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 summer's deep night, Broadway has gone home.
The seesaw of color is gone.
The riot of night sounds is stilled.
The sleeping dream is the order of the hour.
Down the streets, litter and mist, and across the curves of city and sky, a new day waits.
But now is a special time on Broadway, because all of it belongs to you.
So lean against the lamppost, lock your hands in back of you, and let a night die around
you.
And soon a newspaper will drift and be trapped against your leg.
And suddenly, it will be yesterday's, because tomorrow has just happened.
Before I was, police headquarters night watch, the darkness holds still a small time longer.
And there was this.
A telephone, and through it, the woman sobs.
And this.
What's the matter with that operator, that tag?
Hasn't she traced his call yet?
I think she's getting it now, Motherlin.
She say anything yet, Danny?
Still crying.
Hello?
Hello.
When she first called in, didn't she say anything?
Some gibberish, I couldn't understand what she was talking about.
Then she started crying.
All I could make it first was the word shot.
Danny?
First the call?
Yeah, here's the address.
Phone listed to a Theodore Lawrence.
Wait a minute.
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Give me that address.
Here.
Let's go, Motherlin.
Try the bell, huh, Muggerman?
Huh?
The bell, there.
Oh, sure.
Now let's try it my way, huh, Danny?
All right, open up.
Open up.
I'll try, Lee.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Danny.
It opens with hardly no trouble at all.
Very fancy place.
Tasty, classy.
Come on.
These paintings, Danny, piled with paint, chicken scratches scratched into them.
Modern, huh?
Must have a meaning, huh, Danny?
A message?
Don't worry about it.
Yeah, I'll try not to.
Danny?
Uh-huh?
Phone here on the desk.
You ever see a desk like this?
Copper wire and marble.
Phone's back on the hook.
The lady who called it in might...
I'll take a look in the other room, Muggerman.
Muggerman?
Second, Danny.
See what I found on that desk.
You found the jackpot, huh?
Just him and no crying lady.
It's out of the 45, I figure.
Yeah, it ought to be at least a 45.
Close.
He's dead.
Maybe not more than an hour, I'd say.
What'd you find on the desk?
Uh, here.
Bills, circulars from book clubs, private book societies, all addressed to a Theodore Lawrence.
Hey, Danny?
Quiet, man.
All that fancy art out there, the oil pictures, the carved stones, the silk nightcoat the man's wearing.
Monogram.
Well, Mr. Lawrence was killed.
He was a well-to-do fella, huh?
A rich fella.
I'll call it in, huh, Danny?
Through the window, the first sunlight mixing with civilization.
Hey, Cap!
Cap!
And closer.
This is Detective Muggerman, operating in the homicide.
And it started all over again.
Leave it, the ride home, the small walks, slow walk from squad car to doorway and corridor,
a numbered door, pull down the bed, sleep.
Noon, rise and swelter, shower and swelter, office and air conditioning and swelter.
And Detective Muggerman...
I got some things here, Danny.
Okay.
Dead man positively identified as Theodore Lawrence.
Fingerprints.
A small parade of friends at the morgue, all willing to be first in line to look at him
and dab the handkerchief and say, poor Ted.
You talk to any of his friends?
I got some names and addresses, most of them women.
All dressed real nice.
From $100 up for basic garment, I figure.
I mean talk to them, information.
I tried to.
Lips quivered.
Just said that Ted was a good, good fellow, that he was rich, that he was too young, too
sensitive to die.
And why did it have to happen to him?
Okay, what else have you got?
We know who was crying over the telephone.
Oh.
A woman named Grace Austin.
Prince?
Yeah.
Police record, what?
No, I worked in a war industry during the last war, Prince on file.
Here's what we have on her as of seven years ago.
Grace Austin, married, no children, height five feet, four inches, weight 126.
126, age 22.
Make her 29 now.
You only say that because you're rapidly figured 22 and seven.
Yeah, 29.
I'll speak to the commissioner on your behalf.
Well, don't just sit there, do it.
