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. The still brilliant light of a new January drifts down over Broadway, and the pattern it reveals is unchanged. The scalpled edges of piled concrete are still defined against winter sky. The joints are struck off chrome and steel, and the faces of the mob are already molded back into the old year's anguish. Because still, the vision of beauty stands in a doorway at the end of night, and you walk toward it, you're stopped by the hawker who has another plan for you. You push him aside, keep walking. He stops you again, lays odds you'll never make it, and you never do. And the light filters the corridor, you walk with a man who has just been acquitted of the murder of his wife. A man you arrested, testified against, watched as he was given the verdict of freedom. And in his face, no sign of release, of joy, only a newer pallor, sudden, intense. You tried, Danny. You didn't make it. The court found you innocent, Mr. Walden. Yeah, didn't they, though? You know something, Danny? What? They say I'm innocent. You say it. Me, I still don't know. I was out of the world at the time. I was drunk. That girl, I'd agree. Yeah. Spunky kid to sit up there and tell it into the teeth of the world that I was with her at the time Fay was... my wife was being killed. I wonder if I had fun. I wonder if I'd had me had fun while Fay was dying. She broke our case, saved your life. You want it? I give it to you. For whatever my life's worth now, take it, deal it out among your friends. Look, Mr. Welch, you're a free man. What's with this free? A man pronounces a word and that makes me free? You look. Fay's dead. The girl I loved is dead. A girl... You know something, Danny? What? It's now the law of the land that I didn't kill my wife. That means someone else did. That's right. I make you a promise out of the goodness of my heart. I'll get to the killer before you do. Hope to die if I don't. We'll handle it, Mr. Welch. You leave it all to us. Hey, hold it a minute, will you, Danny? You too, Johnny. I want a picture. You and Ida here. Here, stand close to him, Ida. Come on, come on. Get close. Touch his face or something. Get out of here before... Oh, Johnny, Ida saved your life. You don't have to, Johnny, if you don't want to. Stay out of it, huh, Ida, baby? You just stay posed where... Now, come on, Johnny. Ida here, this pretty girl here, handed you back your life on a silver platter. That's what Ida did, all right. Okay, take your picture. And step aside so a picture could be made. A picture of a man, Johnny Welch, his eyes dull, unfocused. The corner of his lips twitching somewhere between pain and hate. The girl looking up at him, unsmiling. And the man with the camera. All right, now try to look glad about it, will you? Forced smile, then. Post happiness for all the world to see. Okay, got it. Then turn the whole thing over to your memory. Go away. ["Taps"] Spend the next two days for routine. Fill in spaces on report sheets. Catch up on the paperwork. Shake a finger at a schoolteacher from the Midwest who was clapping her blackboard erasers on the runway at Times Square. Speak at a boys' club. Lose three boxes of matches at the poker game in the squad room. Catch up on your reading at home. Then the call comes. Danny Clover speaking. Danny, guy named Larry Moore just got some lumps. What are you talking about, Sergeant? A fella named Larry Moore just got slugged. Good. All right, well, why did you call me, Gino? Guy that did it to him was named Johnny Welch. Oh. Did you pick up Johnny? No, we're looking. Where do I find this Larry Moore? Same hotel where Johnny lives, room 305. I don't see why you waste your time, Mr. Clover. I'm not going to bring charges against Johnny. Looks like he went over you pretty good, Mr. Moore. Can you see out of that left eye? What difference does it make? I'm not going to press charges. Why'd he beat you up? Between you and me, that's all. Okay? He tried to make me confess. To what? That I killed his wife. I see. I guess you want to know why Johnny would think a thing like that, huh? Yeah, I would. I knew Fay Welch. Know her well? A lot of fellas did. You know, the boys who hung around the bar where the Welch's lived. Then Mrs. Welch used to hang around the bar pretty much. It came out at the trial. Your name didn't. For what reason? I just play piano for cocktail hour. I did her requests for her. Played them. I just can't understand it, Mr. Moore. A man comes into your room, accuses you of murder, beat you up. And I don't get mad about it. Why should I? A