Speaker 1: Come in welcome. I'm e. G.
Speaker 2: Marshall. All of us are selfish to some degree. We
protect our own desires and dreams, but within reason. For
we inhabit a world where we must make certain compromises
and respect other people's feelings. We had better for the
quickest way to lose everything is to try to have
everything the way we want it. For then the fates
that dog all our heels have a way of catching up.
Speaker 3: There's no going back, no going forward.
Speaker 4: Where do I go from here?
Speaker 5: You Wrent Jevy wanting.
Speaker 1: To your writing.
Speaker 5: The not the con England limmon you.
Speaker 2: Our mystery drama The Plastic Man was written especially for
the Mystery Theater by Ian Martin and stars Don Scardino.
It is sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division. I'll
be back shortly with Act one. As I said in
the beginning, this is a story of an extraordinarily selfish man,
a sort of product of our times. George Hartford, who
could well be named the Plastic Man. Note his action
and reaction to the oldest and most productive relationship in
the history of man.
Speaker 1: Come on, Jane, knock it off. It isn't the end
of the world.
Speaker 6: Not yours, George. You've made that quite clear.
Speaker 1: I wanted to lay it on the table. No messing around,
a clean break, the least sweat, the least sweat.
Speaker 3: Well, it's one description for the end.
Speaker 1: Of a of a love.
Speaker 6: Of fair I suppose.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: Don't get me wrong, Babe, I really don't anymore.
Speaker 1: You shook me up, but you woke me up. Now
you're with it, kid. Look if we don't swing anymore.
Speaker 6: Oh, I love your succinct statement in mod lingo we
don't swing anymore? May I remind you that we were
going to be married. I wasn't swinging with you. I
thought I was building something.
Speaker 1: For the future, okay, Jane, So it just didn't work
out like that someone else.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're cutting out.
Speaker 6: Because this was getting just a little too serious for you.
Speaker 3: It might be the end of fun and games.
Speaker 6: You were on the point of being asked to contribute
something in return.
Speaker 1: Jane doesn't have to be all this much of a dragon.
Speaker 4: Oh, ferish the thought.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't want to ruffle your peacock feathers for the moment,
but just one comment.
Speaker 3: You are heading for a rude awakening.
Speaker 6: Someday one of your women won't be as accommodating as
I am.
Speaker 1: Stop the car. What are you talking about? You're only
halfway home.
Speaker 6: I just discovered I'm not even that far. All I
want is to get off.
Speaker 1: George, any big bread? How's it going? Mat fine? Just fine? Hey?
What are you doing home so early? I thought you
had a big heavy date with Jane. We split split
it just like that, just like that? What was the quarrel?
I was getting kind of heavy, so I wanted out.
How did she take it?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, Dame's big fuss over. Nothing got anything to
eat in the joint, Nothing but humble pie, a little bread. Huh.
Speaker 2: Hey, cupboard is bear and you wouldn't eat any of
it even if it was there.
Speaker 1: So I'll settle for a beer. Then maybe I'll do
a little prowling, pick up a pizza, and who knows,
maybe even something more. Nurse hmm, you.
Speaker 2: Know you got to do something about that sex drive,
or one of these days you're gonna get your head
caught in a ringer.
Speaker 1: Okay, why don't you give me a reading shrink? Huh?
I'm all stretched out on the couch. How'd you like
to probe my inner psyche?
Speaker 2: You haven't got a psyche. All you got is one
large itch and no conscience.
Speaker 1: Oh so much for brotherly love. I can't even get
a free treatment from the family psychiatrist. So you don't
want to talk to me.
Speaker 2: I'll have to hold it, George. Matter of fact, I
do want to talk to you. I'm moving out.
Speaker 1: Hey, wait a minute, I'm that bad. You really sare me?
Speaker 2: No, No, that's beside the point at the moment. You know,
I'm a full resident now and Fran just got a raised,
so we've been looking at apartments. We figured we can
go ahead and now get married.
Speaker 1: It's a ball in Shane. Huh, it's a big step man.
