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.
In the time before dawn, Broadway is an island of silence torn from the blazing neon, the
midnight sun of the spectaculars.
The river mists mingle with the vapors rising from manhole covers.
Through them move the rejects, the stragglers, the wanderers, the men without sleep.
One detaches himself, scavenges in a trash bin, chokes with the remnants of night, finds
nothing, moves on to the next.
It's the time of the endless search, the restlessness of an anguish you can't understand on the
street built for the purpose.
You walk it and a shadow whimpers and you hurry on, close your heart to it, because
the whimper was yours.
Finally you must put aside whatever it was you were looking for, because on a side street
a man waits for you to give you the night time's departing gift, the boy lying dead
against the iron gate of the tenements basement court.
Pablo Molari, Danny, from uptown, west 109th street.
Carried one of those handwritten identification cards.
Find anything else on him?
Not much, five dollar bill on his wallet, his saint's medallion he's wearing on a chain
around his neck.
That's about all.
Now you question the people in there?
Yeah, Danny, every door.
No one ever heard of the kid, had nothing to do with him, didn't want to talk about
him.
You know, most of them were trying to sleep, the heat, the kid squalling, you know.
Yeah, beaten, jaw broken.
This bruise on his throat.
Must be the one that killed him.
Hey, come down here, Danny.
What?
Take a look at the sign on this door.
Hudson Club, Johnny Hammett, president.
I guess it's one of those street clubs that kids make up for themselves.
This neighborhood's loaded with them.
Do you think what happened to this kid is part of it?
Yeah, I think.
What do you think?
Maybe.
Check it, Muggerman, I'll get back to you.
And wait now for the decent hour.
Give to someone a few more hours of sleep before breaking the news about the death of
a young man.
And at 8.30, to an address on West 109th Street, climb four flights and be careful of the rotting
steps and the three-year-olds at play.
The door opens to your knock, and the woman who pinches her shawl close to her throat
doesn't understand what you're saying, and calls a neighbor who understands, who explains
to the woman, the mother of a murdered young man, explains what must be done, accept the
fact of death, identify the body, bury her son, then walk away from all of it.
You've started a new day.
Call headquarters.
Detective Muggerman gives you an address, looked for and found and checked by the night
shift.
Johnny Hammett, president of the Hudson Club, a tenement on West 43rd near the docks.
Johnny's glad for the company.
I just like having my coffee alone, Mr. Clover.
You work, Johnny?
Yeah, here and there, mostly on Broadway, sir.
People always want things done.
You mean you run errands?
No, if you think all it is is running down to the corner drug store, no.
Broadway, Mr. Clover, it's full of tourists.
Anybody else live here with you?
Yeah, my father.
I think he still does.
I hardly ever see him.
How's the Hudson Club coming along?
Oh, fine.
Fine, thank you.
What kind of club is it?
Oh, a little bit of everything, sports, dances, beach parties.
The girls do most of the arranging.
Girls?
Isn't that funny?
About a month ago, I mentioned girls to my father.
He had the same expression on his face as you do.
Yeah, girls.
I'm 19.
I don't chalk walls anymore.
Johnny, a member of your club was murdered last night, a boy by the name of Pablo Malari.
Oh, is he dead?
No, he wasn't a member of the club, sir.
He just hung around.
What about him, Johnny?
Who killed him?
I didn't, and no one's come up to me since last night and said he did it either.
Where were you last night?
We had a meeting at the club, a special one.
Initiations, plans for the summer.
Broke up about two.
I came right home.
I want a list of your members, Johnny.
Names, addresses.
No, sure, before you go.
Look, where was Pablo found?
Outside your club, in the vestibule.
Nelson right now?
Nelson?
Toby Nelson.
We had him in front of the door last night to keep away undesirables.
Where can I find him?
He's at a cigar and magazine counter in the flick building lobby.
I wish there was more I could tell you.
I really do, sir.
Hey, sis, don't forget your change.
There you are, baby.
Good luck at the track.
What's yours, buster?
Your name, Toby Nelson?
Someone send you to ask an important question?
Police.
That buzzer could stand a little metal polish, mister.
Don't worry about it.
Oh, sure not.
Tell me what I should worry about.
About a boy named Pablo Molari.
Yeah, I've been reading him in the newspapers.
What's he to me?
He was found beaten to death in front of the...
Hudson Club, I know.
I know it says so in the papers.
What went on there last night?
I'll have to read the minutes of the meeting.
I was outside making these two big muscles that Tatsu wanted in and couldn't get in.
What happens at these initiations, Toby?
