. Him again, huh? Yeah. Frisbee Navatney had a similar case of a girl being found dead under similar circumstances. However, in the last paragraph, he revealed that the girl was not dead at all. That's interesting. Yeah, it turns out this girl could hold her breath for days. Her daddy used to be a pearl diver. What have you got on Jane Arnold? Dr. Szynski, the coroner, says she is indeed dead from a deadly type poison. And all this. The personal effects of Jane Arnold as revealed by the contents of her purse. Mm-hmm. Please, what's the girl's name? Baggage check? Cigarettes? Compaq? Danny, did you notice the baggage check was six months old? Huh? Yeah, yeah, look at it. A baggage check from the Strand Hotel, the date stamped on it says it's six months old. You did good to Taglia. You did fine. Frisbee be proud of you. I'm sorry, the baggage for this chick, C-154, it's not here. Where is it? Unclaimed baggage held for longer than six months is opened in its contents old in auction to defraud storage charges. Oh, that's what happened to it. Yes, it was sold in auction yesterday. Yesterday? To whom? I can tell you that. I keep fine records. The manager, Mr. Fonda, always tells me that. Here, right here. Mm-hmm. The contents of M-154 were sold to Mr. Lou Granger, 131 through 14th Street. All right, all right. You want a room, mister? Hey, wait a minute. Where's your bag? Police. What's the room number of Lou Granger? Granger? That's the, yeah, room four, right down there, near the elevator. Thanks. Hey, don't go busting in there, because you can't do it. No? Why not? Well, he's got a sign on his door, says, don't disturb. Anyhow, I wrapped down his door just 15 minutes ago so the cleaning lady could get in. No answer. We'll disturb him. You got your keys? Sure. What's he done? Not a thing. Oh. And why are you police come around? This Granger's room? Yeah. And why are you police come... Open it. Okay, okay. Hey, Granger. It was bottled. My, my, such a thirst. Come on, Granger. Wake up, Granger. Granger's... Dead to the world, ain't he? Poison. This drink is poison. Yeah, that stuff is poison. Dead? Dead. Wow. Well, did this man have any visitors recently? Well, I don't know. Maybe. Could have. But I don't know. What about him? What do you know about him? A show business guy. Had an act with dummies. Through his voice. A ventriloquist? Yeah, yeah, that's a word. With one of them dumb... Hey. Hey, look. Gee, I guess Granger did have visitors. Yeah. Yeah. Strange, ain't it? Real strange. He said it about right. Strange. The thing that stared at both of us was two feet high, dressed in red check muslin. A doll, a dummy. And there was pain on its face. As if it had something to do with the rip in its side. Its hand was thrust into the tear. And the doll stared at us. And there was pain on its face. You are listening to Broadway's My Beat, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, and starring Larry Thor as detective Danny Clover. How well do you know the history of your Army? For example, do you know when the first Engineer Corps was established? Although there was a separate engineering department in the Continental Army during the Revolution, it wasn't until 1802 that an act of Congress authorized and established an Engineer Corps in the United States Army. The first Corps consisted of two assistant engineers, two other assistants, and ten cadets, all under the command of Chief Engineer Major Jonathan Williams. Thus, another page was added to the history of your United States Army. Broadway is beside itself when it feels the warm breath of summer at its cheek. Its fancy is lightly turned to thoughts of sleeping in the park, night ball games, and it stands on street corners considering the girls in their summer dresses. And until there's a favorable breeze, there's always the headlines to look at. Magicians' assistants murdered, the early edition screamed. And later, Ben Priloquist murdered, terrifying, sensational, grotesque. Or as Sergeant Tertaglia broke it to be the next state headquarters. It's refreshing, Danny. What is? These mints. Go ahead, go ahead, take one. All right. Anything else, do you know? Well, now that you ask, Danny, yes. Yes, indeed. You'll tell, huh? A man is waiting to see you. A man who gives his name as Ernie Stewart. I thought he might drop in. Is he along? Yeah, Danny, yeah. Why? Nothing. Show him in. This way you'll get to see Danny Corbell, Mr. Stewart. Sit down. Sit down. Right over there. Thank you. You found him, didn't you, Mr. Clover? You found Waldo. Why do you say that? Don't play with me. Don't play. People have been for all this time. Take it easy. I saw his picture in the paper. You found Waldo with that man in the room. Give him to me. All right. Is this Waldo? Oh, Waldo. Waldo, boy. Hi, you fella. You miss me? Hi, Ernie. I hurt Ernie. Danny, you know? Somebody ripped me, Ernie. I