Margaret, the...
Oh, the heat, Danny.
Did you check and see whether Grace Austin still lived at this address?
Not yet, I'm just away from getting this info, so I'll do it now.
Oh, never mind.
I'll do it myself.
It's not going to shake the earth Grace is not here, is it, Mr. Clover?
I'm her husband and I can live without her for an hour, maybe two if I have to.
So if a husband can do, why should...
Where is she, Mr. Austin?
You notice what a nice morning outside?
You happen to notice in the papers they're celebrating the nice morning with July clearance sales?
Now, if you were a woman, if you were Grace...
That's where your wife is, huh, Mr. Austin, shopping?
Once in a while she likes to buy things for herself, comes home, takes old off, puts on new, models for me.
Once in a while it starts all over again with us, brand new.
Because Gracey buys things, let's turn her into a brand new doll.
Mr. Austin...
No, you.
You, Mr. Clover, the police, you talk now.
What do you want with Grace?
You know a Theodore Lawrence, Mr. Austin?
What do you want with my wife Grace?
Look, just answer...
Yeah, seems to me I know a Lawrence.
There's a man named Lawrence around sometimes.
Where?
Athletic Club over on Park.
I work out there a couple of times a week, the weights, handball.
Sometimes the jerseys play the no jerseys.
There's a guy, Lawrence, Teddy, they call him.
Teddy's always on the team that don't wear jerseys.
That's how much I know of Teddy Lawrence.
Athletic Club on Park Avenue?
I got a record in a hammer throw from college.
Also guard on the football team.
Some of those Park Avenue boys were in school with me, they admired, they remembered.
Gave me a guest card to their velvet club.
Don't cost me a cent.
That's how come me in Park Avenue.
Now, what do you want with my wife Grace?
Theodore Lawrence was murdered last night.
Doesn't change the question, it stands for the police.
A woman called in the headquarters last night, all she did was cry.
Then she said, dead, dead, dead.
Gracie?
We traced the call, it checked out with a Theodore Lawrence.
We went there, found Lawrence, shot, murdered.
Gracie?
This morning, the police lab reported fingerprints
belonging to a Grace Austin were found on the phone
and all over Lawrence's apartment.
Were you with your wife last night, Mr. Austin?
That's your phone, Mr. Austin.
Yeah, yeah, my phone.
Hello?
Yeah, that's right, this is Johnny Austin.
What?
You crazy?
You crazy?
Not Gracie, not...
Bad?
Will you tell me, Bad?
Yeah.
Yeah, sure, sure, yeah, I got it right away.
Mr. Austin?
You got a car outside?
Yes, what?
You got a car? I haven't got a car.
That's why you're gonna take me someplace.
What's happened?
You're taking me, you hear, to where Gracie's hurt,
to where Gracie's hurt real bad.
You better take me, you hear?
And the great scream of city to pin the images of summer
against curb, against stone facades,
and the man caught in the middle of the street, helpless, terrified,
alone against the onrush of wailing,
and to screech and swerve around his terror,
and from the man beside you the sudden spill of laughter,
but looking back at where was fright,
and nothing again from Johnny Austin,
the siren that gave his silenced throat,
and downtown now, West 17th,
and turn right to where an alley is,
and crowd in shirt sleeves,
and the small wet stain of summer on men's backs.
Turn off the moan, and go to it.
You and Johnny Austin.
Johnny Austin muscling his way through summer spectators
to a corner of alley where a woman lay in thin summer dress,
head twisted and veil of hair matted against her cheek,
mouth held against alley stones.
Gracie!
Gracie?
You wanted Gracie?
I brought you to her.
Take her.
She's no good to me dead.
Music.
When Steve makes a deal with the shady character to hide him out,
he learns that some things can be worse than prison.
It's an actual case history taken from police records,
one that will hold your interest all the way.
So listen for Gangbusters later tonight
on most of these same CBS radio stations.
Music.
Golden sun trip hammers its gold and its arc into Broadway
and causes reaction, chemical and organic.