Ah, kid stuff.
You're swayed to do this and that and be a nice Hudson.
To tell you the truth, I was embarrassed for the kid.
Who are you talking about?
Paula.
Paula got taken into us last night.
Johnny Hammond wanted it, so I arranged it.
Paula Chopeck, which makes us fellow members, which makes me happy, happy.
This Paula's your girl?
Manicure is my pinkies.
Look, pretty job, huh?
Gives me locks of hair, that's me, our girls.
Oh, it's a nice thing we got.
Tender.
Paula Chopeck.
Uh-huh.
I've got her name on my list.
She was on top of the grocery store, corner 11th Avenue and 46th.
Yeah, thanks a lot, Toby.
Anytime.
Oh, here, take a scratch sheet, mister.
For free.
Go ahead, take it.
It's last Monday's.
And bring to the top of the list Paula Chopeck.
Climb the stairs, knock on a door with the curtain panels of glass and hear the furtive
scurrying behind it and the slam of another door inside.
Then hear a woman's steps approaching and an instant of silence.
Then the fumbling with the catch and the door opens.
The woman had not finished making herself presentable to the caller.
The wrinkled cotton house dress needed another smoothing.
The graying hair needed to be pressed back again from the furtive.
The tired voice.
There was nothing to be done about that.
Yes, something.
I'm from the police, Danny Clover.
It's good you're here.
We not think police come so soon.
Please to come in.
Please, that chair.
I sit by window in it by evening.
It's comfortable, clean.
You be cool.
Please, mister.
Thank you, but I'd like to.
By my daughter to speak.
By Paula.
Paula, is she here?
Yes, by room listening to records.
But first, please, mister, first.
You want to tell me something, Mrs. Chopeck?
About Paula.
You see what I am, mister.
But Paula, by Horace's great beauty, by the face, by the rich black hair.
Mrs. Chopeck.
Like crown she wears it, my Paula.
I'm sorry, but I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
By the face, by the rich black hair.
Mrs. Chopeck.
Like crown she wears it, my Paula.
My baby.
I comb for her.
Brush, wash.
Put in braids by night for sleep.
My Paula is good.
Clean.
Respectful to me, to such as you never trouble, never bring me tears.
Will you call her, please?
Go to her.
She wait for you.
She say me, policeman come this afternoon.
I have much thing to tell him.
My Paula say this to me.
What my Paula got to say to policeman, mister?
What?
In that room?
Yes.
You see, my Paula tell you her thing.
Then you, policeman, go away from us.
Ah, mister.
Paula, I'm from the police.
I know.
I heard.
Your mother said you had something you wanted to tell me.
Mom's wrong.
I don't think so.
Tell me, Paula.
Mom can hardly speak English.
Sometimes she doesn't understand the things I say to her.
I've got nothing for you.
Besides, I'm busy.
Brushing your hair?
Let it alone for a while, Paula.
Talk to me.
The boy was murdered last night in front of a club
where you were initiated.
Pablo Molari.
Is that what you wanted to tell me about?
Is the matter, Paula, scared?
Look at me.
You think you could scare me?
Toby Nelson talked to me.
He said-
He told you I was sweet to him, maybe.
Told you I joined the Hudson's because he asked me.
Because I used to jump when he asked.
That he told you?
That too.
The next time you see him, explain to him it's finished.
Threw, wiped off my memory book.
As of last night.
What happened last night?
I got initiated in the club.
What else can happen to a girl?
Murder, maybe?
A murder she saw being committed,
maybe something she's afraid to-
I said it once.
I got nothing to tell you.
So go tell Mom I got nothing to say to a policeman.
It'll cheer her up.
I hope you're right, Paula.
For you.
For your mother.
I hope you're right.
Danny, I give you the evening's greetings.
Thanks a lot, Gino.
You're here so late tonight.
Why didn't you go home after you saw the Chopeck girl?
I had some work to do.
Uh-huh.
Danny, would you mind very much if I regaled you
with a tidbit that happened early this evening
at the house of Tartaglia?
Please do.
Cousin Stanley from gay Paris
showed up after 10 of these many years.
Not him.
Oh, him it was.
And with arms akimbo with goodies.
Knicks for Mrs. Tartaglia,
nacks for the kiddies,
and for me, a great big bottle.
Champagne, huh?
Had a call, Danny.
51.
From Paris?
Those Continentals know how to live.
Gino, did you have that list of the Hudson Club children?
Did you have the Hudson Club checked?
Indeed, I did.
And each and every member swears under bylaws of the club
that they know nothing of the murder of Pablo Mallari.
