["My Beat", by John Williams, playing on the radio.]
Broadway's My Beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world.
["My Beat", by John Williams, playing on the radio.]
Broadway's My Beat, with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clober.
["My Beat", by John Williams, playing on the radio.]
The November morning sits down over Broadway, and for a time the swarm stands bewildered, stares at its empty hands.
The solitude begins to shape itself once more, out of November's winds, out of the silent, colorless neon, out of mists flaring upward from manholes.
And finally, the solitude is clear and present, whispering again its desolate invitation, and the derelicts of morning run from it.
Beat open a door, plead for refuge, find it in a time clock. It's another day, kid. All yours.
["My Beat", by John Williams, playing on the radio.]
And at headquarters do the things of the morning. Brush the night dust off the unfinished report, wad up the paper cup with the dregs of cold coffee,
toss it in the wastebasket, tear a page off a calendar.
A shooting, Danny. Fold in. Man says he's shocked, wants to talk. Here's the address.
Take it from the sergeant. Go to the address. Find the man standing plopped against the wall of the apartment,
one hand in a fist pressed hard against his chest, pushing back the fragment of light that was still inside him.
And watch it seep through his fingers.
You took your time, Danny.
Let me help you off.
Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Just stay. Stay. Listen.
Who shot you?
Stanley. Stanley. He lost him. A little nothing. Worked for me. I put the bread in his mouth. Stamped. He killed me.
That little nothing. He killed me.
The ambulance will be here in a minute.
You keep your hands off me. I'm dying. And you, all you've got to do is listen.
Alex, Raymond, that's me. That's who I was. You get that little nothing. You hear it? You get it? And you burn. Burn.
And the word stopped. And briefly the mouth moved over nothingness, voicing nothing, moving quickly and fitfully like quicksilver,
until it froze, until the shape of it was forever.
Because he was dead.
And after that, Alex Raymond objectively, the measuring of his death by instruments and men with cigars,
the photographing of it, the recording of it under a heading, files, active,
and take a piece of the image away with you, a name of killer. Name Stanley Lawson, employee of Alex Raymond.
Consult other records, make a phone call, and come up with an address. Go to it.
Yes?
My name's Clover. I'm from the police.
What is it you want?
I'm looking for Stanley Lawson. The card on your door says-
Stanley Lawson, I'm noted Lawson, his wife. Why are you looking for him?
Suspicion of murder, Mrs. Lawson.
All right, come in. In here. Stanley isn't home.
Where is he?
If he committed murder, he's probably running or hiding or whatever a new murderer is supposed to do. What I'd do.
Which one did he kill?
What do you mean?
Which one? Raymond or Harper?
A little while ago, a man named Alex Raymond said your husband shot him.
Then Edwin Harper must be running or hiding too.
You mind telling me what you're talking about?
Raymond and Harper incorporated. Together they employed my husband to make them rich.
In this, my husband was successful. That he's made one of them dead will give you some idea of how important my husband was to the concern.
You think your husband's going to kill Edwin Harper too?
My husband is what is known among educators, among party goers, among those who conversationally psychoanalyze people as a plugger.
The fact that my husband has set his mind to wiping out Raymond and Harper simply means that he had to kill one of them first.
And none of this surprised you, Mrs. Lawson?
Me least of all, I'm his wife. I attend his emotional moments. I know about my husband.
Would you mind telling me why he killed Alex Raymond?
No, nor why he'll kill Harper. Stanley has been working for them for fifteen years, a designer of their happy toys for tots.
They fired him yesterday without a gold watch, without a pat on the back, just a pink slip.
What does a plugger do after plugging in a pattern for fifteen years? Stanley killed.
You're wasting your time talking to me, Mr. Clover. I'd find Edwin Harper if I were you.
That is, if you feel the necessity of saving his life.
And consider for a moment her easy acceptance of the violence that had intruded on her life,
the final flourish that put an end to the meaningless pattern that had been hers, her husband's, shown in the way she wraps the tinted portrait of him in the newspaper, gives it to you, wants it back when you're through with it, and you give her the promise, leave her with it.
Then a murderer's description on the wires, they all point bulletin, a woman's toneless voice in Prowlcar radios, killer at large, get it all moving.