guy like Johnny, a guy like him, he's upset. He needs to be understood, Mr. Clover, not arrested. What kind of a guy do you think I am, anyhow? And for a moment consider him. Consider the man whose reaction to the violence done him was compassion, understanding. To have come out of a beating from an embittered man, a man on the prowl dedicated to the killing of his wife's murderer, and still Larry Moore makes no charge against him, wonder about it, and note your own shock that you've stained Larry Moore's compassion with suspicion, and leave him in a state of despair. And leave with no answer to Larry Moore's question as to what kind of a man he was, anyhow. At headquarters, issue an all-points bulletin for the pickup of Johnny Welch, acquitted of the murder of his wife, because where he walked, walked violence and death. And strip off the hours of waiting with routine, with talk to Detective Muggum. It isn't safe for the citizens with that guy loose, Danny. We'll find him. He's a sick man. Right now you could go so far as to call him crazy. Maybe. Who knows who he's going to choose out of the crowd to call his wife's murderer. This time he just beats up on a man. Next time maybe he'll be more thorough. And a sick man turns into a killer. We'll find him. Sure we will. Mind if I open the window a little, Danny? It's stuffy. Go ahead. Lucky fella. Lucky, lucky fella. What do you say? Johnny Welch, lucky boy. He just didn't know how lucky. No? Sure no. You'll find him passed out on the floor, dead drunk, with a bottle in one hand, a gun in the other, and his wife Faye with a look on her face, it comes from being shot to death. The real killer could... The real killer? The real killer could have killed Faye Welch, planted the gun on Johnny, because Johnny was too gone to know anything. It has to be like that. Because a jury of his peers said so? Well... Because a girl, a Miss Ida Grey, hops a boat from England, arrives just in time for the trial? Arrives just in time to tell a court Johnny was seeing her off to Europe, from the hours of 11 to 2 the night his wife was killed? This established Mrs. Welch was killed around 1 o'clock that night. Look, I'm not fighting it, Danny. Sure was established. Goes back to what I was saying. Johnny Welch is a lucky boy. Comes home from a party, drunk, staggers down a hotel hall, meets an old girlfriend, Ida Grey. She takes him with her to Bitter-a-Bomb voyage. This takes till 2 in the morning, she says. Alibi. Freedom. And Johnny Welch walks the streets to... You just came in, Danny. Good day to you, Detective McGovern. What came in, General? They found Johnny Welch. They're keeping him there for you. Where? Blossom's Bar and Grill on Third Avenue. One of them Third Avenue joints a dispensed mockery with... Danny, button up your overcoat. You shouldn't catch cold. Johnny? Hi, Johnny. Can I have a sit down? How do you feel? How do I feel? Let's get out of here, Johnny. Come on, I want to talk to you. I live here. Come on, you have a nice place back at the hotel. I live here. My home. Look, Johnny, you... How do I feel, the man? Simple question and beg the simple answer. I could say... All right, I feel good. You could say... not so good. Stop me when I get the answer you want. What have you been doing for the last... What's the matter? Don't you drink? Grab the bottle by the throat, friend. Pour. Admire my home. Drink. I'm working, Johnny. So am I. So am I. This is the way it's done. You finish a bottle and hold it to the naked eye. Like this. Now wait. The empty bottle. The things inside I can see. Dancers, friends, the people who smile want you to come along. I got no more friends. What's happened, Johnny? No more friends. Look, it'll take them a little while to get used to. I've seen it happen before. A man acquitted of murder, his friends are a little... They think maybe I did it after all. They look at me. They just look at me with, you killed your wife. They don't think that. You were acquitted. And Faye's dead. Where she was once is nothing. You never heard her laugh. Or talk. I just saw her when... Johnny. What do you want? I saw Larry Moore a little while ago. I got it on the list. I'm gonna see him. Leave him alone. Just to apologize. That's the only reason why I want to see Larry Moore. Apologize because I slugged him. Apologize because Faye is dead. It's a tremendous loss to all of us. Come here, take you back to the hotel now. You don't know what I've been saying at all, do you? Get your ear out of the mud, friend. I'm not here to talk to you. I'm here to talk to you. I'm not here to talk to you. I'm here because Faye is dead. The 12 good men in truce say I didn't kill her and that's good. If I killed her, I wouldn't want to live anymore. If I didn't kill her, someone else did. I told you... The police will take care of it, Johnny. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Get out of here, friend. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave him alone. Leave him to the life he wanted because you had no reason to intrude. Out on the street again and uptown. Stop up for a sandwich. Then back to work again, back to headquarters. Park the car on the lot across from emergency. Over here, Danny. And the voice that stops you belongs to Detective Muggerman, standing beside an ambulance. What's up, Muggerman? Where have you been? What's the difference? What's the matter? Your call came as soon as you left. You didn't leave word where you'd be. I took it. Took what? Hold it a minute, fellas. Take a look. Oh, no. Larry Moore, Danny. In the morning he's beat up, in the evening he's dead. You see it, Danny? Yeah, I see it, Muggerman. He was stabbed to death, Danny. Murdered. You are listening to Broadway's My Beat, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, and starring Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. Instead of going down, the annual rate of polio cases in this country is going up. Instead of growing panicky with fear in the face of such an unwelcome fact, there is a way in which we all can join the Army, which is fighting to check this trend and ultimately defeat infantile paralysis. We can contribute to the March of Dimes. Give today so that the 1952 March of Dimes will be the biggest ever and a really potent fighting force against polio. When it's January on Broadway, the darkness drains through the scarlet of neon before it's called night. And the dreams that are dreamed where a street corner touches the edge of evening drift away on the black wind. The whirlpool of color flung skyward by the spectacular's dips becomes a riot of shadows when it touches the street. It's the once upon a time land wrapped in winter's mist, gray and cold. The laughter's always at the other end of the block. It's nighttime, crowd time, the lonely time. And consider this night the slaying of a man. Consider facts, dead man Larry Moore, suspect Johnny Welch, nighttime, work time. Go back to the bar that Johnny called home, he's not there. Check his hotel, not there. So issue an all points bulletin again on Johnny. He's not to be found. So next morning go to a friend of his, Ida Gray, the young woman who once helped him. I can't understand why they didn't announce you down at the desk, Mr. Clover. I told them I was a policeman, I told them not to announce me. You were afraid I'd fly the coop? Am I that important? What do you do for a living, Miss Gray? I could have told you that over the house phone. Tell me now. May I be technical? Go right ahead. I'm a technician, Mr. Clover. I assist in the preparation of antibiotic cultures. Do I scare you? May I ask you why you went to Europe, vacation? Not at all, work. I went over to observe techniques in the manufacture of antibiotics in England. Observe, report. Free exchange of scientific methods. That was my job. And you left for England the night of Mrs. Welch's murder and came home during the trial. Fortunate for a Johnny, Miss Gray. Had I known of the murder, I would have returned much sooner. Honor bright. Poor Johnny. You feel sorry for him? Bring him to me, just bring him to me. Just let me get my hands on him. And what? I'd never take him away. Not very scientific talk for a technician like me, is it? He killed a man last night. What? Stabbed him to death, a man named Larry Moore. First Johnny threatened him, then he killed him. Larry Moore? You've probably seen him, Larry Moore. Played piano downstairs in the lawns. And Larry killed Johnny's wife, is that it? And who killed Larry? Do you know where Johnny is? If you find out where, take me to him, will you? You'll be here, Miss Gray. As a matter of fact, no. I have a date with a scientific fellow. We're going to discuss variable hydrogen ion concentrations in oriomyosin culture. Do I bore you? Then you might as well go. Good morning, Danny. And something else. Danny? Do you want something, Gino? It is not a question do I want something. Let us say rather, it is a question do the gentlelady waiting outside your office want something. They wish to see you and then to late to see Larry Moore. Well, bring them in, Gino. They told me... Who cares what people tell me. This