Why Russia. Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand, George.
I want to live with Fran. Okay, fine, but marriage?
Who needs it these days? Look, why tie yourself down.
I wouldn't expect you to understand that either, George. Oh,
come on, old sober sides. You just don't see where
it's at. I mean, like today is all wide open.
It doesn't work that way for everybody, George. Okay, okay,
what's your bag is yours and what's mine is mine?
Speaker 2: The trouble is gorgeous, Gee, you keep trapping the other sex,
and it's like you were a bounty hunter.
Speaker 1: It worries me.
Speaker 2: Why well, first of all, because some pretty nice girls
get damn roughed up by you, Jane for one.
Speaker 1: Oh come on, look, don't make me sound like a
child molester. Any day I play around with is old
enough to know the score. It's more than just a game.
He's an obsession, my friend, And as.
Speaker 7: A psychiatrist, I don't particularly like its implications.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, brother, here we go with a don war
on casting over a bit again. It's basically an inferiority complex,
and I'm driven to prove myself or else it's an
edifice complex down deep in my ear or whatever. I
hated pop and I.
Speaker 2: Will well, yeah, yeah, it may be funny to you,
but you might be surprised if you could understand how
much basic truth there is in it. But that isn't
the main thing, So what is? It's just your arrogant,
selfish insensitivity.
Speaker 1: You know what you are. You're a plastic man.
Speaker 2: You haven't got one real human emotion in you, And
I'm sorry for all the nice girls you've twisted up inside.
Give the next one a break, Let her know about
you from the start, so at least she goes into
it with her eyes open.
Speaker 1: You got the wrong idea about women, math. They're a
hell of a lot tougher than we are.
Speaker 7: I am not gonna get trapped in an argument. I
just hope you don't get trapped one of these days
with one of them who won't be as obliging as
they all have been up to now. Your luck can't
last forever, sooner or later you are gonna get caught
in a buzzsaw.
Speaker 1: Don't say I didn't want you. My brother Matt was
a good guy, but just a little square. And the chicks, well,
you know how it is. You take them as they come.
Like I say, it's a big world. And if you
want to hang yourself up with one old lady permanently, that's.
Speaker 4: Your own business. Me I like to hang loose.
Speaker 1: I never figured old George here we'll get hung up
on one and surely not the way it happened. Hi,
you dropped your son oil in the sand?
Speaker 4: Oh did I? You're very kind? Are you one of
the staff here?
Speaker 1: No? I'm a guest?
Speaker 4: What? Oh? Just your I mean black one of them?
Speaker 1: Thanks for the good word. These jocks that work. The
staff here are really built. No, I'm just taking a
week off from the daily grind. And the friend said,
these club pacificos really sway. I don't know, maybe I
missed the season until now.
Speaker 4: What do you mean, Well, I haven't run into you
up till now.
Speaker 1: You just get here.
Speaker 4: Well, I know we've been here a couple of days,
but we drove down. We've been touring the countryside.
Speaker 1: Some hot work this weather. Me. I'll take the water
or a nice long drink by the pool. H Hey,
it's about that time. Can I buy you what? Well?
Speaker 4: I why not? If you will wait long enough for
me to take one quick dip in the seat, wash
the sand off.
Speaker 1: She came up from that beach lounger and one long,
fluid move like a cat, my breed. I watched her
run down and into the water for one piece suit.
He didn't hide any of that figure, long waist, long legs.
The club was beginning to live up to its reputation.
They're no law right right, How many beads do you want? Hey?
I said? The drinks are on me.
Speaker 4: Huh, I pay my own freight the way we travel.
Speaker 1: Ah, there's that we again groom me husband, and he
lets you out without a leash.
Speaker 4: It's a free country. He's confined to our cabin. He
picked up amoebic dysentery some years ago in India.
Speaker 1: It was hell to get rid of India. You travel
a lot, he does.
Speaker 4: He's a parapsychologist.
Speaker 1: I heard the word plw me in a little deeper.