Then go to the man Mrs. Lawson told you about, the other man her husband wants dead.
Edwin Harper, find him in his office at the factory, watch him nervously caress a toy as he tries to understand it.
Look, you, Alex and me, we built a big thing here. With Christmas coming on, it's going to be bigger than-
Alex Raymond is dead, Mr. Harper. I don't know any other way to tell you.
Don't kid me, Mr. This toy I got here in my hands, our biggest novelty, Alex and me were going to flood all the kids in the country. Why, without Alex-
Stanley Lawson shot him, killed him in cold blood.
Why? Why would a little punk like Stanley do a thing like that? Nobody does things like that.
Lawson did, because you fired him. His wife told me he'd been with you for 15 years.
There are jobs, all kinds of jobs for a punk like Stanley. Defense, janiting, all kinds of jobs. We get rid of people all the time. We don't expect to get killed for it.
Why did you get rid of Lawson?
He was washed up, through, finished, dead. That's why.
Mrs. Lawson-
Who gives a thing for what she's had? What'd she tell you, huh? That her Stanley was the brains of our outfit, that he swept blood and tears for Alex and me, that he was devoted, loyal, 100 percent? That's what she told you?
Something like that.
So maybe it's true. Maybe that's how it was. We picked his brain and then all of a sudden he don't come up with anything anymore. Look, mister, a designer who can't design anymore, who needs him. I got to live too. You got to wait, you throw it away.
Yeah. You got any ideas where Lawson might go to hide any particular place?
You mean that punk, that murderer is on the loose? You haven't got him?
No, I, but maybe you could help him.
Help? It's me you got to help. Don't it penetrate you? Next he'd want me.
We'll take care of it, Mr. Harper.
Look, I got no intention of dying. None at all. Not from Stanley, not from anything. It's your responsibility. You understand that? You got it clear? I'm not going to die.
Lieutenant Clover?
Huh? Yeah?
I'm Detective Kenny. I-
Oh, sure, sure. Come on in. Yeah, I've got the notation right here on my desk. You've been assigned to me, haven't you, a while. Detective Muggerman is on vacation.
That's right, sir. I've got some information for you, Lieutenant, about Stanley Lawson. Rather negative information, if I may say so.
Sure, you may say so. Just tell me about it, huh?
Yes, sir. All these from communications. Stanley Lawson was seen going into a theater on 42nd Street. And at the same time, this other report spotted him on Staten Island Ferry. And there's another one here from the Westside Golf Club. There's a man there on the 10th hole who's been teeing off for an hour.
All of them are checked, aren't they?
These and half a dozen more, sir. Still haven't gotten Stanley Lawson.
Hmm. Well, thank you, Kenny.
Yes, sir.
Oh, pardon me. Danny Clover speaking.
This is Edward Harvey. He called me. He just called me.
Lawson?
Yes, sir. He wants me to meet him, to bring money to him. He says he'd kill me if I don't. You're not going to let him kill me.
Where are you supposed to meet him?
At Tenement. Corner 16th and 9th Avenue, at 9 o'clock. If you think I'm going there, you're crazy. I'm staying right here. You've got to protect me.
Don't worry about a thing. We'll take care of it. Goodbye, Mr. Harper.
Kenny?
Yes, sir.
Call me after you've had your dinner. We've got something to take care of.
Lieutenant Clover.
I'm glad you're here, Lieutenant. It's just about time. 9 o'clock.
Did everything set up, Kenny?
Yes, sir. Lights, P.A. We've got a cordon around the whole block. As far as the stakeout's concerned, we're all ready.
Good.
It's the tenement across the street.
Uh-huh.
The tenement's unoccupied, sir. Condemned. But a few minutes ago, we saw some movement up on the second floor.
But anyhow, one of the officers said he saw something move out.
I'll take it from here. Hand me the P.A.
Yes, sir.
The spotlights, Kenny.
Yes, sir.
Okay, man.
All ready, sir?
Yeah.
Lawson, this is the police.
We know you're in there, Lawson. We want you to come out with your hands up.
One minute to make up your mind. But we're coming in after...
Let me out!
Kenny! Kenny! Kenny! You, officer! Get an ambulance. You and you. Cover me. I'm going in after him.