Danny Clover speaking.
Squad cars downstairs for you, Danny.
Paula Chopeck was washed up on the beach
at Far Rockaway a little while ago.
Maybe an accident, maybe homicide.
You going, Danny?
Right away.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
The night wind off the sea was soft, warm.
The wind against the flames of the beach fire
strung along the coast
riffled the sand across driftwood, across the litter.
It brought close the far-off sounds
of a summer beach at night.
The laughter from behind screen porches,
the siren call of the ukulele gently strummed.
The distant screeching of gulls,
and closer, the other sounds,
the lash and wash of the surf.
The opening and setting up and adjusting
of the mechanical devices that attend the dead.
And then the trembling voice of the boy
who tries to tell you about the girl lying there.
How it was, why it was.
We were swimming, sir.
Lost her someplace out there in the dark.
And I heard her kind of scream.
Just you and Paula, Johnny?
Yeah, it was a beach party, like the ones I told you about.
The other members left.
Paula wanted to stay.
I asked me to stay with her.
You said she screamed, why?
She hit her head on one of those rocks out there.
The high tide covers them up.
I didn't know until I hit the beach she was dead.
I tried to...
Dead.
She is, isn't she?
Look at me.
I killed Paula.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
You are listening to Broadway's My Beat,
written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin,
with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover.
Tonight's the night. Yes, beginning this evening,
there'll be a new host on Songs for Sale.
His affable Steve Allen, a young comedian
whose likable personality you're really going to enjoy.
Steve Allen becomes head salesman on Songs for Sale,
introducing new songwriters and their tunes tonight
over most of these same CBS stations.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
On an early summer's night, Broadway stands on a corner,
leans against the orange juice stand and sums up the day.
Some days are better than others.
Some days you break even.
You only had one end of the daily double,
but the new blonde in the office
looked over her shoulder at you and smiled.
She put on her lipstick with her finger, she smiled again.
It was quite a day today.
The Dodgers passed a miracle.
You forgot to pay the check at the cafeteria
and got away with it.
And a girl, a song of a girl,
was washed up on the beach at Far Rockaway.
Here is maybe a tragic day, but here is a day.
It was 11.30 toward the end of it
when we got Johnny Hammett back to headquarters.
Sit down there, Johnny.
Cigarette kit? No.
No, thank you.
Maybe you'd rather have one of Danny's.
Here, here, have one, Johnny.
I don't want one.
Guess Johnny doesn't like the brands we smoke, Danny.
I just don't wanna smoke, that's all.
Can a man not wanna smoke?
Take it easy.
Sure, sure, relax, kid.
Am I under arrest?
You said you killed Paula.
It was my fault.
I shouldn't have let her swim out that far.
Did you kill her or didn't you kill her?
It was my fault.
Who killed Pablo Molari?
You think I did?
Did you, Johnny?
You think I killed him, don't you, Mr. Clover?
There you go again, Johnny.
Look, look, kid, a couple of your friends were killed.
We're police, we're asking.
I didn't kill anybody.
You don't have to explain it, Johnny Muckerman.
He knows why he's here.
He knows we need his help.
Yeah, help, Johnny, that's what we want.
We're not asking for a confession.
Who's kidding who?
Were you in love with Paula?
She wasn't around long enough.
She was around tonight.
What happened tonight?
You know what happened, what's the matter with you?
Look, Johnny, I'm gonna tell you something.
You're not talking to your little hoodlum friends,
you're talking to a policeman.
Nobody's trying to intimidate you,
nobody's trying to make you say things you don't wanna say.
You're talking to a policeman that's trying to do his job.
What happened tonight?
We had a beach party.
The Hudson's?
Yes, sir.
That's better, Johnny.
Paula and I came late.
The others were already there.
Toby Nelson?
Yes, sir.
Toby wanted to take Paula home.
Paula wanted to stay, so we stayed.
Paula and I, we were the last ones there.
What made Paula want to stay?
She'd never been swimming at night.
Then she swam out past the breakers
and the wave washed her against a rock.
Is that what happened?
Yes, sir.
All right, Johnny.
Can I go now?
Good night, Johnny, thanks.
What do you think, my good man?
You believe him?
I don't know.
I'm going to check.
I'm going to talk to Toby.
Toby?
Who wants me?
You've got a long nose, mister.
Your landlady told me you were up here on the roof.
Hers is even longer than yours.
What's a guy have to do to get a square foot of air to himself?
Your girl's dead, Toby.
Paula's dead.
You're stale, mister.