In pavement, a fissure and a melting and a rearrangement of glints,
and in crowd, likewise.
And some of crowd stands proud and still
to the dark places and the cool,
where breezes stir around subway islands,
or where forms strange, unknown, contoured,
lie buried under beach sand,
or best of all, where 3D is, and true to life things are,
the striped tiger in your lap, for instance,
or the redhead with one putty undone and to be laced.
Summer on Broadway and a million choices.
Have one.
Music.
And at headquarters, the droning that in another species
comes from the rubbing together of wings.
But from the species Sergeant Geno Toteglia
comes from rolled up sleeves and secret summer joys,
which one can tell by the change of rhythm.
Geno Toteglia's theme.
Happy Geno?
Like a blossom on a tree.
Geno Toteglia's theme.
You could ask me why.
Why?
It's allowed to ask why I am up to here in gladness.
All right, why?
Just a month ago, a phone call from a girl of 19, unmarried.
You sure you want to tell me about it, Geno?
Caught you, huh, Danny?
You're thinking, Danny.
Look, Geno...
And what if I was to tell you the 19-year-old was my eldest, Tina?
And what if I was to tell you she has been invited rent-free
to stay at the lodge of her boyfriend, Atto Linkschmidt,
in his summer place in the Poconos,
while his father and mother are there to chaperone
and to look her over as the future possible Linkschmidt,
them and their thousands from leather goods.
You'd be disappointed, huh, Danny?
I'm happy for you, Geno, for you and Tina.
And the strangeness is there are other chaps,
whose name I won't mention, who are not in the lucrative leather line,
who are right under my nose, who have but to croak a little finger
in the direction of a certain 19-year-old,
and she would go poof in the face of that.
You've got something for me, Geno.
Eh, you can't hate a daddy for trying, Danny.
Yeah, I have something.
Well...
That lady, that Grace Austin, who, while with her husband,
you found murdered in an alley, shot from an unknown revolver...
What about her?
That from routine checks and interrogations
made by Detective Muggerman in the Austin neighborhood,
there was a nice relationship between husband and wife.
Affectionate, respectful, real nice.
Some of these last summer nights,
they were seen walking hand in hand toward the river or park.
The neighbors played elbows over it.
Anything else, Geno?
Also from Detective Muggerman, a report on his interrogation
of the woman who came to view the body of Theodore Lawrence.
Well, Geno...
A moment, Danny, to brief it for you, the code words.
Eh, Mr. Lawrence?
Sensitive, emotional, wealthy, a gentle youth,
tender, solicitous.
Again, wealthy, here's another sensitive and another wealthy.
Eh, that's the gist, Danny. You want...
Come on, Danny, something you gotta see. Also here.
The Customers, Detective Muggerman,
that when the lieutenant's door is closed...
Yeah, sure, Geno, next time I'll think of it.
Interrogation room, Danny, you're coming or not?
For what?
Now, trust me for what, huh, Danny? Just come.
You stupid jerk!
You weak, lever, mealy-mouthed nothing! Nothing!
Big man, you gotta make yourself a big man
that says you're nothing!
Shut up! You're here, just shut up!
Muggerman, what?
Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Babcock, I want you to know them better. Come on.
That's right, Eddie, get that tired old squeeze.
I know what you want to do. You want to hit me, don't you, huh?
Okay, Mrs. Babcock, just settle down.
He said to me, shut up. He got that look on his face. He yelled, shut up.
Yeah, yeah, we heard Mrs. Babcock. All over they heard.
Now, just sit down over there.
I'm gonna sit here and not open my mouth.
Said he wants to be a big man, let him be big.
Big, Eddie, ha!
You said you weren't gonna open your mouth.
She looks nice that way, don't she, Mr. Muggerman?
All right, Muggerman, what's it all about?
Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Babcock were dragged in an hour ago
for disturbing the peace of their neighborhood.
Preaching boys' question and then sent them to us.
Now, you tell Lieutenant what it's about, huh, Mr. Babcock?