You just shot an officer, Lawson. Throw away your gun and come on down, or you won't get out of here alive.
All right, Lawson. Any way you want it.
You're not going to get me!
Stop, Lawson! Stop!
I told you to stop, Lawson.
You made a mistake. I didn't kill anybody. All of it. Mistake.
You are listening to Broadway is My Beach, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, and starring Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover.
The life that curtains Broadway in late November is a thing of gauze, gray stuff that touches autumn with December.
It's the time when the shadows come in with the sun, the time of the three coffee breakfasts, and the sweater and the vest under the coat.
But the plucked birds hang high. There are stalks of corn and pumpkin pie behind moist shop windows.
It's holiday season, and up and down the furious street, chefs smile.
There's no problem for Thursday's blue plate special.
Forget the headlines, kid. Everywhere, everybody will be eating turkey. It says.
But when the new day comes, the light that drifts into a hospital room has another texture,
because it lies against clean walls and starched curtains before it touches a bed, a bed where a man named Stanley Lawson lay, a murder suspect, and his wife considers him.
Look at him, Mr. Clover, in the state of shock. Isn't that what your doctors call a shock? So clinical.
Meaning his mind has rejected him finally.
Do you expect me to feel sorry for him, Mrs. Lawson?
Only for yourself, because you were forced to do what you did, shoot him.
Talk with yourself. Convince yourself you did the only thing possible. My husband can't talk. Who is the happier man?
I can't answer anything about your husband, Mrs. Lawson. The only thing I know about him for sure is that he shot a police officer.
And he did that tempers all my thinking about him.
How is the officer?
Bad. Very bad.
I'm sorry.
I know you are.
Mr. Clover?
Yes.
You said you were sure only that Stanley shot a police officer. What about Alex Raymond?
Your husband probably shot him too.
Probably?
Before he passed out, your husband said something. He said that everything was a mistake, just that.
But everything is a mistake. Everything always is.
Look at him. A man. A life. Look what's become of it.
The resident says he has a good chance to live, Mrs. Lawson.
That's fine. May I be alone with him for a while, Mr. Clover, please?
Don't look for me anymore out the window, Danny.
Inside, complete with your lunch.
Oh, thanks, Gino. In that shopping bag, all I gave you was 35 cents per sandwich.
Not only did I get you a lunch, Danny, but I brought back change. Wait and you see.
All right.
That's just a delegatessen, Danny. All I got to mention is I am here for Danny Clover. I don't even need a number to get waited on.
What's all that stuff, Gino?
Your name is magic, Danny. I ordered you your hot pastrami sandwich. The boys insisted it isn't enough. Got to have four spies.
Why?
Four spies, Danny. An expression meaning you got a free little delicacy from each of the four boys.
Ergo, four spies. From Sid, a container coleslaw. From Eddie, a dead potato salad with celery seed. From Frank, a slice halibut. And from Irv, a-ha!
What from Irv?
A kosher pickle slipped into my hand under the table. Eat, Danny. Eat in good health.
Quite a haul, Sergeant.
You're welcome, I'm sure. I also brought along a datum you asked I should pick up on my way back upstairs.
You're a ball of fire today, Gino.
Thank you, I'm sure. And then datum number one. The gun with which Stanley Lawson committed murder upon Alex Raymond and did wound Detective Kenny. The boys can't find it.
They haven't found it?
As yet, no.
Lawson shoots out of that tenement window, hits Kenny. I go in right after him. We can't find his gun.
This is a puzzle, Danny. A fleeing fugitive off-porses away the weapon with which he committed mayhem. Through a window, down a pipe, or-
What else have you got, Gino?
Datum number two. Concerning the deceased Alex Raymond which you requested. It seems that Mr. Raymond, as it must to all men, had a girlfriend.
Where?
A Miss Grace Gillrin, Daddy. Regent Powers West 23rd. However, why you need such-
I may answer it for you, Danny.
Go ahead.
Danny Clovis, Officer Sergeant Todd-
What?
No. Yeah, I'll tell him.
Tell me what, Gino?
Give me a minute, Danny. Kenny. Detective Kenny. He's dead.
And watch Gino turn, walk quickly out of the room. Go searching for some empty place where the quicksorrow can't be seen in the herd.