way to see Danny Clover. If I am needed, Danny, you know where to reach me. The sergeant said you wanted to see me about Larry Moore. Yeah, I'm Chet Dugger from Trenton. Her, Miss Hempstead, have... Where are you from, honey? We never did get around a geography. Where are you from? Tell us, honey. The kid's scared, Mr. Clover. That's why she's clammed up. If you knew what I went through to get her to come down here with... Oh, don't be scared, honey. Why did you come here, Mr. Dugger? Larry and Miss Hempstead and me, Chet Dugger, we were a happy threesome... until comes a knock on Larry's hotel room. Larry gets up from the piano to answer it. So he says to someone, oh, what a pleasant surprise. Then he grunts, walks back into the room, can't play the piano anymore. The knife in his chest makes him more thumbs. And you ought to tell me you saw who it was. All Miss Hempstead and me want to tell you is... we were there in Larry's hotel room... because it got gay in the cocktail lounge, didn't it, honey? And Larry invited us up to his cell for more of his piano. And we were getting around to the oldies... Why didn't you come here before? Oh, didn't I tell you? The etiquette of what to do when a piano player dies... is, well, unknown to us, isn't it, honey? Then comes the dawn and the etiquette is... Oh, pardon me, your phone. Danny Clover speaking. Dr. Sinskey, Danny, downstairs in the infirmary. They just brought in Ida Gray. You were worried about etiquette, Mr. Dugger. Stick around, we'll try to clear it up for you. Miss Gray's going to recover, Danny. See, you don't have to worry about that. Probably concussion, bruises... Where was she found, Dr. Sinskey? In an alley, Danny, off West 16th. Here, here's the officer's report. No one can understand what they're saying. What did you say? Nothing, just reading the report. That's her room, Danny, you want to see? Is she conscious? No, she keeps saying something, though, over and over. Let's go in. What's she saying? Get close to her, Danny. Get your ear close, you'll hear. No use. A use. After all. You understand her? They said there wasn't any use. Did they bring this in here with her? Is that first? Danny, why don't you... She must be a doctor, huh, doctor? This is the way a policeman works. Precious keys, comb, wallet, bank book. I don't envy you one bit, Danny, to have to pick the little things, to have to pry like that. Sometimes little things, doctor. Would you say this was a little thing? What? This entry in Miss Gray's bank book. So she made a withdrawal and closed her account. Maybe she needed the money. I found myself face to face with needing money. But you never had the reason, Miss Gray did, doctor. Take care of her. Thank you, doctor. I'll see you at the hospital site. Markhamen, Cortaglia, come in. Yeah, sure, sure, Danny, we're coming. Need something, Dan? Yeah, shut the door. Where you been, Markhamen? Out and around. Any answer? Yeah, I consider it an answer. What do you want? Boys, boys, please. Before our lips get pulled any tighter, let's consider that we have all been chums together for a long time now. Johnny Welch has been hammering his way through alleys. Give him a little more time, we'll have more debt on our hands. When are you going to get her out of finding him, Nugovan? When I do, you'll be the first to know. I say it in the presence of a witness. Now, look, we are all at nerve's edge here. Our patients exhausted to the raw quick. Our... There's a police sergeant past his time. Before you say something for which we will all be ashamed in the morning, Danny, let me tell you what a police sergeant has been doing. He has been heltering and scouting up the nooks and down the crannies of police... Doing what? What his good lieutenant has ordered him to do. Checking the bank account of the late deceased Larry Moore against the aforementioned same of Miss Ida Gray, who was lately assailed by person or persons... And you found? That is what I hope will make us all friendly once more. In these two bank books is what I found. Here, put your heads together over it. Then class pans. Nugovan? Yeah, Danny? Take a look. Do anything to you? Yeah. Yesterday, Larry Moore deposited in his bank the exact amount Ida Gray withdrew from hers. That is what it does to me, Danny. Blackmail? Yeah. Dr. Sinski's with a girl named Ida Gray at the emergency hospital. I want that girl booked. Roger. Local. What do you want her booked for? Hey, look, you, what's your idea? Tell them who I am, Danny. They should start roughing me for entering without a pass. Marty