Speaker 4: It's the branch of psychology that deals with unexplained phenomena clairvoyants, esp.
Mental telepathy.
Speaker 1: Ask a silly question, you get out a complex answer,
So no more questions except like, well, my name's George,
George Hartford, what's yours?
Speaker 4: You're not an insurance salesman?
Speaker 1: No cars? Business is a little slow right now. That's
why I thought i'd catch a week off, or was
till I met Did I catch your name?
Speaker 4: Or Laura? Laura Prentice? Here's looking at you.
Speaker 1: That's fair enough. It's all I've done since I set
eyes on you.
Speaker 4: I noticed, listen, it's.
Speaker 1: Kind of hot out here in the sun. My cabin
is air conditioned, so is ours. Well, I just meant,
why disturb your husband? Now?
Speaker 4: That is definitely not a silly question here.
Speaker 1: What's this?
Speaker 4: My deeds buy us both another drink, George, and let's
see how cool your pad really is?
Speaker 1: What? Oh?
Speaker 4: Why did I do this?
Speaker 1: Come on, Laura, there's no crime.
Speaker 4: I know it isn't to you. Some of us are
fashioned a little differently.
Speaker 1: Hey, that's only an illusion, baby. It's natural, and whatever
is natural is right.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't understand it isn't morals I'm concerned with.
Speaker 1: Well then what.
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: I could never make you understand in a million years, George.
Speaker 1: So that's the kiss off? Huh?
Speaker 4: It ought to be, but.
Speaker 3: It's too good for me to have the strength of
will to let it go that easily.
Speaker 1: No, you're talking, no, not to you.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow, away from the club, I have my car. We'll
drive somewhere for the day. I'll say I'm going shopping
in Puerto Valerso or Guadalajara. You're the lucky sinner. You
don't need any excuse. I'll meet you at the parking
lot after breakfast.
Speaker 1: Oh how do I find you?
Speaker 4: It isn't hard. It's the only green Mercedes and the
license plate is sixty nine ninety nine. I wanted seven
thousand for luck, but I never could swing it till tomorrow.
If you want to risk it.
Speaker 1: She was kind of offbeat, this chick and married and all,
so I might have passed her up if it hadn't
been for the car I flipped when I saw it,
a Mercedes fifty six gold Wing Coop in British racing green.
Like she said, I mean classic zero to sixty and
nine seconds flat, quick ratio, steering, independent suspension and handles
like as part of the road. Plus the price tag
twelve to fifteen thou in mint condition, And this baby was.
While I was drooling over it, my other babe, also
mint condition, arrived.
Speaker 3: This yours a gift from my husband.
Speaker 1: You know what you've got here?
Speaker 4: I ought to. It's what I asked for.
Speaker 1: I never saw a fifty six in green before.
Speaker 4: It took a little digging to find it. I wanted
it to match my eyes, Cat's arrest, the better to
see you with. Do you want to drive it?
Speaker 1: Do I climb in? Big Mama?
Speaker 4: You can like my car only if it's second after me.
Speaker 1: It's a tough choice, but I like your moving parts better. Okay,
we're too straight.
Speaker 4: To hell, lover.
Speaker 1: Or heaven. I started up that dream boat, and she
was heaven under my hands, just as Laura would be later.
But I didn't know was that her husband was watching
us and the living hell that was in store for me.
Speaker 2: It's hard to have much sympathy, if any, for our
plastic man George. He's an expert in taking without giving.
But you may have a little sympathy soon as we
watch a punishment which is infinitely more infernal.
Speaker 1: Than the crime. I'll be back shortly with that too.
Speaker 2: To watch George Hartford drive that Mercedes that hugged the road,
floating as though on rails and cornering to perfection. To
watch his face and the fanaticism of the fattest suffusing
it was to know our plastic man had an achilles heel,
one spot where he was vulnerable his passion for classic cars.
Speaker 1: And in Laura he had found an unlikely companion.