The smooth voices on the radio been telling me Paula's dead.
For an hour now.
Up here, I thought I couldn't hear him.
I hear him.
Johnny Hammett says it was an accident.
That makes it an accident.
You were at the beach party, Toby?
Never miss it.
Gives me a chance to show off my muscles to the members.
You did that.
Then what happened?
Let me think now.
Well, yeah, after that, I roasted the hot dogs for the group.
We all ate hearty, then it broke up.
I came home.
And left Paula alone with Johnny?
Yeah, that's the other thing I did.
Paula was your girl.
How come Johnny took her to the party?
If she was alive, you could ask her.
I wouldn't know.
Johnny says you wanted to take her home.
Why didn't you?
Because she slapped me across the mouth when I asked her.
They all laughed.
Johnny, too.
Then she laughed harder than anybody.
That's how I got the message she didn't want me to take her home.
She wanted Johnny.
Up to the night of the initiation at the Hudson Club,
she was your girl.
What happened there to make her turn on you, Toby?
She's dead.
Paula's dead.
What else do you want from me?
What else do I have to give you?
How much can you?
She's dead, mister.
That's all I got.
All right, Toby.
And leave the boy alone.
Give him the time and place of his grieving
and the quality of it that's bled out of a tenement rooftop
in a city stretching into the hours after midnight.
Go away.
Resign yourself, then another day is over.
The next morning and the legwork,
going out to a corner of the city where the sign says
11th Avenue and 46th.
Climb the steps and stop at a door.
Intrude upon two rooms newly filled with grieving.
Please.
Please come in.
Have my daughter.
Mrs. Chopac, the police are not satisfied
that Paula.
My daughter, Paula.
There's a possibility that it wasn't an accident.
Paula is in other room.
The others, neighbors by me.
We have only boxes to sit on.
I want you to try to understand what I'm saying.
Nothing.
Nothing I understand.
Only up to yesterday.
To yesterday when Paula said to me, mama,
I'm going to swim with this boy, this Johnny.
Johnny Hammett?
Johnny.
He called for her?
At first, my Paula, she said she would want to stay home,
rather.
Then the boy said something to her.
Then down low over her ear, Paula
took her suit for swimming, her cap not to get her hair wet.
Then she said what I said to you.
I see.
Just one more thing, Mrs. Chopac.
The night before last, your daughter went out.
Do you know where she went?
To someplace.
To party.
My club has party.
What time did she come home?
Late.
I don't know what time.
Did you talk to her when she came home?
Only when I tried to give her help.
Help?
Quiet.
Like ghost.
And sick.
I hear this.
I get out of my bed.
I come to her.
I say, Paula, you're sick.
Mama gets something.
She tell me go away.
Like I'm someone she never seen before.
Was she drunk?
Sick.
There was no whiskey I smelled.
Sick.
Quite.
Sick like ghost.
I see.
She's dead now, Paula is.
And the neighbors by me, they're in next room.
They sit.
They cry.
They touch my shoulder.
They don't talk.
They don't know what words to say to me.
Then walk the tenement street and have your passage greeted
by the sudden silences of the yelling kids,
the turning of backs after the furtive gesture of insult,
because somehow you were guilty of that anguish over the corner
grocery store.
Once you had been welcomed by a mother,
and for that you had left her a dead child.
And on that street, the guilt was yours.
So I got away from it.
At headquarters, read, reread the file on Malari,
dead of a beating.
On Paula Chopak, dead of a head wound
while swimming at Rockaway.
And finally, read away the daylight
and sit in darkness till a man comes in, looks at you
for a moment, turns on a light.
You don't mind the light, huh, Danny?
It's all right, Gino.
Thanks.
I agree with you that this killing, this dying of kids,
makes one wish to sit alone in the dark.
However,
You got something for me, Gino?
Danny, all I can give you is a comment
upon the children of today, the clubs
they must make for themselves, the things they do in said clubs,
the hurt they bring upon themselves for so doing.
Go on, Gino.
That's in all the papers, Danny.
How they go out of the way for new thrills,
new sensations, new emotions.
Only this morning while shaving, I was bending an ear
to the comment from the radio.
I called in the Tartaglia crowd.
You got something, Muggerman?
I don't know, Danny.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
What?
Gordon and technical gave it to me to give to you.
See if the big man can figure it, he says to me.
I got news about Gordon.
I actively dislike this man.
What did he give you?
He's been studying the bathing cap Paula Chopak
wore to the beach party.
He says it's curious.
Why?
He says the girl didn't have the cap on
when she went into the water.