Udenfreud, Markavansky, a friend of mine. And in case you ever afford a cab, I hack on 43rd and Broadway. Pleased to meet you, fella. What's in your mind, Marty? Hey, remember the blintzes my wife Sadie made for your last holidays? Remember how you enjoyed them? You told me. I did enjoy them, Marty. Well, I got now something you will enjoy even more, and without sour cream. The whereabouts of a fugitive named Johnny Welch. Where? I spotted him sneaking into a flea bag hotel down to the Bowery. Saw the light go on second floor front. Broke a few traffic manifestos getting it to you, Danny. However... Take me there, Marty. Danny? Yeah, what do you want? That girl with Dr. Sinski. What are we booking for? For murder. Come on, Marty, take me to Johnny Welch. So go now to a familiar place. Familiar because it's called the Bowery. Because it's the place where dreams are lost and violence is born. That one, Danny. That one right there. The air is chill with many things. The figure huddled against the night wind. Cold chalk scratched on a brick wall. Dampness on lips as a woman watches you walk by. And into the derelict hotel and up the steps. And think briefly this is the sound of a winter's grave. Danny? That's right, Johnny. Come on in. And the face of Johnny Welch is the face of the grave. Without meaning, without expression. Lifeless. I've been waiting for you, Danny. Oh? I thought you were hiding. Hiding? After what you did, Johnny. No, no, you got it all wrong. Tell me about it. The reason why I'm here. That's right. I don't know any other place, Danny. There's no other place left for me. Even the people in the bottom of the bottle danced away. Larry Moore, hide and gray, they're not in your life anymore. Larry? He's dead. I didn't know. How'd he make it? Ida? Ida. Always Ida. I saw her a while ago. She rubbed her cheek against me and said things you'd never believe. To me. She said she loved me. Did you find her? Uh-huh. She killed Larry, huh? She didn't tell me. Maybe you didn't give her a chance. I gave her all the time she needed. She talked and talked. The things she told me. Did she tell you how she perjured herself for you? How you were never with her the night of your wife's murder? She told me. And you almost killed Ida for it. I told you something once, Danny. I told you if I killed my wife, I didn't want to live anymore. I meant it. Now you know you killed her, don't you? Matt, you can't touch me for it because I was acquitted. Double jeopardy. Double jeopardy. State can't try a man twice for the same crime. That's right, Johnny. We can't hold you for assault with intent to kill for a long time. Intent? Didn't I make it? No. What's going to happen to Ida? You know, she'd be tried for murder. Why'd she kill him? Larry Moore must have known she was lying on the stand at your trial. He worked at the hotel he saw. Ida leave for the boat by herself. Not with you. She was blackmailing her. Twist, huh? Yeah. And all she wanted was you. That's why she perjured herself, got you off. I asked you before, Johnny. Why'd you beat her up? Saving my life. I told you I don't want to live now that I know what I did. You'll live. Present, Johnny. Sure. You can stall it for a while, Danny. And then I'll come back here. Look at this place. Then go over to the window and look outside. Gutter from top to bottom, all of it. Hold me as long as you want. Then I'm coming back to it. Why? Why? What's being dead got that this hasn't got? It's a panic in neon, this Broadway, where pleasure is a packaged commodity, like pain, where bargain prices prevail for numbness and a half-hour smile, sometimes on installments. It's the place that dares you, and one way or another it'll rock you to sleep. 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 Tertaglia, and Jack Crouchin as Muggervon. The program was produced and directed by Elliot Lewis, with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage. In tonight's story, Harry Bartel was heard as Johnny Welch. Featured in the cast were Mary Shipp, Shepard Menken, Steve Roberts, and Jerry Hausner. Our Miss Brooks is your Miss Brooks, every Sunday evening over most of these same CBS radio stations. CBS comedy fans know she is really the sparkling comedian Eve Arden. Folks who haven't met Mr. Boyington, Education's Slinging Eve's bashful boyfriend, and the rest of our Miss Brooks laughmates shouldn't let another Sunday pass without enjoying this refreshing CBS laugh spreader. Bill Anders speaking. And remember those lovable rascals Amos and Andy are here every Sunday on the CBS Radio Network. Thank you.