Speaker 4: It looks as if I lost him just when I
found you.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sorry, Bebe, But a car like this, I mean,
like man, this is far out. I know.
Speaker 4: Why do you think I wanted? It took four years
of begging and other things to get it to.
Speaker 1: Greatest feeling in the world. Right it was, or at
least a substitute till till there was us huh.
Speaker 4: If I'm really included in come again, forget it. It's
our karma too late to offer you a way out.
Speaker 1: He lost me somewhere.
Speaker 4: I should probably never have found you. George, there could
be danger. You want to turn back.
Speaker 1: I don't make all this. You mean your husband? Yes,
well what is he? I mean King Karna, the god force?
Speaker 4: Oh no, Horace is quite small and very mild and
very rich. I'm quite willing to admit the last is
what attracted me to him. I didn't know then about
about the other the other, what how deep his interest
in psychical research was, or how powerful some of the
forces involved are.
Speaker 1: Mabe, you know something, Babe, you're talking kind of weird.
Speaker 4: Six years with Horras would make any woman a little
off peak. I've been walking in a bad dream. You
woke me up losing. Oh look, there's a motel Georgie
or whatever you call them in Old Mexico. It's too
much talking. That gets everybody into trouble.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking, Laura, but making sense. There was still
early in the afternoon, but something wakened me suddenly. For
a moment, I didn't where I was then as my
eyes focused on the bright yellow ceilings of the casser Romantica.
I realized that the windows were coming from the girl
by my side. Oh, Laura, hey, hey baby, oh hey.
Speaker 3: Oh George, don't say anything that just told me.
Speaker 1: Hold me a moment, suh. Okay, hey, hey, stay loose.
We didn't blow up the capitol or anything. I mean,
we're not on the wanted list.
Speaker 3: He knows who Horace knows what about us?
Speaker 1: And if you got a guilty conscience, No.
Speaker 4: No, this isn't conscience. It's beyond it. Let me go, George,
Let me go.
Speaker 1: Where are you going?
Speaker 3: I just have to get up to the window and
get some there.
Speaker 1: Here. Why don't you wrap something around you?
Speaker 4: Will that make me decent? All right? George?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 4: You're a very selfish man.
Speaker 3: I know this is just a casual affair for you
that you drifted into.
Speaker 4: I suppose I shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Worry about you, but you asked for it.
Speaker 4: Let me say it once. I'm sorry, but it's way
too late for either of us to back out. Now,
let's get dressed and back to the club.
Speaker 1: I'll say one thing for you, Laura. You do come
up with the surprises, but I must say this is
one bummer of a so long Dad.
Speaker 3: Oh, you and I haven't finished, George, We've only begun.
Speaker 4: That's part of the karma too.
Speaker 1: I didn't like this whole gig. I was into something
I couldn't grab. Kind of a nowhere for me because
I'm the one who usually decides where it's at. Driving
to the bus stop too, I had this crazy notion
that maybe it was the Mercedes fifty six I'd missed
more than her. It was all mixed up, and coming
home to my cabin late in the evening, just at dark,
I got shook up. Some Laura, have.
Speaker 7: A nice bus ride, mister Hartford, Who the hell are you?
Speaker 1: What are you doing in my cabin? I'm sorry?
Speaker 7: I thought for me in a sense, it was kind
of a home away from home.
Speaker 1: How'd you get in here? I locked the door? How
could you lock it? Against Laura's husband? Laura? Uh? Oh, yeah,
I met her on the beach. Hi, mister Prennis, interesting
to meet you, mister Hartford. I guess Laura missus Prenis
mentioned my name. Can I get you a drink? No? Thanks?
Speaker 7: Can I get you a cover up for your embarrassment?
What I think we can dispense with unnecessary questions.
Speaker 1: I want you to leave my wife alone now just
a minute.
Speaker 7: I know what's happened between you and Laura, who happens
to be my wife. You didn't know what you were
getting into. I considered having you roughed up, but I'll
let that go. Excuse me, I must leave now. I'll
say goodbye for all of us. If you have a
brame in your head.