And in a little while, look out the window. See him, hapless, without a coat, wandering the sidewalk, wandering the autumn wind.
Hand him his coat and walk with him. Try to ease it for him. Explain it to him. To yourself.
The stairs of the passes by tell you you're not doing real good.
Then the brief time of being alone with it, the time it takes to get to 23rd Street, to the Regent Powers, to a girl named Grace Gillrin,
for her instant in your life, let go of it.
You're a policeman? Why won't they think up next?
I want to talk to you, Miss Gillrin, about Alex-
Alex Raymond. He's dead, you know. Dead and gone.
You want to talk about it here in the hall or-
Oh, glad you thought of it first. Come on in. Come in.
That chintz seeded a van over there. You'll look good on that.
Alex Raymond. Just about him.
I read how you punched a bullet hole in his killer. What more can a man ask for?
There's some things I need to know.
About me? About me with Alex?
Ever talk to you about his factory, about the people who work for him?
You mean the boy who put it to Alex. You mean Stanley Lawson, don't you now?
That's right.
Killer, murderer, pale little man like him. The things that go on inside these pale little men surprises a girl.
What did Raymond tell you about him?
Just enough to bring up the yawns, how Lawson was quite a designer.
Then why did they fire him?
Beats me, too. Especially after that XK-20.
The XK-20? What's that?
The secret weapon of the Raymond and Hopper Company. A toy rocket ship. Zooms, spits flame, beats Hoppy.
You'll see him with the millions on the Christmas counters.
Lawson designed it and they fired him for that?
You know, now that you mention it, it makes me wonder.
About what?
It goes to be a surprise to Lawson. He brought in the first model of the XK-20 last June. Made it on his own time.
Alex and Edwin Harper looked at it and said it was just nothing. But you know what?
Just tell me, huh?
They showed it to a buyer anyhow. The buyer ordered a thousand growths on the spot. Said it had a dozen other buyers.
But they didn't tell Lawson about it?
Ah. In fact, just to make it more of a surprise for Lawson, they had the toy manufactured by a subcontractor out of town.
I'll tell you something else. Alex whispered he might make a million out of that XK-20.
A million, XK-20, murder. Confuses a girl like me.
Hey, Danny! Danny, wait for me!
What's on your mind, Gino?
Here. Exhibit A. All wrapped up, ready to go.
Oh, they found the gun, huh? Where?
Wedged between some debris and an old tire in the backyard of the tenement where Lawson and Don will be flung.
How come it wasn't found sooner?
Why ask me? I wasn't there. I don't know.
Do something for me, Gino.
What?
Go upstairs and get the fingerprints of everybody connected with this case.
Then take the prints and the gun down to Gordon in technical. Tell Gordon I'll be there in a half hour.
Okay, Danny.
Well, Danny Clover.
I make you that happy, Gordon?
Look, Gordon, a little while ago Sergeant Fertigli came down here with his grubby fists aglow with things for Gordon for me to take care of for you, because I'm the only one who can.
A gun and a few sets of fingerprints. You know my advice to you...
So help me, Gordon.
...bury sickly threats from such a big man, my advice to you, Lieutenant, is to keep your mouth open in amazement and let your jaw hang there.
I've got a goody for you.
Okay, what is it?
The prints on the gun. You know who those are, Lieutenant?
Lawson's?
A dead man, Alex Raymond, the man who fell dead in your arms yesterday afternoon.
You kidding?
If I was kidding, you'd be laughing, but your jaw's hanging the way I said it would.
Raymond, a man who died yesterday afternoon, also left his prints on a gun that killed an officer who died last night.
Very tricky, isn't it?
Look, Mr. Clow, you picked me up at my place and I came along with you without question. Don't you think it's time you told me what this is all about?
The last department in this corridor is the home of Stanley Lawson, the man who used to be your toy designer.
I see. What do you expect me to do? Look at it, feel sorry for the people inside?
Just his wife, the only one inside. You'd better brief me on what I'm supposed to say to a woman whose husband killed my partner, murdered an officer of the law. It'll come to you.
Good evening, Mr. Clover.
Miss Lawson, this is Mr. Harper.
Please come in. My husband talks about you often, Mr. Harper.
I want you to know how sorry I am about what's happened.
You're sorry? You really are?