Yeah, you see, this watch, my wife doesn't want me to give it to you.
I'm gonna give it to you no matter what she says.
Here, take it. Go on. Take it, Lieutenant.
Mealy math, mealy math.
Please take it, Lieutenant. All right.
Thanks. Now it won't bother me anymore.
Now I got it out of my system.
What won't bother you, Mr. Babcock?
It's not my watch. Just isn't mine, that's all.
If you want to say we stole it, all right, but...
Go on, Mr. Babcock.
A price for $300, that's what it was.
And Eddie wouldn't sell it or hock it or trade it in
or kiss it, not Eddie, not my big...
Go on, Mr. Babcock.
How I got the watch?
Heard on me about three weeks ago, we were walking.
You're just walking.
I noticed the crowd and some people yelling and pointing.
There was a fire in some apartment and we got up close.
Look, Lieutenant, I don't know if I meant to keep it.
I just don't know.
Just tell the Lieutenant how you got the watch, Mr. Babcock.
Well, somebody in the crowd yelled,
there's a man asleep in that apartment!
And a guy, a big guy, not nice-looking man,
tossed his jacket over and I caught it.
And he ran inside, saved the man who was asleep
in that burning apartment.
Then all of commotion, he just never came back for his jacket
and I couldn't get close to him and there was his wristwatch in it,
just like you see without the straps, just like that.
I mean, why would it...
The man who was saved, Danny, it was Theodore Lawrence,
same man we found murdered. I checked the records on it.
Well, you see, a fellow who saved him, see,
I read his name in the papers today,
how he found his wife murdered in the alley.
Same name on the back of that watch.
I thought it was high time I gave it back.
You'll get it to him?
Danny, look at the inscription on the back.
Yeah.
Johnny Austin, the true champ, the bicep kid, our Johnny.
You'll get it to Mr. Austin.
Hello, Lieutenant, his wife dead and me and my wife keeping the...
Get it to Mr. Austin.
Yeah, let's go, Mugger.
Get it to Mr. Austin, get it to him, get it to him, get it to him.
You happy?
You satisfied, Danny, you big man now, huh?
Danny, listen to me!
And leave Mr. and Mrs. Babcock
and what the Department of Police had in store for them.
Detail now, the filling in.
Pose a name, Ted Lawrence, and come up with notations.
Ted Lawrence identified in Morgue by various friends
who had tarried long enough to grimace, nod, and leave addresses.
So legwork now. Park Avenue right.
First horizontal, then vertically
to where furniture is sandalwood in oblique angles
and rugs are woven reeds.
The man, the reclining man who balances right heel on left toe
blows circles of smoke within circles within circles
and who tells you that Ted Lawrence could do the same trick with a hookah,
that it's a Turkish pipe, sir, and it's not easy.
Outside of that, the only thing about Ted Lawrence is that he's dead,
and you already know that, sir, and that was life, he guessed.
Vertical right again and to Carr.
Across town to Central Park West.
And the girl who wears horn-rimmed glasses with silver-coated lenses
so she can see your eyes but you can't see hers, she tells you.
Who reads poetry aloud to music
and who makes you wait while she does.
Then tells you Teddy Lawrence was way ahead of her, mister.
Just a guy to meet and wonder about and make a wish about, that's all.
Short walk now, and this time the woman's name is Elsie Hunnaker.
Please come in.
And Miss Hunnaker's apartment is furnished completely in white.
And so is Miss Hunnaker.
There's something you want, I know.
Information about Ted Lawrence.
I don't quite believe it, you know, and I'm not going to believe it.
Did you hear me?
That's all right, you don't have to believe it, just tell me about him.
A heady boy.
So, what does that mean?
He used his mind a great deal, he was mental.
Go on.
He had theories.
About what?
I don't know, how should I know?
Miss Hunnaker.
Yes?
Why are you telling me what you're talking about? You said Ted Lawrence had...
Theories.
How to live, how to die, for what reason each.
Nobody understood what he was talking about.