Speaker 1: Mister Hartford, you'll echo that sentiment, just for curiosity's sake.
With a slight flapping under my heart. I checked the
following morning. The fix was gone, and the desk clerk
informed me so were the apprentices. I breathed easier, lived
out my week without a pigeon worth making a pass at,
and went back to my office in Los Angeles. It
was nice to get back to plain living. Hey you
look great, George. You picked up a lot of sun.
That's about all that was going there. Man, how about you?
You set the wedding day? Yep? Three weeks from the day.
Can you make it? Hey? Can you see me? Not?
Speaker 2: No, I'll get you turn down another opportunity to be
best man?
Speaker 1: Okay, work me over, I deserve it, I guess.
Speaker 2: George, what's the matter? Don't tell me the leopard is
changing his spots. You meet someone on your little cruise
casing Mexican talent.
Speaker 1: I met someone not Mexican, just real offbeat. What do
you think of parapsychology?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: Oh, brother, I mean in more ways than one. I
have enough trouble handling my own.
Speaker 1: Specialty in the vagaries of the human brain.
Speaker 7: Psyche you condition, however you define it, parapsychology, that's another
breed of cat.
Speaker 1: Cat Huh, nothing, but you didn't answer. Wow, I don't
know how to answer. It's it's a gray area.
Speaker 7: The research is too new, too limited to prove anything
or mean much.
Speaker 1: Why uh, just an idle question. Don't try to kid me, George.
Nothing you ask is idle. Okay. I met a dame
who was hung up on this scene, and I just
wondered how much there might be to it.
Speaker 7: Well, you want my opinion, it's not too much. That's
in general, but specifically for you.
Speaker 1: If you're asking my advice, give her a wide berth.
Speaker 2: Your life is mixed up enough as it is without
voluntarily trying to complicate it any further. Okay, All right on,
because no matter how much I object to your personal life.
If you're my brother means I I have a lot
to me To know you'll be standing next to me
when I get married.
Speaker 1: I'd have to be dead or nowhere before I missed that.
The day after I had lunch with my brother Matt,
she rolled into my dealer's lot, I should say they
the Mercedes fifty six English grew with that unforgettable license
plate and the equally unforgettable Laura behind the wheel. I
had no escape. Our office building is all glass. As
the lesser of two evils, I went out to meet
her myself. Yes, madam, what can I do for you?
Speaker 4: Of all people? How could you ask?
Speaker 1: Are you crazy? Blowing in here? Doesn't your husband is.
Speaker 3: On the other side of the world in India.
Speaker 4: He's gone on retreat for a month.
Speaker 1: Whatever that means.
Speaker 4: It means he's in transcendental meditation.
Speaker 3: You'd call it out of this world. It also means
I am free.
Speaker 1: Look, Laura, I like to swing as much as the
next man. But baby, I think we ought to drop it.
That little guy scared me and you, yes, and me.
You really got through. You got to me. I can't
comb you out, so climb in this time.
Speaker 4: I'll be driving, and I'll show you I can handle
this baby, just as well as you can.
Speaker 1: I can't just walk out of my business like that.
I'll tell you what. I'll meet you in half an hour.
It's a Wiltshire and Beverly northwest corner.
Speaker 4: That's a date, don't you miss it.
Speaker 1: It was a date, all right, a date with destiny,
though how could I have known it? Then I cleaned
up my desk, turned the agency over to my head salesman,
then drove out of the lot. I parked my heap
short of Beverly and walked the rest of the way.
She was waiting for me. I climbed in and we
drove off of her house in bel air. God for
to stealing. Now you will move after shots.
Speaker 4: What you heard him too?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about Haras?
Speaker 4: My husband? He knows about us.
Speaker 1: You gotta be kidding. I mean, if he really is
in India.
Speaker 3: Oh he's there.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make any difference.
Speaker 1: Look, I don't dig any of this. It's too wide out.
All I know is I'm getting out right now. I
never should have climbed back in. We're committed now, No way, baby,
it's out of our hands.