Paula was proud of her hair.
She'd have worn the cap.
Why does he say she wasn't wearing it?
Because there was no blood stain inside it.
Gordon says if she was wearing the cap when she hit the rock,
it would have held some of the blood, which
means, he says, that the cap was put on her
after she was carried to the beach.
It means another thing, Muggerman.
What?
Paula was murdered.
Give me a squad car.
Go away, we're not open.
You're the only Hudson here.
Hey, Johnny, look what's here.
We got a caller, Johnny.
Good evening, Mr. Clover.
Nice clubhouse you've got here.
Can I show you around?
Where's everybody?
I thought you had quite an organization.
They'll be around.
When you leave, people will start swarming in here.
I'm glad you came, Mr. Clover.
Thanks.
Hey, what's with you, Johnny?
You buy a cop for a friend?
Don't pay any attention to him, sir.
He doesn't know about policemen.
He doesn't know they have a job to do.
You understand all about that, though, don't you?
Hey, what's going on?
Too bad about you, Toby.
Huh?
I said too bad about you.
Your muscles, your temper, the mad you had on the other night.
Hey, Johnny, what's eating you?
You never saw Toby work over a guy, did you, Mr. Clover?
No.
Tell me about it.
Once a boy tried to get in here, tried real hard.
Toby was in front of the door.
The boy never made it.
Pablo Molari?
Johnny?
It wasn't premeditated, Mr. Clover.
Toby didn't mean it.
He was just angry about something.
You're under arrest, Toby.
Put out your hands.
I gotta do something first.
Don't be a fool.
Take him off me.
Yeah, yeah.
Take him off.
Thanks.
Thanks, Mr. Clover.
That's just the way he went after that boy.
He would have killed me.
Toby will rest a while.
What are you doing, Mr. Clover?
Frisking him.
Nice cigarette case.
Cigarette, Johnny?
Are you kidding? I don't smoke those.
Don't blame you.
Marijuana brings you grief.
That's what it brought Paula.
Paula?
Uh-huh.
Paula was a sick girl after she got home from her initiation.
You have to smoke this stuff to become a member of your club.
Oh, now look.
You look, Johnny.
Paula was Toby's girl.
You wanted her.
That's why you insisted she become a member.
Put her on this stuff, she'd lose her sense of values.
You think I'd do anything like that?
Yes, I do.
You know me better than that.
I know you killed her.
I told you what happened out there on the beach.
You forgot to tell me why she went there with you.
What were you going to do, Johnny?
Tell her mother she was smoking marijuana?
Is that why she went with you?
Stayed at the beach after the others left?
I don't know what to say to you, Mr. Clover.
You're wrong.
And I think you ought to take care of Toby here.
Paula had beautiful hair, Johnny.
I'd go along with that.
She'd have worn her cap into the water.
You killed her before she went into the water.
How, Johnny?
With a rock?
Mr. Clover.
Then you threw her in the surf,
saw her suit would be wet, pulled her back,
remembered about the cap, put it on her.
Why did you murder her?
She was so beautiful.
She was so beautiful, Mr. Clover.
She refused more of your cigarettes?
Funny.
It worked before.
Let's go, Johnny.
It always worked.
You know, it got so they'd come around here
begging for the stuff.
A young man like me, connections,
it's like a king.
I'll tell you another funny thing.
I wouldn't touch this stuff.
Come on.
Yes, sir.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
Broadway looks clean.
The winds of the evening have swept away the litter.
Everything looked clean.
The
Broadway looks clean.
The winds of the evening have swept away the litter.
Everything looked sharp.
Sharp.
Like a knife at your heart.
Sharp.
Like a knife at your heart.
You walk against it, and it plunges deeper.
Deeper until there's no pain at all.
It's Broadway, the gaudiest, the most violent,
the lonesomest mile in the world.
Broadway, My Beat.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover, with Charles Calvert as Tartaglia, and Jack Crouchian as Muggavin.
The program was produced and directed by Elliot Lewis, with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage.
In tonight's story, Dick Krenna was heard as Johnny Hammett, Bill Tracy as Toby Nelson, Peggy Weber as Mrs. Chopat, and Michael Ann Barrett as Paula Chopak.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
On July 8th next week, Broadway's My Beat will be heard on a new day, Sunday.
Beginning a week from tomorrow, be sure to listen to Broadway's My Beat and the adventures of Danny Clover, starring Larry Thor.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
Bill Anders speaking. This is CBS, where Phil Regan brings you the serviceman's own show every Sunday on the Columbia Broadcasting System.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"]