I see.
At least I didn't.
Once I just loved the boy, that's all.
Who wants to listen to him?
What happened between you?
I would say you wouldn't understand.
You said once...
What happened? How come you're not in love with him anymore?
One night we decided not to be in love anymore, simply that.
I don't remember who suggested it.
It's been months ago, you wouldn't expect me to remember.
Who killed him, Miss Hunnaker?
I've often tried to, but we always ended up giggling.
I don't know what he did away from here, Mr. Cover.
Believe me, I don't.
Glance curiously down the languid curve of wrists she offers you,
and wonder what to do about it.
But Miss Hunnaker solves the dilemma by taking them away from you,
and pointing toward the door.
Outside now, in twilight time,
a time fashioned for those who believe in magic.
Strollers in the park time, stand and watch the stroller's time.
And smile time, interval designed for the eyes-open dream.
So use it up at the restaurant that offers you food through a trap door,
and exactly as much iced coffee as the man before you.
Then legwork again, and another woman who had cast a tear over Ted Lawrence at the morgue,
who gives you to know that she only identified the man out of common courtesy,
because everyone else did.
That Ted Lawrence was no friend of hers.
Simply she had read about him in the papers, and wanted to see for herself.
Leaves, and another address, and a basement apartment in the village,
upon the highest cushion of which, recited a man named Russell Franklin.
We used to be such good friends, Teddy and I.
Well that's fine, then maybe you can give me some idea why I...
Is there enough light for you in here?
Well, now that you're...
Personally, I enjoy the play of shadow on shadow, don't you?
Oh, very much.
Over Kafka we met, Teddy and I, at a book stall.
Go on.
He was a very interesting fellow.
Did you hear what I did?
Huh?
I referred to Teddy in the past tense.
It's hard to realize, isn't it?
I can see how you're looking at me, Mr. Clover, and you must take my word.
It was not I who put him there, in the past tense, as it were.
Well, just tell me about...
He was unusual.
In what way?
Well, things interested him.
The really important things, not the everyday run-of-the-mill things like war and taxes and...
Well, the important things.
Like what?
Poetry.
What else?
Quartets, stringed, and music not yet discovered.
Go on.
For there were a few of us here who come here who liked these things.
We admired Teddy.
He stopped coming around.
You know why?
I ask around, don't you think I didn't?
I never thought that for a minute.
You asked, Mr. Franklin, and what were you told?
That he was seeing a woman that none of us knew or even heard about.
And from what I understand, well, real crazy...
What was the woman's name?
You think I'd tell you?
We can discuss that in a cell, Mr. Franklin.
Her name is Austin, Mr. Clover.
Grace Austin.
Do you read the papers, Mr. Franklin?
Les Martins.
It's from France.
Well, Grace Austin was found murdered this morning.
How sad.
Is that all, Mr. Clover?
We'll switch out that light on your way out.
I'll appreciate it.
Hiya.
Hello, Mr. Austin.
This is Detective Muggerman.
Hi.
Hi.
Mind if we come in?
What floor?
Thanks a lot.
Look, I'm in no mood to clown.
That's good.
We want you to tell us again how come you knew Ted Lawrence.
Well, uh...
Well, he, uh...
He played handball without a jersey.
Remember?
You told Lieutenant Clover that.
Yeah, that's right.
And that's how you met him, huh?
He walked up to you one day at the club and said,
Let's have a game.
Yeah, that's right.
I remember.
Now I served first.
Only time I ever won service.
Give me the watch, man.
Yeah.
Here.
Yours, Johnny?
Read him what it says on the back, Danny.
To Johnny Austin.
A true champ.
Sure, it's mine.
Well, why are you so coy about being a hero, Johnny?
How'd you get the watch?
It was in your coat pocket the night of the fire.
Oh, thanks.
Glad to have it back.
Yeah, we got your coat out in the car.
You can get it on the ride downtown.
What are you talking about?
That's how you met Ted Lawrence, wasn't it?
Pulled him out of a fire.
That's how come you...
I said, I can't watch.
I broke the band in my pocket
because I was going to get it fixed.
You want the watch?
Keep the watch.
It's worth a couple hundred bucks.
I told you, I didn't feel like clowning.
What did Ted Lawrence do for you for saving his life?
Lieutenant asked you a question.
He paid me off.
How?
Gave me a few hundred dollars,
a couple of meals at his joint.
You bring your wife along?
Sure.
Say what?
Yes.
What do you fellas got in your mind?
I'll tell you something, Johnny.
I took a call when your wife phoned in the headquarters.
She was crying.
She was crying a lot.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Clover, I don't know what your friend's talking about.
You know, I told you your wife was at the Lawrence's apartment
that she found him dead.
That's right, that's right.
She did, you told me.
And she called headquarters.
Yeah, I remember now.
Did your wife come home after that, Johnny?
You kidding?
Yeah, Danny, you kidding?
Your friend's a big clown.
She come home?
Sure, if you want an answer.
Yeah, we want another one, too.
What time did you kill your wife?
What?
Well, not that it makes any difference
because we know what time.
We just want to see how good our coroner is.
She was killed late last night.
That's what our coroner said.
How good is he, Johnny?
You guys...
She came home and you took her for a walk and shot her.
All right, now, you guys, why should I do anything like that?
Next thing we'll be saying is that you killed Ted Lawrence, too.
Didn't you?
You guys got twisted, warped minds or something.
You know yourself, I saved his life.
And so he got to meet your wife.
Well, why not? He was real grateful.
And the kind of man he was, your wife went for him.
Crazy guy like that, and my wife went for...
What kind of a wife?
The kind that went for a crazy guy like that.
You loved your wife very much, didn't you?
Yeah.
You couldn't understand what she saw in him.
Well, what did she see in him?
An arty guy, strange.
I can't figure out what.
Me either.
You killed him.
Coming in my house and talking like he did,
and Gracie looking at him and taking it all in.
You saved his life and then you killed him.
And all of a sudden they were talking secret talk between them over my head.
And you killed him.
Yeah, and your wife.
He'd been married eight years.
He was real good.
My wife was a good swimmer.
When I was in one gym playing handball,
she was in the ladies' gym playing volleyball.
We had wonderful times together.
And this guy comes along with poetry.
Just the opposite kind of man you are.
That's right, exactly.
That's what I told Gracie, and she says to me,
you don't know, you just don't know.
Sure I killed him.
She said she'd tell the police I killed her too.
Then I did something I never did before in my life.
What?
I cried.
But don't get any ideas, fellas.
I'm still a better man than either one of you.
Sure you are.
Sure.
Let's go, Johnny.
MUSIC
It's quiet now on Broadway.
It's the four o'clock in the morning hour,
the hour without color.
But in a while, dawn will dip down,
and there will be fury again,
and roar again, and crowd.
The restless wandering, the puppet dance,
the running after nothing at all.
It's Broadway, the gaudiest, the most violent,
the lonesomest mile in the world.
Broadway, My Beat.
MUSIC
Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover,
with Charles Calvert as Tertaglia,
and Jack Crouchon as Muggervan.
The program is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis,
with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage.
In tonight's story, Herb Ellis was hurt as Johnny.
Featured in the cast were Mary Jane Croft,
Charlotte Lawrence,
Hi, Everback,
and Sam Edwards.
Bill Anders speaking.
MUSIC
Tomorrow night, you have an appointment for lightning action
with Dick Powell as Richard Diamond, private detective.
Hear this danger-loving sleuth as he wades into the Chapel Hill case.
A killing in a quiet community that takes place while police are in convention there.
Remember, on most of these same CBS radio stations tomorrow night,
Richard Diamond, private detective.
Stay tuned now for the Gene Autry Show,
which follows immediately over most of these same stations.
MUSIC
And remember, for thrilling dramas of escape,
listen Sunday nights to the CBS Radio Network.
MUSIC
MUSIC