Speaker 4: Horace doesn't want me back.
Speaker 3: How do you know he's telling me right now?
Speaker 1: From India?
Speaker 4: I warned you you were getting into something beyond your understanding.
Speaker 1: Okay, so great now I'm on my way out.
Speaker 4: You can't. This just isn't a silly girl who's trying
to hang on. I told you the moment I laid
eyes on you, I knew you were my karma. If
what's this karma? Jive my fate and yours. You can try,
but you'll never escape me.
Speaker 1: Don't kid yourself. I know when I've had enough, I'm
blowing this scene and this is goodbye. I lit out
of there like my tail was on fire. Matt had
warned me I'd get caught in a nutcrack on one
of these days, and this looked like one of them.
And man, it was weird. When I read about the
crash the next day, I felt like a real heel,
but I heaved a sigh of relief just the same.
I didn't have any feeling of guilt, or did I?
Why should I? If only I had known what she
was thinking on that last ride, maybe how could I know?
Speaker 4: There's no going back, there's no going forward. Where do
I go?
Speaker 3: For?
Speaker 1: He Lord only one wing to do. You're writing over
nion the car.
Speaker 5: Still be caring matters anymore?
Speaker 1: Now you gambled, now roused us. I read it in
the morning papers. Woman plunges to fiery death off Coldwater Canyon.
Both car and drive were completely destroyed by fire. Police
determined by one remaining license plate that the victim must
have been missus Laura Prentice. I felt kind of sick,
but relief.
Speaker 2: That was the end of that, Only, as we shall discover,
that was not the end of either car or driver.
Speaker 1: The world is.
Speaker 2: Full of George Hartford's who get away with murder in
a general sense, But odds have a way of evening up,
and this time George isn't going to get away with anything.
I'll return shortly with Act three. This story is a snowball,
starting from microscopic beginnings, gathering momentum and mass as it
rushes down the hill, the tension and terror building from
nothing to a massive and inevitable crash, and like the snowball,
being fractionalized into nothing again.
Speaker 1: It was less than a week since Laura and the
Mercedes fifty six had been burned to cinders. I was
crossing the canyon from my pad and van Nye taking
Matt over to meet his bride. What's the matter with
you lately, George, Ah, don't worry about me. Let's concentrate
on the big date.
Speaker 6: Huh.
Speaker 1: How many days to the wedding? Man? A little over
a week? Can't wait?
Speaker 2: But that makes me kind of sad, little brother. I
wish you could meet a girl you could settle down with.
Speaker 1: I'm off Dames for the moment. This girl, I hey,
what kind of crazy? It's the Mercedes and Laura at
the wheel. D it's the.
Speaker 7: Matter with you?
Speaker 1: You got your mind? I did go off the road, Matt.
That's crazy broad with a Ramdan' dust head on? Are
you talking about the green Mercedes that came round the bend?
Speaker 4: Didn't you see it?
Speaker 1: Or her? On? What ben coming the other way headed
towards us? George?
Speaker 2: We haven't passed any cars coming or going in the
last few minutes.
Speaker 1: We just about rammed one going the opposite way less
than a minute ago. A green Mercedes, yeah, fifty six,
a classic. Didn't you see it?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 7: I didn't because it wasn't there.
Speaker 1: I tell you, plain as day. It was broad daylight.
Speaker 2: I saw it and her, I tell you a green
Mercedes with a girl named Laura at the wheel.
Speaker 1: Yes, the same girl and the.
Speaker 2: Same car you say you read about in the paper
a few days ago.
Speaker 1: Who went up in flames. That must have been some coincidence,
a mistake. I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're gonna check it out, George. That you said the
police found a license.
Speaker 1: Plate, Yes, but they didn't give the numbers in the paper.
Speaker 7: But if it should be six nine ninety nine, you'd
have to agree with me. There wasn't any car today
that you had to boy right. But I saw what
you saw could have been a hallucination. Now we better
pin it down right now.