hurt. You'll be all right. I'll fix you so you'll be all right. Look, look, Mr. Clover. Waldo talks to me. I'm all right again. Everything's all right again. Uh-huh. We're going home, Waldo. You're going to like that. You'll fix me so I won't hurt, won't you? Hey, Danny, this guy's great, throwing his voice like that and making that dummy talk. Hey, Ernie, who's the baldy? That starts in to tag me, Waldo. Likewise to you. Ernie, Ernie, tell me about Jane Arnold. So pretty. She's dead. I knew it was going to happen the way Marvin treated her. That Marvin? A magician? Oh, he was good for always being mean to Jane. Isn't that right, Ernie? You're so right, Waldo. You're always right. Oh, you know it, Ernie. Why did you want to take me away from you? Then Waldo suggested to Ernie that they had taken enough of my precious time. Besides, Waldo was tired and drained after all he'd been through. Waldo wanted to go home. Ernie apologized to the doll, lifted it to his chest, and carrying Waldo like a babe, walked out of the office. Sergeant Geno Tartaglia and I sat looking at each other. That didn't get us anywhere, so I put a call through to Detective Muggerman. I told him to find the magician, Marvin the Great. In an hour, Muggerman had found him. Marvin had a week's booking in a tired, bauldo house on upper Broadway. The feature Western was on, so probably Marvin was in his dressing room. Marvin was. Do you mind please just to hand me my hair piece, Mr. Glover? Huh? The hair piece, the toupee, there on the severed mannequin's head. Oh, yeah. Here you are. You're welcome. Ah, tragic days for magic. Jane Arnold's death, that's tragic too, huh, Marvin? So, so tragic. It looks all right? Huh? The hair piece, Mr. Glover, the glue. It does not show? The line where the glue texts the hair to my face that does not show? We're talking about Jane Arnold. Why do you bother me with this dead girl? Why do you come before performance and bother me? I bleed for you. You didn't like Jane, huh, Marvin? I told you the other time, Jane to me is nothing. To like or to dislike. I paid her for being the girl in my act, that's all. I heard you mistreated her. That's a lie. Evil lie. I do not mistreat even an animal. I have animals in my act. Go, ask them. Who told you such a lie? It doesn't matter. I heard it. You see? Even you admit it's a lie. Oh, wait a minute. Ernie told you, huh? Ernie Stewart, that miserable alcoholic, that apology for a man who has no dignity or pride without a rag doll in his arms? Ha! I think Waldo is the man and Ernie the dummy. Tell me more about Ernie, Marvin. Gladly. You do not know about ventriloquists, Mr. Clover. They are a strange group of men. A dummy is their soul, their wit, their being. Ernie tried to be a man without Waldo. Explain it to me. He tried to make time, as you say, with Jane. Jane would have no part of the shell of a man. Perhaps this infuriated Ernie, huh, Mr. Clover? Marvin, you're on. Yes. Excuse me, please. I'm wanted for my performance. The great Marvin walked through the door with a flourish, carrying his props behind him. The only thing left of him in the dressing room was a surplous rabbit who seemed impressed with what Marvin had pulled out of his hat. Ernie had been friendly with Jane. Jane was uninterested. Lou Granger returned up dead with Ernie's pride and joy, a dummy named Waldo. Ernie was a man with a lot of motives. Back at headquarters, Sergeant Ataglia had a dandy routine that also ended in a flourish. A transcript of a phone conversation to Lieutenant Danny Clover from Joe Lilley, subject Ernie Stewart. Remarks? Please meet Joe Lilley at the bar, not the grill of Charlie's Bar and Grill. Important. I went there. Can you stand me this way, Mr. Clover? What way, Joe? In a blue, impensive mood. A comic beating back the tears. How do you make a joke about a murderer? A nimble boy like you. A nimble boy like me? Suddenly I become a guy with a burden. A friend of mine turns out to be a killer. Ernie Stewart. Yeah. I'm informing on it. You were at your chance when I talked to you the last time. What happened to your conscience since then? Nothing, nothing. I leveled then. Just that the circumstances have changed. Now Lou Granger's dead too. That's the circumstance. Go on. Mr. Clover. In the bottom of a shot glass lies the answer to all the questions. All the great questions. Yesterday I went visiting, Mr. Clover, to the flat of Ernie and Celia Stewart's social call for laughs. That household needs laughs. In my grade B way I try. Ernie didn't listen to me. He couldn't. He was out like a light. And? And the phone call came. Celia answered it. She talked with Lou Granger. Lou wanted Ernie to come down and pick something up. Celia seemed happy. She said she'd send Ernie as soon as he woke up. You know what happened. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Ernie went down to Lou's. Lou had Waldo the dummy. Ernie killed him. Yeah. Ernie would do that for Waldo. Yeah. Ernie would. What? Oh, it's Mr. Clover, isn't it? You're the one. Yes, Miss Stewart. Is Ernie in? No, he's out making the rounds for a job. Oh. Yeah, he should be back soon, though. You want to wait for him? Yes. Oh, please come in. I was going to call you, Mr. Clover, to thank you. Thank me? You know what you've done for Ernie. What'd I do? You found Waldo. When you did that, you wiped out six months of pain. Six months of... Oh, it tore me apart what it was doing to Ernie not having Waldo. But you fixed that. You gave Waldo back to him. And now Ernie doesn't need you. What are you talking about? You told me you never let Ernie out of your sight. He's out of your sight now. He was out of your sight when he came to my office to pick up Waldo. I told you. I told you I let him go to you because I knew what it meant to him. Now he's looking for a job. But he still needs him. Don't ever make a mistake about that, Mr. Clover. Ernie needed Jane Arnold, too. Oh, you know about that. Poor Ernie. He was so lost without Waldo, he reached for anything, even Jane Arnold. I think all that time he didn't even know I was around. Some way to pick him up, to put him to bed, to whisper sleep into his ears. Jane, how did Jane feel about Ernie? She laughed at him. Everyone laughed at Ernie then. Laughed, walked away from him, not laughing. Mrs. Stewart, there was another time you let Ernie get away from you. Oh? Oh, you mean the time when we got the call from Lou Granger? That time. Why shouldn't I have let Ernie go? Lou said he had Waldo, bought him at a baggage auction at some hotel. Why shouldn't I have... Mr. Clover. Ernie? Lou? Hi, everybody. Hey, look who's here, Ernie. The lost and found department from the police. Maybe you can't get a reward for finding me. Waldo, you know you're so right. We completely forgot about it. What shall we give him? We could give him cedar, Ernie. Put him down, Ernie. Put him down. Yeah, put him away, Ernie. You're coming with me. He's lost his marbles. You can't find Ernie and me again. He's lost his marbles, Ernie. What do you want with me, Mr. Clover? Murder. Oh, Ernie. Ernie, why? Why did you do it? That girl and Lou, why did you have to kill him, Ernie? Get her, will you? Get the act. If you could have come to me, Ernie, I would have helped you. I've always helped. Oh, shut up. Shut up, Waldo. Ernie, throw him away. Get rid of him. We were happy without him, Ernie. I took good care of you. We were happy. Get away from me, Celia. Get away. Take it easy, Ernie boy. You've been through enough. I'll talk for you. Yeah, what does he want to say, Waldo? Ernie, let him throw him away. Kill him. What does he want to say, Waldo? Celia says she was happy without me. That's why she put me in a trunk, because she was jealous of me. She checked me in the baggage room in the hotel and forgot about me. Did you do that, Celia? No, I listened to him. But Jane Arnold suspected it was Celia who had gotten rid of me, and because she liked Ernie and was worried about what happened to me, she kept looking through Celia's things. So she found the baggage check in Celia's purse? Oh, that must have made you angry, Celia. Oh, angry enough to poison her. What about Lou, Waldo? Oh, that was tricky. Lou called Ernie to say he had me, but Celia went down there instead. When Lou saw it was Celia who came after me instead of Ernie, he knew what Celia had been doing, so Celia had to kill him, and tried to kill me, too. Yeah, that bothered me, Waldo. If Ernie went to Lou to pick you up, why did he leave you there? I'm telling you, it was Celia. Why didn't Ernie tell me all this before, Waldo? He was sick. Without me, he can't think. You wanted a murderer, Mr. Clover? Well, there she is. I'll kill him. I'll kill him! He won't take you away from me, Ernie. Give it to me. Give it to me, Ernie. Ernie! Ernie! You monster! I'll tear you up! I'll break you like the girl I love! Get him! Get him! Get him! Her fingers ripped at the cheap cloth, scattered it far away the laughing mouth. There was nothing left of Waldo. Wood shavings, the broken face and rags. Standing there, receiving it as if Waldo's death were his own death. Ernie. Then the woman, the murders, fell to her knees, and her voice. We can be together now, Ernie. See? We can be together now. Broadway leaps into the night, and the sound it makes is the rasp of life deep inside the earth, the hiss of neon and the gaudy laugh. They melt together, and the sound you get is shock. But there's another, the teardrop and the sigh. No one listens because no one hears. It's Broadway, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway, my beat. 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. Included in tonight's cast were Stan Waxman, Elliot Reed, Mary Lansing, Herb Butterfield, Jerry Hausner, and Hiavra Back.