Of course I am.
That's strange.
Mrs. Lawson, I was brought here. For what reason I don't...
I find it strange because my husband always said you were a shrewd businessman. He never told me you were a liar.
Look, Clover, what is all this? You said you were sorry about what happened and Mrs. Lawson called you a liar.
The fact, Mrs. Lawson, that you're the wife of a murderer makes anything you say pretty unimportant.
Mr. Clover?
Yes?
I talked to my husband about an hour ago.
I know, that's why we've come here.
If you two want to chat, you mind if I do?
We mind.
You know all about it, Mr. Clover?
The police stenographer who was in the hospital room when you spoke with your husband showed me the transcript.
Do you believe what my husband told me?
Yes. Is... is your husband going to live?
I don't know. What about you, Mr. Harper?
What?
What about him, Mr. Clover?
He's here, isn't he?
Suppose you just take me back where you got me, Mr. Clover. Just who do you think you are?
Harper, I wanted you to meet Mrs. Lawson. I wanted you to see her home. Go ahead, look around.
This is a home, Mr. Harper. This is a place where two people made their lives.
You never know what comes out of these homes, do you?
I've got a little piece of news for you, Harper. Lawson didn't kill your partner.
You're crazy. You were there.
Yeah, I know, but Lawson didn't kill. Not of everything I've got fixed together, he didn't kill.
Calm now. Calm, calm.
Lawson went to Alex Raymond, pleaded for his job, demanded his job because he was frantic, because he'd given you and Raymond 15 years of his life.
We paid him well.
Thank you very much, Mr. Harper.
Demanded his job. Raymond pulled a gun and told him to get out. Lawson wouldn't. Raymond threatened him. There was a fight.
The gun went off. Raymond had shot himself in the struggle. Lawson fled.
But Raymond told you.
I know. He told me Lawson had shot him. It was Raymond's revenge for dying.
The alleged killer had fled. We made only a cursed research for the murder weapon.
This is ridiculous. I'm getting out of here.
If you move, Mr. Harper, I'll find something to kill you with.
I'll take care of him, Mrs. Hawthorne.
What do you mean, you'll take care of me? What have I got to do with all this?
Lawson called you, told you what had happened, asked you to meet him, begged for your help.
Demanded money to leave town. I told you that.
That would hold except for one thing. A gun with Raymond's prints on it. Not Lawson's because he never held the gun.
Never held the gun. He killed a policeman with it, didn't he?
No. After the phone call, you went to Raymond's apartment, found the gun that Raymond had hidden away to make it appear that Lawson was a murderer.
Then you went to the tenement, hid.
Why? Why should I do that?
I'll get to that. You hid in that tenement during the stake-off when I called up to Lawson.
It was you who fired those shots, killed a policeman.
You wore gloves so that Raymond's prints would still be on the gun.
Now I'll tell you why you did all this.
If you can, here...
Wherever I am, this is why you did it.
Raymond was dead. You got a new toy on the market that's going to make you a lot of money.
A toy that Lawson brought to you. Get him out of the way and all that money was yours. No strings.
Mr. Harper?
No. Give me that gun, Mrs. Lawson.
Don't try to take it away from me. You understand about me, Mr. Clover. You know what I do.
Yes. Yes, I know.
Pray for something, Mr. Harper.
All right. All right. I confess to you. I did it. I did everything he said. But don't... don't kill me.
Is that what you call a prayer?
Mrs. Clover, don't let her do it. Please, please. Talk to her. Tell her. Tell her I don't want her to die.
She won't listen to me. She'll kill me. She'll kill me.
This is what you wanted, isn't it, Mrs. Lawson?
Yes. That's enough. Take him out of here.
Broadway's sleeping now, and the people of the chasm have gone home.
Only the sleepwalkers are there, and the dream seekers, the shadow dwellers.
It's limbo time, when the sawdust dance, the derelicts, the huggers close to nothing.
It's Broadway. The goddess. The most violent. The lonesomest mile in the world.
Broadway. My Beat.
Tonight on FPN Presents, you've been listening to some of the best in radio drama,
with Biber McGee and Molly, and Broadway's My Beats.
Join us again Monday evening at the same time, 9.05,
when FPN presents Dragnet and Escape.