Speaker 1: I could have told Matt what he'd find out. I
knew it even before he checked with the police. I
knew the plate number would be six, and I knew
something else. It didn't matter what he found out. I
hadn't seen the last of the green Mercedes fifty six
or the girl who drove it, dead or alive. I
took a fast powder and went out to get loaded.
Speaker 4: The name's Jinny Jenny Brake.
Speaker 1: Oh, George here, George Hartford.
Speaker 4: So now it wasn't if find you a drink?
Speaker 1: Sure, what's your poison?
Speaker 4: You laugh, I could use.
Speaker 3: One, says neck, plain soda, anything soft, funny?
Speaker 1: Huh No, except why would you? What are you wasting
your time on a guy like me?
Speaker 2: For?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: I know?
Speaker 6: I come here sometimes and either I'm too shy to
say hello to anyone, or I don't like the guys
who try to turn me on.
Speaker 4: I'm lonely, That's why I come.
Speaker 1: You really want that drink?
Speaker 4: No, I'm up to here already so much.
Speaker 1: How'd you like to drive me home, Jenny, and then
I'll give you a car fare back to your path.
Speaker 4: When do I leave from my place.
Speaker 1: Right after you drop me at my door? I'm not
looking to make out tonight.
Speaker 6: That's a new line, could be the beginning of a
beautiful friendship.
Speaker 4: Come on, I'll take a chance. You don't se that
loaded to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I've got other problems. You got a habit, No,
nothing like that. I got a bigger monkey on my back.
Speaker 4: You're kind of screwed up, George, and I'm sorry for you.
Speaker 3: I'd honestly like to help if I could.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone can. I guess I went out
and bought my own private set.
Speaker 2: Look out, what is this case?
Speaker 1: You see it that we're saying any string war. You
got to get out of the way. Didn't you see
the car? It went right through us, as if we
weren't there. What car there wasn't any car?
Speaker 4: Boy? Are you on some trip? Boy?
Speaker 3: George?
Speaker 8: I had it with you.
Speaker 3: There's a bus stop here.
Speaker 4: I can find my own way home. You don't need company.
What you need is a head doctor.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long I lay apart there. I'd
closed my eyes, maybe I went to sleep, But all
of a sudden I realized that the Mercedes had driven
up alongside of me, and Laura was leaning towards me
to talk.
Speaker 4: Come on, George, I've been looking for you.
Speaker 1: Let me go. No, I can't.
Speaker 4: I'm not ready sooner or later?
Speaker 1: Why not? No, I'm waiting for you.
Speaker 4: How long do I have to wait?
Speaker 1: My car was still running.
Speaker 9: I threw into first and cut out sharp in the
tastic the hood of my car, bumper all the way
to the windshield, cut through the Mercedes like it was
drawn in mid air or just wasn't there at all.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how I got home or to bed.
I only know that with the help of five or
six black cows, I found myself able to face my
brother Matt the next morning. So you proved it to yourself.
The car, the woman was a hallucination. No, she was there.
I heard her speak twice.
Speaker 2: Now, George, I checked out the license plate with a
friend at police headquarters.
Speaker 7: There's no doubt that she crashed in that car.
Speaker 1: And why do I keep seeing her and hearing her.
It's a fixation, guilt reflex. So get rid of it
for me. Well, that's your job. And oh sir, that's
your job.
Speaker 2: If you can't, I can't, well possibly, certainly not alone.
Speaker 1: You gotta have help, George. That's what I'm asking you for. No,
not me, my own brother Amy. That much of a
hail to you is not the point.
Speaker 7: I just started my residency in psychiatry.
Speaker 1: You're way beyond me, George. Well, then give me a
man to go to, some doctor who can handle me.
She was always there, trailing me in the fifty six,
not fifteen feet behind me. But that wasn't the worst part.
Speaker 10: Through the car, I could see the line of traffic
stretching behind her, with sometimes a car coming up behind
and cutting right through the spectral green vehicle that wasn't
there for anyone but me.
Speaker 1: I made up my mind to have it out and
headed for the house in bel Air.
Speaker 7: Come in, mister hartfriend, I've been expecting you.
Speaker 1: Thank you as I need to thank me. Oh well, anyway,
Thank heaven you're here. I thought you might still be
in India.
Speaker 7: Oh no, I came back from my wife's death. But
four I landed from the plane at the moment she
went over the cliff. You see, I knew she was going,
But but how could I sent her to her deaths?
Speaker 1: You know she.
Speaker 4: She's following me. I can't get rid of her or
the car.
Speaker 1: I know. And you came to ask me for help. Yes,
I please, please help me. You must help yourself, George.
Speaker 2: You didn't hesitate to in the beginning, when it was
something that didn't belong to you.
Speaker 1: Why hold back now? What do you mean you'll never
be rid of her as long as you live. Why
don't you join her? George, yessie, as she is, she's
waiting for you. Sign. I was outside the house, the
door shut in my face, and parked in the driveway
facing me was the green Mercedes. I went a little brasik,
hurling myself into my own car, ramming her into first
and driving in a scattering of gravel and dust, straight
through that infernal vision. I smashed into sunset, turning left
in a screech of tires, heading for Cold Water Canyon
and back to the valley. But all the time my
nemesis followed me, riding up my back, tailgating me. Then
at the top of the hill, suddenly riding on air
right out over the valley, the Mercedes drew abreast of me.
Speaker 4: Why don't you shine.
Speaker 5: Hi away?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Damn it, have it your way here I come.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that your poor brother.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry for so many things, fram for what
he was, for what he made of himself, for the
help I couldn't give him, but most of all for
calling him a plastic man.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, don turns out he wasn't. There
was a chink in his armor, whether he knew it
or not, his conscience.
Speaker 4: You mean me for that woman's suicide, the one with
the Mercedes.
Speaker 1: Yes, they hadn't even had time to repair the guardrail.
He went right through the same gap she did.
Speaker 2: Well, no sense agonizing about its sun is done.
Speaker 1: At least she won't be haunting him anymore. I wonder.
Speaker 2: There's quite a legend grown up about that stretch of road.
On misty nights or dark ones, with the moon seen
fitfully through clouds, a lot of people swear they pass
a Mercedes colored English green. Some say the woman was driving,
some say the man. But then that would be easy
to confuse, since by now the paint is peeling, the
clothing is half rotted away, and the figures themselves are
little more than skin and bone. The hands that grasp
the wheel those of a skeleton.
Speaker 1: I'll be back shortly.
Speaker 2: One further note, Shortly after Fran and Matt were married,
a large sum of money was given to them by
an anonymous source. And at the same time, Horace stripped
himself of all his possessions and gave the bulk of
his fortune to the school for Psychic Research, where he
had taught so long.
Speaker 1: He left for India and was never heard of again.
Speaker 2: One story has it that he sits in meditation somewhere
high in the Himalayas, treated by the nearby villagers as
a holy man. Perhaps so, but is it meditation or expiation?
We'll never know. Our cast included Don Scardino, Joan Loring, Russell,
Horton and Catherine Byers. The entire production was under the
direction of Hyman Brown. And now a preview of our
next tale.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Kaufman, I was sent in here to see you.
How can I help?
Speaker 11: A man named Tom Beckmuth was murdered last night?
Speaker 1: That's right?
Speaker 11: Do you have any information that would yes? I I'm
responsible for his death. What are you saying, mister Wilson,
Roger Wilson, I caused his death.
Speaker 1: Are you confessing to the crime.
Speaker 8: I suppose that's the only way to put it. I
I wished him dead. You wished him dead? Yes, Lieutenant,
I wished him dead. I wished it with all my strengths.
Speaker 2: He was killed by two shots from a thirty eight
caliber pistol.
Speaker 11: Now did you fire them? That's immaterial, mister Wilson. You
don't look well at all.
Speaker 1: Now I'll have an officer see you to your home.
This is E. G.
Speaker 2: Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams.