Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you a yours truly Johnny Dollar Cereal omnibus.
But I do want to encourage you, if you enjoy
the podcast, to follow us using your favorite podcast software.
The Cereal will bring you today. And since it's Christmas time,
in a way, this isn't a surprise, is the Nick
schar Matter?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Of course, long time listeners might know that I already
did an omnibus of the Nick Sure and Matter was
recorded back in twenty fourteen. Why am I doing it again?
There are two reasons. First, I feel in the past
ten years I've grown as a host, and now that
I'm a full time podcaster, I feel like I can
put a little bit more time into composing and thinking
out my commentaries. And the second reason is that I
absolutely love this story. I've said it before and I'll
say it again, and you'll hear it when you get
to the commentary. This is one of my all time
favorite stories, and I really want to express how well
I like it and why I like it, and I
feel that I did that back in twenty twenty three
when we did the serialized version, I was really proud
at what I wrote and what I was able to say,
and I want that attached to the omnibus. So we'll
be providing that commentary for those who are going to
listen to the whole Omnibus, with just a couple minor tweaks.
In addition to that. In order to make this extra special,
we are doing something different with comments and feedback. Typically,
at the end of one of our stories, you'll hear
listener comments that have been sent in about previous episodes. However,
for this episode, you'll hear comments that listeners shared in
response to the next Sharn Matter, which isn't something we've
done before. I hope it makes for a really good
listening experience. Now, all of that said, here, from December
nineteenth through the twenty third, nineteen fifty six is the
Nick Shurn Matter.
Speaker 3: From Hollywood.
Speaker 4: It's time now for.
Speaker 3: Johnny Dellar WI Jenny Prime, Mutual Limitary. Oh hi, don
thanks for the Christmas present.
Speaker 5: Well, just don't take out the cork near and open flame. Yeah,
doesn't see do you know anything about a guy named
Mel Praker?
Speaker 3: Nothing good? About him? Why got himself killed last night?
Speaker 6: Murdered?
Speaker 3: Franker was born to be murdered?
Speaker 5: Maybe so, but not at our expense by holding one
hundred thousand dollars policy on him?
Speaker 3: Wow? What was the beneficiary?
Speaker 6: Is a partner?
Speaker 5: Nick Sharn?
Speaker 3: Nick Sharn, you picked a fine pair of rats?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I know that.
Speaker 5: Now the New York police are holding shirt, but they've
got no evidence. I've ben there and check it out
for us, Jenny. If Nick did the killing.
Speaker 3: Were of any witnesses won?
Speaker 5: Apparently the head checkerl in that night club of theirs?
Speaker 3: What's her story?
Speaker 5: I wish I knew? She's disappeared. We've got to find her,
Johnny More some of Nick's Houdams.
Speaker 3: Don Maybe they already have.
Speaker 7: Tonight and every weekday night Bob Bailey in the transcribed
Adventures of the Man with the Action Packed Expenser out
America's Fabulous Freelance Insurance Investigator.
Speaker 3: Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Expense account submitted by Special Investigator
Johnny Dollar to the Home Office Primutual Insurance Limit at Hartford, Connecticut.
The following is the account of expenditures during my investigation
of the Nick Suar matter. Item one, twenty two eighty
transportation to New York tips and incidentals and taxi fair
to the office of Lieutenant Ed Rafferty Homicide Division, the
man in charge of the case. Oh, hi you, Johnny,
have you been that bad?
Speaker 8: Ed?
Speaker 3: How's the homicide business?
Speaker 2: Terrible?
Speaker 9: If you look at that teletype shoplifting? Five complaints in
a row the week before Christmas. That's all we get. Shoplifters.
Speaker 3: Mel Pranker was in shoplifting. Oh you're working on a Johnny.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The insurance angle, Nick Sharen's the beneficiary one hundred grand policy, So.
Speaker 9: You got a tough one.
Speaker 4: Boy.
Speaker 9: Sean killed him, all right, but I don't think we're
going to be able to stick him. Come on in
the office. Hey, you know what that kid of mine
wents for Christmas?
Speaker 3: Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 6: Oh next year, Johnny.
Speaker 3: He's only ten, you know, go ahead, okay, man, Oh
you want a motorbike?
Speaker 9: Can you tie that?
Speaker 6: Ten years old?
Speaker 3: And he says he needs a motorbike have a chair?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 3: Well, look, I know a factory representative here. I'll make
you a good deal on one. And oh now forget that, Johnn.
Speaker 9: You know I was fourteen before I even had a
pair of roller skates, and then I had to buy
him miss head. Yeah, kids are spoiled today. That's the
half of what's wrong with him.
Speaker 3: Ah, there's the pylon, the case. What little we've got Okay,
mm hmm yeah, how did that happen? Annie?
Speaker 6: I mean, how do I think it happened?
Speaker 3: Good enough for me?
Speaker 9: Melt Priker and Nick Sheran were both in the rackets
for years, as you probably know, I've heard rumors well
a while back they teamed up and opened a string
of supper clubs. That's where Priker got it in their
main club, the Chess Colette, strictly little Gitleman. Huh yeah,
more or less, I guess they could afford to be
though they were making and arguing over according to the
word around.
Speaker 3: That's the reason for the killing the way you see.
Sure they figured if half was good, all the tay
could be twice as good, and the insurance on top
of it. You're a fast one journey. Anyhow, several people
heard the shots about two thirty in the morning. It
was right after the club closed, but none of them
bothered to report it. The cleanup crew came in at
three and found piker's body. He was lying in his office,
shut twice, gone on the floor beside him. No prince
with his own gun, and it was kept there in
his desk. Where was Nick?
Speaker 9: Sheharn And they picked him up an hour later at
another one of their clubs. The manager was with.
Speaker 3: Him and oh, Benny Stark now he wasna, yeah, no
trigger man for next mob in the old days, fifteen
years overdue for hanging, that's our Benny. Anyhow, they both
swear that Nick was there from one thirty on. What
about a perfect test.
Speaker 9: And positive clear to the elbow and you can throd
it out the window.
Speaker 3: What do you mean?
Speaker 9: Earlier that evening Nick spent two hours at a shooting
gallery uptown.
Speaker 3: Hiring ooh smart. He really planned for it, he really did.
Without a witness. We haven't got a chance. I understand
there was a witness, some girl who was mixed up
in it. Easy, Johnny, you're talking to a rafferty mm hmm.
So the girl's Irish, Miss.
Speaker 9: Kathleen O'Day old country back, three generations, county killed there.
Speaker 3: Then, naturally she's as innocent as a newborn babe. Naturally,
then how does she figure a.
Speaker 9: Taxi driver knows her, said that he saw her leave
the club five minutes after the shot. She denied it,
said she left the closing time. But now, in my book,
she was lying, scared to talk, paralyzed and with plenty
of reason. You know Sharan's reputation. What about the cab
driver now I changed its story. He said it might
have been some other girl.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'll tell me ed, let me guess that's right.
Speaker 9: These names O two and I forgot to.
Speaker 3: Mention that Kathleen's pretty naturally.
Speaker 6: Anyhow, I let her go.
Speaker 9: I had too, and when I went around to talk
to her this morning, she'd flown the coop.
Speaker 3: Any chance I'm a next boys grabbed her, I don't
think so. It looked more like she came home packed
in a hurry, took her kid and blew kidd eight
year old daughter Irish, and a mother too. I was
on sacred ground.
Speaker 9: I was fingering the gun. No, seriously, Joy, would you
find her. She may be able to break Nick's alibi,
and it's our only chance.
Speaker 3: And it might be her only chance. Next. Sharan's not
the boy to leave a loose end line around.
Speaker 9: I know I've got thirty men checking bus depots hell
and now luck huh did this mess this time of year?
I'm a hard boiled cop, Johnny. I've got no Christmas
for it. I'm glad it only comes once per animal.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not very much to go, and that's for sure.
I'll see what I can turn up in check with
you later. All right, that's fine. Oh by the way, Johnny, Yeah,
about that friend of yours, well, friend the guy with
the motorbikes. How would you be getting in touch with you? Oh? Yeah,
his name is Ralph Sterner. He's in the phone book
office in the Macley building. Alright, boy, car the kid's
only young ones. Yeah.
Speaker 9: Sure, Now you'll find that old there, find her, keep
her alive and get her to talk.
Speaker 3: How long have I got to find her? What do
you mean, Nick Sharn? How much longer can you hold him? Johnny?
He was turned loose an hour ago. So that was it.
A lot of maybes, a lot of questions, and a
lot of pressure, John to be done and done fast.
Find one Kathleen Odre former hatcheck girl at the shake Colette,
keep Nick Sharen's hoodlums away from her and persuaded the talk,
and three to one Nick was looking for her too.
He was free now, on the loose, and he might
be anywhere. Only the way it turned out, he wasn't
just any where. He was in one particular place, park
rights back in front of the precinct station over Jenny.
He was sitting in the backseat of a sedan and
his trigger man, Benny Stock, was at the wheel.
Speaker 10: Been in a long time, hasn't it, Jenny?
Speaker 3: About five years? As I remember, Nick, it was that
warehouse robbery over in Queens when you got away with
forty thousand dollars worth of furze.
Speaker 10: Ah, you've forgotten me. How was it quitted on that one? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, after they pulled the only witness out
of the East River, his feet in a bucket of cement.
Speaker 10: Just coincidence. I never seen him before.
Speaker 3: You've seen miss Dare before?
Speaker 6: Sure I have.
Speaker 10: She works for me. She's a good kid, Jenny, So
I hear. I wouldn't hum a hell on that girl's head.
Speaker 3: She'll be relieved when I tell her that.
Speaker 10: Get in I want to talk.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, sorry, Nick, I like it fine, just
the way it is in the car. I'd be outnumbered.
Speaker 10: Who got me all wrong? Johnny? I don't play that
way anymore.
Speaker 3: What about Benny has he reformed to?
Speaker 10: Well, that's what Benny. Go take a walk? Yeah wash,
I said, go take a walk.
Speaker 11: Okay, get in Johnny.
Speaker 3: What's any of mint, Nick, you were working on this case? Yeah,
I'm on it.
Speaker 12: Why that's what I figured. I was talking to my lawyer. Man,
So you go to Rafferty's office. I guess the insurance
company's gonna try to welsh on that clean at your party, Nick,
you talk, I had a better idea.
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 12: It's real nice out in Las Vegas this time of year, Johnny,
the man can have a lot of fun out there
for the next month with maybe ten thousand dollars to
play with.
Speaker 3: What man are you talking about?
Speaker 10: You?
Speaker 3: I don't have ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 10: You will thirty minutes from now if.
Speaker 3: You say it the way. Well, Nick, you're lucky. We're
not standing out there on the sidewalk in a car seat.
I haven't got run the Swingsoluh. I don't know. Why
don't you write me about it? You'll have plenty of
time hop there in the desk. Cell.
Speaker 10: I suppose I didn't make any claim on that policy,
and you wouldn't have any reason to.
Speaker 3: Stay on a cake no sale, Nick, one hundred grand
is a lot of money. I'd want to find out
why you didn't make a claim.
Speaker 12: You know why you're out to pennis on me and
so the cops man with the wrecked hasn't got a chance.
Speaker 3: You should have thought of that before you kill mil Priker.
Speaker 10: Want to know something, Johnny, I didn't kill him.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm betting you did.
Speaker 6: What do you care who killed him?
Speaker 10: You're not shedding any tears over.
Speaker 3: It, no, but I'd sure hate to see you get
away with it. And I'd hate it even more if
anything happened to that.
Speaker 10: Girl, Kathy Odd. Now what could happen to her?
Speaker 3: She just might fall in the river. She probably thinks
she's safe as long as she hides from the police
and refuses to talk. She doesn't know you very well.
Speaker 10: Let me all wrong, Jenny.
Speaker 3: You know you hear a lot about peace on earth,
goodwill toward men around this time of year. Well, I
don't have much goodwill toward the kind of rat you are,
and I figured to be more peace on earth if
you went on. It pushed me, and maybe that's what
will happen.
Speaker 6: At least. That's fair warning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair warning. I'm gonna tag you for this nick.
You can count on it. Expense account at him two
two dollars and forty cents taxi to the east side
rooming house of Katy o Dare. I didn't have much
hope of turning up anything. Had Rapperty and his men
had already been through the place inch by inch, but
it was the only starting point I had. The landlady
was out in the uniformed policeman let me into Kathy's flat.
I spent an hour and a half and got nowhere.
I went through her mail, bills, advertisements, casual notes for
men she'd met at the club, nothing personal, not even
a postcard. There were no pictures, photographs of Kathy or
her daughter anywhere in the flat. She made a clean
sweep then left in a hurry, and obviously she didn't
mean to be found, but I had to find her
and fast. It was dusk when I left. The street
lamps were on and the colored Christmas lights in the
windows among the block. Snow was falling in big, soft
gentle plates, and there was a holiday feeling in the air.
It was neither the time nor the setting a murder.
Big contribution, son, You've do something to help pol Oh. Sure,
how's it going this year, Santa? It's better than usual,
But it just seems it is never enough to go around,
no matter how well. Blake you son, Thank you, Cat.
I'll mention him. Good luck, Pop, thank you son. Wow,
the city got to clean the streets better.
Speaker 10: I've been waiting for you.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Benny, it's not my day for punks.
Speaker 10: Get some friends want to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Start walking, Johnny, down the alley. It's stark down there.
Speaker 10: Start walking. This ain't just my hand in my pocket.
Speaker 3: Had better be Benny. With two cops standing up there
on the porch watching.
Speaker 10: Are you talking about there?
Speaker 4: Ain't no.
Speaker 3: I smashed him in the mouth and knocked him flat,
followed it up and kick his gun. He rolled over,
came to his feet and rushed me. I was talking
you last year.
Speaker 4: He had that coming.
Speaker 3: He had a coming hand.
Speaker 6: Well, he sure didn't get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hey, you know something, Pop, I think Benny wants
to make a contribution to help the poor. Well he Oh,
he's a good boy at the moment. At least here
you go. That ought to help some five hundred dollars
for the world, do the most good. Well, Merry Christmas Son,
Happy New Years? Yeah, same to you, popping anymore of them? Hey,
taxi godly? Oh yeah, that's you.
Speaker 13: Wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 3: That's right. I'm trying to find miss so Dare. Do
you know where she is? I think I will be
once I meet her. I'm gonna insurance investigator. I want
to help her.
Speaker 13: That's what the other one said.
Speaker 3: What do you mean? What other one?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 13: We'll go short, mean faced, shift the eye.
Speaker 3: Benny Stark was that his name?
Speaker 13: He didn't say, mister, Do I get He was too.
Speaker 3: Busy, busy doing what breaking my good? Right arm, I'll
be right over. From Special Investigator Johnny Dollar, New York
City to the home office Trimutual Insurance Limit at Hartford,
Connecticut assignment. The Nick Sharan matter expense account continued. I
had him five two dollars and thirty cents taxi to
missus Gottler's rooming house, the place Cathy O'Dare had called
home until she disappeared. Come in, get your hat, miss Gountler. Well, look,
I'm Johnny Dollar. I talked to you on the phone.
Speaker 10: It's all right.
Speaker 3: You can put that gun down.
Speaker 14: Well, yes, it's you all right, Sorry, mister DOLLI but
I've only got one good arm left, and I may
even to cheap it.
Speaker 15: Pull up a chair.
Speaker 3: Thanks kind of rough boy?
Speaker 14: Huh showed him who was rough? If I could have
got ahold of my gun, I'd have blasted him Christmas
week or not, I'd.
Speaker 16: Have blasted him.
Speaker 3: Mister dol know how you feel me with all these
presents to wrap?
Speaker 14: How can you wrap presents with one arm? That it's
being a paper hanger.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll be glad to help out, Missus Gudler. I
won't guarantee what they'll.
Speaker 14: Look like, now, I'm sure to appreciate it, and don't
worry about their looks. I got to get them wrapped
at all.
Speaker 3: Let's see.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 14: This paper goes on that one?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 14: The water muffler for my nephew over in Brooklyn. You
know them terrible winters they have over there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're frightful. Of course. It may be better
this year the Dodgers won the pennanty.
Speaker 14: Nothing but luck it won't happen next year.
Speaker 3: They tell me something, Missus Goler, I'll come Benny worked
you over why did he break your arm?
Speaker 13: Here?
Speaker 14: Pick this card on it as soon as you get
the ribbon tied. Oh okay, all the time of year
like Christmas. He wanted to know where Kathy went, and
I said I didn't know it. Jumped on to me,
said I was lying if I could have got hold.
Speaker 15: Of that one?
Speaker 3: Where did she go?
Speaker 14: By the way, you aiming to break my other arm?
Mister dollar with.
Speaker 3: All these packages to wrap, holds your finger on that
that I had tied.
Speaker 14: Now, impostman in Brooklyn are always busting things open.
Speaker 3: No, that's one down. Where did you say she went?
Speaker 16: I didn't No this one.
Speaker 14: I'll deliver myself so I don't need to be wrapped
to careful al Kathy lit out of here in the
middle of the night. You think I set up twenty
four hours a day spying on my rumors?
Speaker 3: You might if the rumor happened to be one of
your special favorites who told you that? What's the difference?
She was? Wasn't she?
Speaker 14: Kathy was everybody's favorite. Anybody that ever met her, Oh,
you gonna meet them as make remarks about a girl
that works in a nightclub. But I'll tell you one
thing mister dollar, Kathleen. No, there's a final lady you'd ever.
Speaker 3: Cared to find, and I would care to find it.
Speaker 14: Good luck to get in, and if you do, let
me know where she is.
Speaker 3: You helped her pack, didn't you?
Speaker 16: Now? How did you do?
Speaker 3: That's about as good as I can get it. Be
careful when you deliver it. Tho it was not time,
very time. I didn't know, missus Gottner. I was guessing,
but it figured. Kathy was scared half to death when
she packed up and left here. All she had in
her mind was to run and hide. She wouldn't have
thought of stripping that flat, taking out every bit of
personal identification. Somebody had to help her. How would she go?
Speaker 15: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Look, you don't get the idea. I'm on her side.
She's up against a rough deal and doesn't even know it.
You've got a sample of the way those boys play,
and that was only a sample. With Kathy, it'll be
a whole lot worse. They're looking for her, and sooner
or later they'll find her. Her only chance is for
me to get to her first. So I'm not lying,
mister Dogger.
Speaker 14: I don't know where she went, and that's the truth.
To help me, tried to get her to tell me,
but she wouldn't. She said, if I knew it would.
Speaker 15: Be dangerous for me.
Speaker 3: I helped her pack.
Speaker 14: Yes, but I don't know where she was going.
Speaker 3: Well, that's said, I guess I don't know where to
turn next. She apparently didn't have any other close friends.
I don't even know what she looks like. I've never
even seen a picture of her.
Speaker 14: I was hoping you, well, if that'll do you any good,
I've got one right here, my throwing back a picture?
Speaker 15: What did you think?
Speaker 3: Give it to me?
Speaker 14: About a year ago? She's never had many taken, but
here it's it nice, really pretty good, don't you think so?
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's lovely. Well, at least I'll be able to
write when was this taken? Missus Guler?
Speaker 14: Now, how should I know?
Speaker 15: Three or four years ago?
Speaker 14: I guess before she came here to the city.
Speaker 3: This photographer's address. The name of the town. Is that
where she came from? Branbury, Michigan, Wall.
Speaker 15: Yes, that's her hometown, Bramburry.
Speaker 14: I'd forgotten the name of it, and she was just
talking about it a week or so ago.
Speaker 16: She wanted to go home for Christmas.
Speaker 14: But she said she couldn't say, mister dollar.
Speaker 16: Do you think she might?
Speaker 3: Maybe it's the most likely place a scared girl would
run to home. Anyway, It's worth chance, missus s Gottler,
I love you.
Speaker 11: What mister dollar?
Speaker 16: Mister dollar.
Speaker 3: Expense account adam six eighty eight dollars and thirty five cents.
Hotel and Nincintal's in New York and transportation to Bramberry, Michigan.
Bramburry turned out to be a lumber village half hidden
among the pine covered hills. It was a little bigger
than a wide spot in the road, but not much bigger.
A foot of new snow had fallen within the past
twenty four hours. A fluffy white blanket lay softly on
the trees and the housetops, and filled the deep hollows
in the frozen ground. Men in bright red flannel shirts
drove horse drawn logging sleds through the forest trails, and
their shouts sounded sharp and clear, a crystalline tinkle in
the icy air. Bramburry looked like the place where Christmas
was invented. It was beautiful and very quiet. When it
came to putting out information. I found it out first
when I tried the local telephone operator.
Speaker 5: Number.
Speaker 3: Please, I uh just checked in here at the hotel operator.
There doesn't seem to be a phone book, so steal them.
Speaker 13: That's why traveling people going.
Speaker 3: Through, Oh, souvenir hunters. I suppose that. Look, I wanted
to call the odaares because you brought o'dares.
Speaker 13: There ain't but one that's old Mike.
Speaker 3: Oh, and that's the one I want to call. Would
you mind ringing?
Speaker 13: We'll do no good? He ain't there. He's slabbing up
at number four meal today.
Speaker 3: Well, actually it's his daughter I want to talk to. Yeah,
that's right, Kathleen, you know, just growed up with hers?
Speaker 10: All.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, would you mind friend her? No, I've never
met her, but frown, I came here from New York,
Johnny Dollar, Now, would you please ring Kathleen here in
New York City? I know where she lives.
Speaker 13: And what give you the idea she'd be up here?
Speaker 3: I'm psychic?
Speaker 2: You what?
Speaker 3: Look? Where can I get in touch with her?
Speaker 13: I wouldn't know anything about it, mister Dollar, and I
can't give out that kind of information. You better go
on back to New York and write her a letter.
Speaker 3: Let me talk to your supervisor.
Speaker 13: Supervisor. Well, I'm all there is so, I guess that's
me started talking.
Speaker 10: I got it, You're welcome.
Speaker 3: I got the same kind of run around from the
hotel proprietor. As soon as I mentioned Kathy, he suddenly
forgot his own name age in the time of day
one thing. Sure, this town took care of its own.
I wondered if the law in Branbury would take the
same attitude. I decided I'd better go find out. As
it happened, I didn't have far to go. On the
sidewalk in front of the hotel, the law came to
me just a second there, I said, M'd.
Speaker 15: Like to have a little talk with you, if you
know mine mine.
Speaker 3: Quite a change to find somebody here who wants to talk.
Speaker 15: I understand you just got in from New York business.
Speaker 3: Look, you know why I'm here. But now everybody in
town knows got any identification on you? Yeah? Have you?
Speaker 15: My name is Martin, Dan Martin. I'm the deputy shriff
in charge of this part of the county.
Speaker 3: Oh, then you're just the man I was looking for.
Speaker 10: Is that so?
Speaker 3: I'm Johnny Dollar Insurance investigator. I'm looking for a girl
named Kathleen O dare Do you know where she is?
Speaker 15: What do you want with her?
Speaker 3: I'm working on a murder case. She's a witness.
Speaker 15: Is there any kind of a charge against her?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: I just want to talk to her.
Speaker 15: What makes you think she's here?
Speaker 3: Are you a friend of hers?
Speaker 15: Mister Martin, I've been in love with Kathy since we
went to grade school. I'd be willing to die for
a Does that answer your question?
Speaker 3: All right? Let me put it this way. You think
you're helping her by hiding her out. All of you
thinks so, but you're wrong. You're helping her right into
her grave.
Speaker 15: Kathy doesn't figure it that way.
Speaker 3: She's scared. She doesn't know what she thinks. I know
these boys who are after her, they don't play kid games,
and sooner or later they're going to find her. So
if you love her, and if you know where she is,
you better take me to her before it's too late.
Speaker 15: I don't know. I don't know what it is. Kathy's
mixed up.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 15: I didn't want to ask her, but I know it
isn't the police she's afraid of. And I don't think
it's you.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: At the time she ran out, I wasn't even in
the picture. I'm on her side too, mister Martin, and
I've got to see her.
Speaker 15: Go talk to her father. Oh, Mike, see what he thinks.
He's not at home right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know he's out at number four mill. How
do I get there?
Speaker 15: The County pickup trucked his park down the block.
Speaker 3: The tire chains bit into the packed snow and pushed
the four miles of logging road behind us. It was
late afternoon and the sun had dropped behind the timbered slopes,
throwing a pale sheet of cold yellow against the western sky.
Here and there, a few scattered lights were coming on
in the windows of the village and the bunkhouses of
the lumberck vamps, right white smarts against the darkening shadows, emptiness, loneliness,
and somewhere in it a frightened girl and hiding a
girl who'd run away from the city of one hundred
million lights and from an unsolved murder. Michael Dare was
winding up a job working at the Big Slapping Song.
I stood by and waited front of the finish.
Speaker 6: Good night, rid you, mister Dollar. This is the last one.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the last of it.
Speaker 6: Now we'll after Christmas. I'm sorry to keep you waiting.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, mister o'daire. My name is Johnny Mind. I
know all about you.
Speaker 6: Dan Martin phone said you was on your way out.
Mister dallan, the answer is no.
Speaker 10: I see.
Speaker 6: I've had it over since Dan called. Before i'd have
anything happened to Kathy. I'd rather see ten murderers go
in the home now. Look, hiding out won't help. As
long as Nick sher And is free. Kathy's in danger.
He can't hurt her if he can't find her.
Speaker 3: I found her, mister o'dair, just by luck.
Speaker 6: There's not one chance in a million of sounded like
a car who the Carnation had drive out here this
time of the evening.
Speaker 3: We walked over to the big door. As the car
had stopped about twenty yards away. A man got out
and turned toward us. I was standing out of the
dock light, so he recognized me. Before I got a
good look at him, he jumped back in the car
and went for his gun. Then he stuck get back,
mister o'dair. It was too dark to get a decent shot.
I tried once more and missed, and the car disappeared
behind the trees.
Speaker 6: Ster Dollar, who was was that one of them?
Speaker 3: That's right, Mike, they found her, Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 13: Dan Martin here, I was up the street with you.
Speaker 3: Listen to Jarriff. They've traced Kathy. O'Dare here to you.
A nice little town of Branbury. Who has Nick Shuran's boys?
One of them, a trigger man named Benny Stark, came
out to the sawmill hell a few minutes ago. I
traded a couple of shots with him, but he got
away in a car.
Speaker 15: Did he head north or back toward town Georgetown?
Speaker 3: I think you can't see the turnoff from here?
Speaker 15: All right, Dollar, you're packing a gun. Will you take
a pickup truck and black bet turnoff? Hold it until
I can get somebody out there to relieve it.
Speaker 3: Right, how many deputies you got?
Speaker 1: Deputies?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 3: What about volunteers?
Speaker 15: Is this Benny Stark the man Kathy's afrido.
Speaker 3: He's one of them?
Speaker 15: Then I'll have volunteers. Twenty men within a half hour,
armed with deer rifles, and every one of them a
dead shot.
Speaker 3: From Special Investigator Johnny Dollar. Location Branbury Michigan to the
home office Primutual Insurance Limited at Hartford, Connecticut assignment. The
Nick Sharan matter expense account continued. I had of eight
three dollars sixty cents for two packs of cigarettes and
a pint of applejack borrowed from the foreman's locker at
the sawmill. I figured these a standard equipment for holding
down a roadblock at ten degrees above zero, and Michael
Dare agreed with me one hundred percent.
Speaker 6: Oh, I'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 3: They can make it out of corn ride parley, make
it at a gold if they want to, but they'll
never come up with anything better than what they make
out of apples.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, have a short.
Speaker 3: One, john No, no thanks, I'll save it for later. Well,
I'll just.
Speaker 6: It's got the taste of Indian summer in it. You
ought to see this country around that time of yere, Johnny,
break your heart.
Speaker 10: It's a beautiful.
Speaker 3: Well, it's beautiful now with the snow on, and it
would be more so if there wasn't a killer running.
Speaker 6: Loosen it, Johnny. I want to ask you something about
my daughter, and I want you to answer me honest,
all right, It's no use trying to fool you. She's here,
all right, I know, but she hasn't told me what
it was. It happened in New York, but she ran
away from it.
Speaker 3: Now, I figured it was just as well not to
ask her. You're sure if Dan Martin said practically the
same thing. Den's been in love with Kathy since she
was twelve years old. He's a good man, solid, so
I forged anyway, she was scared, scared half to dick,
and she'd come home for help, so we tried to help.
What was it you wanted to ask me, mister Odare
you mentioned a murder case?
Speaker 6: Johnny? You didn't give any of the details, just said
that Kathy was her witness? Is is she mixed up
in this murder?
Speaker 3: And you wanted an honest dancer? All right? I'm not
sure they see. That's why I wanted to talk to her,
get her story, the truth. I realized on the start
she might be guilty. I don't think so, but it's
a possibility. You may as well know about it.
Speaker 6: I guess you realize it wouldn't make any difference not
to me or to day.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I figured. In other words, you're with me
as long as I'm trying to protect her, but you'll
fight me if I find reason to think she's guilty.
Speaker 6: It's about it, Johnny.
Speaker 3: Well, at least we know where we stand, and I
hope it won't come.
Speaker 6: What's your master?
Speaker 3: A car coming light on the trees there at the bend.
Speaker 6: Yeah, do you suppose? Maybe?
Speaker 3: Probably not, but you can't tell. Better get behind the
truck just in case, and I'll have to shift in
the low the wedge past us and let me get
that spotlight on it, I guess, So just have another
quick one.
Speaker 6: The wind cuts right through your bones.
Speaker 3: It's a dark colored sit Dan, it might be him.
Speaker 6: Funny, I'd been hoping for two months if Katy'd come
home for Christmas and they didn't figure I'd be out
here in the woods hiding behind a truck waiting to
shoot it out with somebody that wanted to kill.
Speaker 3: It's a crazy world. Keep your head down a stilt. Yeah,
just the driver by himself, wearing a dark cant Oh no.
Speaker 6: You know that kind of looks like right curly it is.
That's Ted Perkins or wreck, no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: When the car right better wave him out past. He
probably thinks we need help. It's all right.
Speaker 4: Did it's my good hair?
Speaker 6: Goe ahead head. We don't need anything.
Speaker 3: Eh, well, right, thanks anyway.
Speaker 6: And there's one thing about people around here. They mind
their own business and don't ask no questions.
Speaker 3: And they don't answer them often either. How's that applejack?
Holding out? Two long hours went past. Only three cars
came out from the village, and each time a long
moment of tension while we waited to identify the occupants,
but all of them were townspeople. Then he didn't show.
One truck came down the logging road from the back hills,
loaded with dwarf spruce and fir peace on earth, good
will toward men. We were waiting for an assassin, but
the truck only carried Christmas trees. The night was crystal clear,
with bright stars hanging low in the blackness, but it
kept turning colder and colder, and leaving the apple jack
didn't help much. And the wind too, changed gradually and
blew fitful and gusty and strange.
Speaker 6: It's kind of storm come a blizzard, maybe not tonight,
tomorrow sometime or tomorrow night. I know this country, know
the signs.
Speaker 3: There's an odd feeling in the air all.
Speaker 6: Right, there's an even order. When in my leg log
rolled over on it, putting it six years ago, bothers
me some in the winter till that wears so right
before the storm.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of a handy thing to have.
Speaker 6: Well, that's one way of looking at it. I guess.
Like one time when Katy was little, when the mare
was still alive, cried rostersoul. We had a big measles
epidemic here Branberry, and every night Kathy used to add
a line to a prayer, kids say, and please let
me catch the measles so it can stay out of
school like the other kids know. She's wanted is a
witness in a murder case, and somebody's prowling out there
in the dark trying to find her and kill her.
Little Kathy, who never harmed anybody in her whole life.
Some things just don't make sense, Johnny.
Speaker 3: Some things never have. There was another time once when
men like Benny were prowling in the dark trying to
find a little child and kill him, and he hadn't
harmed anybody either. That was nearly two thousand years ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure it was. I like you, Johnny, Kathy, You'll
like it too, little jail. Huh ah, there's a pair
for that kid. Looks more like her mother did at
her age. Another car coming aster there, Yeah, so there is,
and this just might be the one. Maybe I wish
that apple Jack hadn't run out, But.
Speaker 3: It was only a couple of men. Deputy Martin had
sent out from to relieve us and take over. Big men,
calm and quiet, wearing plaid mackinaws and heavy laced boots
and carrying Winchester ninety fours over their arms. They told
us Benny Stark had been seen. He'd come up from
the west, driven onto one of the roadblocks unexpectedly, and
a flurry of shouts he'd broken through. The men couldn't
understand his persistence. They thought he'd run for it get
out of the area once his presence was known. I
didn't bother to explain, to put him straight, but I
knew Benny had never run. Not now. He was a
trigger man, a professional killer with a reputation at stake,
and he had his orders to silence Kathy o'dair. A
half hour later, we were back in town, turning into
the main street around the village square, strings of pilly
lights and a tall pine in the center of the
square blinked and sparkled as they swayed in the wind.
Around one hundred cars and trucks were parked in the
street and in the lot behind the town hall, and
the sound of singing drifted out from inside their practice
and carols and kings the big doings on Christmas Eve,
he did beautiful. The man at the roadblock had given
the description of Benny's car and the license number. It
was just barely possible. Got something in mind, Johnny. Let's
take a look through those park cards.
Speaker 6: I don't know. If it was me, I sure would
be hanging around here. I'd stick to the tall timber.
Speaker 3: You have returned out a city boy and my tall
timorous foreign soil. To Benny, he's only comfortable when he's
close to a crowd.
Speaker 6: He the fellow that's supposed to have done that murder.
Speaker 3: Now is the man who works for a cafe on
a ex gangster, a man named Nick Shearn. Let's check
that lot around at the side. I don't think he'd
show here in front.
Speaker 6: He'd be taking a big chance showing anywhere in the
town this size. People know each other.
Speaker 3: It's his job to take chances, and he probably doesn't realize.
Whatever's that's the Dan against the building with the side
window broken shifting. Who what.
Speaker 10: Is card? Johnny?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Wait here. I eased my gun out of the
holster and started toward the car. There were no lights
in the lot, only the soft glow reflected from the
packed snow on the foot, and the car itself stood
in the dark shadows next to the building. I couldn't
see whether anyone was in it or not. The singing
seemed to swell louder as I approached. I moved slowly,
watching for any sudden movement. The car was empty. It
was time past time to talk to Kathy Odare, and,
with a pressure tightening, the danger close to home now,
her father was ready to take me to her. We
drove over to Dan Martin's house, where it turned out
Kathy and her daughter was staying. Dan's mother had been
looking after Dan was there when we arrived, busy on
the phone.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I know the car al right, the one Jed
bought last spring down in Bay City seven three nine two?
Where was it park?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 15: Keep an eye out, Charlie so on. Benny Stark had
stole himself out of the car took Jed Wharton station wagon.
Speaker 6: We what for?
Speaker 3: That was a better when he had Charlie says.
Speaker 15: The steering gear was sprung. I guess it happened when
he crashed that roadblock. But that was Kathy and the
young and oh fine, they were sleep upstairs. Mom's next
door helping missus Barton stuff a turkey.
Speaker 6: Johnny, you figured it could wait two more.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, mister Oldare. I've got to talk to her tonight.
Speaker 15: All right, I'll go wake her up, mister Doller. No
matter what she's done, don't hurt her anymore than you
have to.
Speaker 3: As far as I know at the moment, Dan, all
she's guilty of is withholding information, and most people would
have done the same thing. Nick Suran's a rough boy
to tangle with. She was scared, that's all lost her head.
Speaker 15: She never did belong in a city. She belongs right
here in Branbury. This is her kind of life. Why
did she leave? Well, we argued one day and she
said she'd show me. So she ran off and married
that fella. He treated her bad, finally left her, but
she was too proud to come back. She wouldn't have
come back. Now she hadn't have been so scared.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe it'll work out now.
Speaker 15: She ought to stay her kid, ought to grow up here,
learned the outdoors in the woods like Kathy used to
know it where she roamed through those hills like a
young Indian. Knew every trail in that forest, every timber
camp and trapper's cabin from here to the ridge. I
remember one time the two of us were up toward
what's the matter there?
Speaker 3: You said, you said you did Kathy or sleep upstairs?
Speaker 6: Is that what you said?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 15: Of course that's what I Mike, what's happened?
Speaker 3: They're not up here, They're not up there anywhere else
in the house. There, God, Johnny Dollar, Mike, go there,
Johnny any signed a cafy? No, the boys of the
highway turn off haven't seen her or Benny either one.
Not a soul out that way in the last hour.
Speaker 6: What about there at this Hormon.
Speaker 3: Nothing Mike, No fresh tracks on the logging road, no
sign of her. And the worst thing is it's starting
to snow again.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're in town two, Dan Martin, just phone.
Speaker 4: No luck.
Speaker 3: She hasn't shown up at any of the roadblock. She's
she's around somewhere, and we've got to find her. We will, Mike,
and it's got to be fast.
Speaker 5: Johnny.
Speaker 3: There's a blizzard coming up, and that gunman Benny Stock
is around two. Maybe he's already found her, maybe even
took her from the house hard and jail boat. Maybe
she didn't get scared and run.
Speaker 6: Maybe it was him.
Speaker 3: Maybe I stop at that kind of thing. It's not
gonna help anything. I don't know, but I've got a
half baked idea and I may be right. Stay there
at the house. I'm coming back to pick you up.
And one thing you can do while you're waiting, what
Johnny pray? From Special Investigator Johnny Dollar location, Branbury, Michigan
to the home office Trimutual Insurance Limited, Hartford, Connecticut, assignment
the Nick Shuran matter, or more important, find Kathy. O'Dare
itdem twelve on expense account four dollars and ninety cents.
A tank full of gas for the county pickup I'd
borrow from Deputy Sheriff Dan Martin. The falling snow was
thickening now, and the wind was rising and steadying in
the northwest. The night had all the makings of a
blizzard and wherever Kathy and her daughter had gone, we
had to find them before it hit. It was ten
fourteen PM. I pulled up at the side porch of
the adarehouse and Kathy's father came hurrying out to the truck,
leaving the door open behind him and butting his heavy mcnaws.
He ran.
Speaker 6: And he knew was my hut her king.
Speaker 3: All right, get in, shut the door.
Speaker 6: Hey, we'll get a foot of snow before money with
a zero win behind it.
Speaker 3: Now, listen, Mike, I think we can forget any idea
that Benny found her and got her out of the house.
In that case, she wouldn't have taken your car. He's
already got one.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 3: I thought her there, and he wouldn't have given her
time to dress herself in jail the way she did
with heavy clothes and snow boots, and she wouldn't have
taken the rifle. Then what has happened? She knew I'd
be there to talk to her sometime this evening. I
think she lost a nerve, couldn't face it, decided to
run again. Maybe so, but where Johnny, That's what I
want you to tell me that now I don't mean,
you knew what she was going to do and where
she was gonna go, or now, how do you think
I can tell you? Look, Kathy knew about the roadblock
Stan Martin set up to trap Benny Stock, knew where
they were, so she didn't want to be seen. Then
naturally she'd avoid them. She couldn't not if she wanted
to get away, take the highway to Fleet to Detroit,
she'd have to pass one of them at least. But
she hasn't passed any of them. So she's still in
this area, and I don't think she ever meant to
leave it. But then, Martin said, Cathy used to spend
a lot of time in the woods when she was
growing up. He said, she knew every back trail in
these hills, logging camps, trappers, cabins.
Speaker 6: She did. She used to worry that dickens out to
be the way.
Speaker 3: She Yeah, Now, where would she go, Mike, if she
wanted to hide out back in the hill somewhere?
Speaker 6: There's a lot of places, Chippewa canyons, one here for
timbercamps abandoned in the winter, some cabins along it.
Speaker 3: No, No, she couldn't make it. There's a roadblock before
you get to the turnout there. It's gotta be some
place she could reach without being seen.
Speaker 6: There's there's workers flats. Oh, but that's twelve miles of
foot trail. She wouldn't try it in this weather, not
with Gill along anyway. Then there's.
Speaker 3: Lake Pine. No, it's over the other way, Pine Lake
rows that runs northwestern town. Not much better than the
wagon road. Dan didn't put a block on it because
the dead ends lake about five miles out. What's out there?
Nothing at the lake, but you can go on up
Pine Creek about four miles on foot, and there's some cabins.
Maybe you waste the time journey. Let's get gone expense account.
It am thirteen six dollars and ninety cents one dry
cell electric lantern, an extra pair of batteries picked up
at the Branberry Hardware Company. And the way through town,
the falling snow, driven by a bitter cold wind, formed
a dense curtain in front of our headlights, and from
the turnoff all the way up the narrow twisting road
to Pine Lake, I had to keep the truck in
second gear. There were car tracks in the road all right,
several of them. But they were covered now with a
new blanket of snow, and it was impossible to tell
whether they'd been made earlier, tonight or a week ago.
Speaker 6: The road ends a couple of yards past this next turn,
and we'll soon know. There's four or five side turnoffs
clearance where you can park. We'll have to check out
of them. I guess, all right, that draw there on
the right, that break there in the tree, that's where
the Pine Creek trailer starts.
Speaker 3: I was swinging Mike. I guess we won't have to
check those turnops.
Speaker 6: Eh.
Speaker 3: Is that your car over there under the trees.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: I left Mike waiting in the cab while I went
over to look inside the car. It was empty, abandoned,
and there was no note, no clue of any kind
to tell where Kathy had gone. I raised the hood
and felt the motor block ice cold. The car had
been here for some time. I flashed the lantern on
the ground and followed the faint tracks made by two
pairs of snow boats the end of the deep draw
that led back into the hills, the start of the
Pine Creek trail. I snapped off the lantern and stumbled
through the snow back to the truck.
Speaker 6: But you're pine, Johnny.
Speaker 3: It's them all right, they've headed up the trail. I
found tracks in the snow.
Speaker 6: Then we'd better get started.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, I'll go after the mic. You take the truck,
go into town, find Dan Martin, bring help as fast
as you can. That storm's getting worse.
Speaker 6: No you don't. I know there is darting up that
trailer with a blizzard coming on. And if you think
you got to protect me, but I said, I got
on Mike. There's no time, and you're wrong. I'm not
protecting you. I'm protecting myself. What do you mean that
bum lag of yours.
Speaker 3: I don't want you on my hands too, along with
the girls.
Speaker 6: All right, Johnny, I'll go after.
Speaker 3: Day and hurry Mike. I'm depending on you. Yeah, good luck, Johnny,
see you, Mike. I stood there in the snow watching
the headlights of the truck move away. Finally they swung
around the bend and disappeared, and I suddenly felt more
alone than I ever had in my life. I'd gotten
rid of Mike, deliberately sent him away on purpose, because
I hadn't told him everything. I could see no point
in tearing his heart out. There was another car parked
on beyond Kathy. He's nearly hidden by the trees. Jed
Wharton's station wagon, the car that had been stolen by
a killer named Benny Stark. It took me half an
hour to cover the first mile, and the storm kept
getting worse. The beam of the lantern penetrated a bare
thirty feet ahead of me before it was smothered out
in the white blackness of the night. After a few
hundred yards, the tracks I was trying to follow it
nearly disappeared. Snowboll were blotted out. I gave up looking
for them and struck to Old Mike's description of the
trail following the left bank of the frozen Creek. The
drifts were deeper down along the creek bottoms, and the
going was rougher, but I didn't dare leave it to
look for better footing. It was my only landmark. The
trail itself was buried. Any man who lost his way
to night and wandered off into one of those side
gullies with wanted us straight to his death. An hour passed,
then an hour and a half, or two hours. Maybe
I lost all track of time. And distance. The wind
cut through my clothes, and the numbing pole crept into
me deeper and deeper. Gradually, the walking, stumbling, breathing, even
thinking became automatic, and without feeling, the world itself seemed
to narrow down to a tiny circle close around me,
and all beyond was chaos, blackness, and roaring storm. I
tripped over fallen logs and flundered back to my feet,
dropped my landin and recovered it. Me broke through the
crested brists and struggled for footing and kept on moving
in the weird nightmare of the blizzard. I could highly
recognize reality when I came face to face with it.
When a beam from my lantern touched him, crouching by
a tree a few yards away, I could barely accept
him as being real. He'd been watching my light as
I approached, waiting for me. It was Benny Stark, with
his gun leveled and named, don't be a fool, Benny,
drop that gun. A curtain of snow swept between us,
then plotting out the side of them, and I was grateful.
I turned and stumbled on into the storm, moving in
pitch darkness. Now except for the ghostly glow from the
snow covered ground. The second shot had smashed my land,
and I had nothing left to go by but instinct
and luck, and they weren't enough. Within fifteen minutes, I
was hopelessly lost. That's when I started hearing the music
miles from no place where there couldn't be any music
except inside my head. The cold and fatigue were finally
doing their work. I knew the signs. The next step
was to start wandering in circles smaller and smaller ones,
and the last step to drop exhausted and go peacefully,
to sleep, peacefully and permanently. But the sound kept going louder,
and I moved in the direction it seemed to be
coming from. It couldn't be just illusions. It had to
be real. Hello, Hello there. Then suddenly, only a few
yards away, a brilliant blaze of light exploded from the darkness,
and it seemed that a golden haired girl was standing
in the middle of it, And for a moment, my
sanity tottered, who's out there? My golden vision was wearing
blue jeans and a flannel shirt and was holding a rifle.
She looked exactly like the photograph I'd seen of Kathy Adare,
and the blaze of light came from an open cabin door.
Speaker 16: Who is it?
Speaker 3: Speak up for our shoe? Holy mystair, it's Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 16: Are you getting warm now?
Speaker 3: I don't think I'll ever get warm again?
Speaker 16: You will if you don't move away from stove a
little the back. You're sure you're starting to smoke?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought I was beginning to feel something. How's
the firewood?
Speaker 16: There's plenty. It's plenty of food and a radio.
Speaker 3: If I hadn't heard that music, had a blunded right
on past this, Kevin.
Speaker 10: We've got everything.
Speaker 16: We can hold out for a month if.
Speaker 8: We have to.
Speaker 16: I hope we have to.
Speaker 3: What about your daughter? You all right?
Speaker 16: Sure she's fine? The picnic for her a camping trip
she's found asleep back there, and the lean too dreaming
about Santa Claus. I suppose I wish I could. How
did you find me, mister Dollar?
Speaker 3: Huh, guess work. I was born under a lucky story.
Speaker 4: I wasn't.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know. I think you've been pretty lucky
considering everything, more so than your landlady back in New York,
Missus Grappler, what do you mean very stark? Went to
see her, tried to find out where you were. When
she wouldn't tell me, broke her arm. Oh no, oh, oh,
it's a rough game, and so dear trying to play
it cozy with a mobster like Nick Shran. You know,
of course, that he sent Benny here to find you.
Speaker 16: You'll have a hard time finding me in this thing.
Speaker 3: He did find you, what maybe he followed you from
the house. I saw you drive through town anyway. I
ran into him back down the trailerways.
Speaker 16: I thought, I, you're shooting A while ago.
Speaker 3: You did. He tried to ambush me. He thought he
had the drop, and he wouldn't give up. I had
to kill him. Johnny Dollar, Johnny Dollar, spill it. J
O h n n y d O l l a R.
Speaker 17: That's not right. You forgot to capitalize.
Speaker 3: You're right, honey.
Speaker 4: Let me hear you.
Speaker 17: Spell your name, okay, capital j I L L jill,
capital O apostrophe, apostrophe. I never can say that capital
d ai dare. Of course, my last name is actually
something else I forget, but my mother says I'm really
an o' dare, not the.
Speaker 3: Least out about it. I can see it in my
minna I like you, Johnny Dollar, and I kind of
like you too. Jell old, Dare you.
Speaker 16: Think my mother's pretty?
Speaker 3: I think she's lovely.
Speaker 17: Why don't you get married to her so I can
have a daddy?
Speaker 3: Well, that's it's certainly something to think about and not
a bad idea. Now, I'll be quiet before you wake
her up.
Speaker 16: I'm already awaken with a plot like that being hats
but I think I better stay awake. Is there coffee, Johnny?
Speaker 3: From Special Investigator Johnny Dollar, location a small cabin in
the timber outside Branbury, Michigan, to the home office Trimutual
Insurance Limited, Hartford, Connecticut. Assignment the Nick Shuran matter expense
account final page item fifteen one million dollars for a
certain feeling. I realize, of course, that the amount of
this item is somewhat unusual. It may be cause for
mild criticism by your accounting department unless the accompanying report
includes an adequate and detailed explanation. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary
correspondence and delay, I am attaching said explanation herewith here's
your coffee, Canny day.
Speaker 16: How long did I sleep, Johnny?
Speaker 3: Oh, A couple of hours it's around four in the morning.
Speaker 16: Storm hasn't let up at all, has it?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's worse if anything.
Speaker 16: Still, Honey, it's four o'clock in the morning and your
eyes are just about to fall out. Now you go
back there and go to sleep.
Speaker 8: Do I have to moon?
Speaker 17: You have to I long now, mister Johnny Dollar, and
you were having a lot of fun till you wocal.
Speaker 16: Well, that's life, sweetie. Night now, good night.
Speaker 10: Proud of her.
Speaker 16: I'm crazy about her, that's what you mean.
Speaker 3: She's a great little girl.
Speaker 16: She's the only thing I ever did in my whole
life that turned out right that bad. Huh, Johnny, it's
no good. I know why you're here. I know what
you expect from me, and the answer is no.
Speaker 3: You're jumping the gun. I haven't asked you anything.
Speaker 1: You will.
Speaker 16: You haven't done all this for nothing. You're going to
ask me to come back to New York and testify
against Nick Sharon.
Speaker 3: I might ask you to tell the truth. Is that
just another way of wording it.
Speaker 16: I didn't see anything, hear anything. I don't know anything
about it, and I have nothing to say.
Speaker 3: So next Sharon gets away with another murder, I wouldn't
know anything about that, and sooner or later, of course
he'll kill you too. He sent Benny Stark out to
do it, and Benny missed. But he's got other boys,
or he might even handle the job himself.
Speaker 16: Why by now he ought to know that.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to tell, but there's always that chance
you might change your mind. And Nick's a gambler, but
he likes the odds on his side. He doesn't take chances.
Whenever he can, he stacks the deck.
Speaker 16: I wish I could help you, Johnny, but I don't
know anything about it. I left before it happened.
Speaker 3: How long have you worked for Nick? Sharon known him
two years.
Speaker 16: I'm not wide eyed about him, Johnny. I've heard what
he's been what He may even still be a gangster, hoodlum, racketeer,
but that's none of my business. The club was legitimate.
My job there was on the level, and he never
got out of line once.
Speaker 3: And now Dodd. He's always been kind to his mother
and loves dogs and children.
Speaker 16: I wouldn't know except children. He's crazy about them. He
was always buying something for Jill, asking about it.
Speaker 3: And they also shot and killed Milk Pricker.
Speaker 16: I couldn't say, I see.
Speaker 3: Well, you're letting a lot of people down, people here
in Branbury that you grew up with, people that love you,
your father, Dan Martin.
Speaker 16: What have they got to do with it?
Speaker 3: You know, it's a great country up here. I'd like
to spend more time in it. And it's a big country,
big and beautiful and dangerous like that blizzard outside there.
It's not the kind of country that turns out cowards.
Speaker 16: Cowards.
Speaker 3: Your father said something yesterday that some people belong in
cities and some don't, and that you're one of the
second kind.
Speaker 4: He was right.
Speaker 3: The city's made a coward of you.
Speaker 16: You don't understand.
Speaker 3: They know it, oh, Mike, Dan, all of them. Of
course they'll never mention it, but you're letting them down,
and they know it, and you know it, Kathy.
Speaker 16: They don't have a daughter to think of it.
Speaker 3: It's not her fear. We're talking about it yours.
Speaker 13: All right.
Speaker 16: I'm scared. I've got reason to be. It's easy for
you to talk. You don't know what fear is, what
it can.
Speaker 6: Do to you.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 16: It can push you and drive you and make you
do things.
Speaker 3: You hate yourself for, and it can destroy.
Speaker 16: How would you know? How would any of them who
haven't felt it, who haven't been there.
Speaker 3: Jnathy, You're not alone. We've all been there. It's not
the fear that's important, it's the courage you bring up
to fight it.
Speaker 16: I've tried, I've I've nearly goten crazy trying to think
it out. But it always comes back.
Speaker 10: To one thing. Jill.
Speaker 16: She's what counts. Nothing else matters.
Speaker 3: And if you love her, teacher to grow up without fear,
sacrifice anything, if you have to leave in your life,
but teach your courage. There's nothing greater you could do for.
Speaker 16: Sorry, all right, Sorry, I knew what was right, Johnny,
I knew all time.
Speaker 3: Sure, of course you did. All you needed was a
little push. I want to tell me about it now.
Speaker 16: I was here at the club that night when it happened.
I stayed after closing. I had some presents for Jill,
and I wanted to wrap them before I took them home.
Nick and north Priker were upstairs in the office.
Speaker 3: Nick was there, Yes.
Speaker 16: I could hear them arguing. They didn't know I'd stayed
in the go on. I heard Mel yell out, he
said no, Nick, No, And then I heard the shots.
Speaker 3: Yes, I didn't even think.
Speaker 16: I ran up to the office. Mel was lying on
the floor and Nick was standing there with a gun.
He told me to get out and to keep quiet
if I wanted to keep on living, that's it.
Speaker 3: Yes, will you make a statement to the police, testify
at the trial.
Speaker 15: Yes, I'm going there.
Speaker 16: Will you help me, Johnny?
Speaker 10: Will you stand by me?
Speaker 3: You know I will got too, because I'm scared.
Speaker 16: I'll be scared all the way, but I'll do it
if you will help me.
Speaker 3: I'll help you, Kathy all away. Why don't you curl
up here and get some sleep?
Speaker 16: Come on, maybe, No, I can't sleep. It's going to
be all right, thanks Johnny giving me the push. Oh sure, honey,
you know something, Johnny. I'm with Jill.
Speaker 8: I like you too.
Speaker 3: She went to sleep with a face against my chest,
and after a while little Jill came tiptoeing in and
curled up on the other side. And I sat there,
holding them both, thinking and waiting for the dawn. So
that's what I mean about a million dollar feeling. True.
It wasn't my little girl or my big girl either,
but for the moment at least, well, that item still
goes I'll still tag that feeling at one million dollars,
and I was sorry when the storm was over and
the rescue party came up from town, because I felt
I'd had one moment in a lifetime that I'd never
find again.
Speaker 15: Good went last.
Speaker 3: The big event of the year in Bramburry was the
Christmas Eve show in the town hall. There was music
and a pageant and singing, and everybody took part in it,
from the youngest kid in town to the toughest, old
grizzled lumberjack from the back hills. Jill was in the
children's car as and Old Mike was to operate the spotlights,
so they went on ahead. I took Kathy, and since
she wasn't quite ready to face people yet, we made
a point of getting there late. I didn't care when
we got there, as long as I was with her.
We slipped in quietly and took seats at the back
of the room. The spring group from the high school
orchestra was playing, and no one noticed us, not even
Old Mike, Cappy's father, who was working in the spotlights.
Speaker 16: I hope Jill Guzar actually hasn't had any time to
practice with him.
Speaker 3: Well, she'll do all right. We'd been there about ten
minutes when somebody else came in and slid into the
one seat between us and the door. I didn't look
around until I felt campy stiffen beside me. It was
Nick Shern. Nobody gets excited now, any sudden moves.
Speaker 10: We just said, here quiet light.
Speaker 3: He slid his hand over the feeling inside my coat
under my arm.
Speaker 10: I'm backing a runner perfect.
Speaker 3: I'd left my gun at Kathy's household. Mike had been
dubious about it, but with Benny dead, I'd seen no
reason to carry it, and after all, it was Christmas.
Speaker 10: Even all right now I was gonna ease out of
you now.
Speaker 3: It out attract no attention, many crazy nick yours.
Speaker 10: And just don't forget one thing.
Speaker 3: Though, and that whole that's gun, I knew, he saying,
right at the miller Cathy's back. Let's go, no choice, Candy.
Come on, the back of the room was dark, nobody
paid any attention, and somebody was always leaving or coming
back in.
Speaker 4: Come on.
Speaker 6: I got a car over to, saida Johnny, watch your dollar.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. Mike.
Speaker 6: Just gonna get some there, all right, Johnny. But don't
go running out before I give you your present. Huh here,
and don't turn it cork that until you're ready for
some serious business.
Speaker 3: All right, I'll I'll thanks Mike, thanks a lot.
Speaker 6: God mention it. Good luck, Johnny.
Speaker 10: Hell, come on, let's get away from here.
Speaker 16: Johnny, Jill go back. You tell me you're coming here.
Speaker 10: You hear me.
Speaker 3: Listen, Please, Uncle, get your hands on your pocket and.
Speaker 17: Pick me up.
Speaker 10: Look, Jill, you run alone.
Speaker 3: Now, who's that Dan Martin. He's a deputy sheriff and
he's a dead shot. Better do like she says, Nick,
take your hand out of your pocket and.
Speaker 4: Pick her up.
Speaker 10: All right, reach in my pocket, Johnny, take my gun.
Speaker 3: Water. Jacky and I walked around outside. We could still
hear the children's cars singing inside.
Speaker 16: Jill saved our lives tonight.
Speaker 3: No, she saved Nick's life. What do you mean that
present your father gave me up there at the spotlights,
he could see what was happening, and he thought real
fast that present was a gun. I had Nick covered
from the time we stepped off the porch.
Speaker 16: I'm glad he didn't move. I'm glad it happened like
it did. Yeah, so my I thought we'd never see
those stars up there again.
Speaker 3: You kept totaling yourself, Kathy. You showed a lot of courage.
Speaker 8: No, but maybe I can learn to show it. I
was just thinking, Johnny, looking at the stars up there,
there was fear in the world then, two thousand years ago, and.
Speaker 16: He had courage.
Speaker 3: Expense account Item sixteen two hundred and thirty dollars and
forty cents. Incidentals in Brambury and transportation for two adults
and one child Branbury to New York. Expense account total
four hundred and eighty six dollars and twenty cents. End
of account and of report remarks, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas
to all of you from all of us here on
the program, and God bless you, yours truly, Johnny Dollar,
yours truly.
Speaker 7: Johnny Dollar is starring Bob Bailey, is transcribed in Hollywood,
written by Les Crutchfield, It is produced and directed by
Jack Johnstone. Heard in this week's cast were Virginia, Greg
Peggy Weber, Don Diamond, Ben Wright, Jack Prussian, Barney Phillips,
Sam Edwards, and Ken Christie. Musical supervision by Amrigo Marino.
Be sure to join us on Monday night, same time
in station for another exciting story of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,
Roy Rowan.
Speaker 4: Speaking welcome back.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll be honest, this is my all time favorite
Yours True, Johnny dat or Cereal, And there's so much
to talk about on this one. We'll start with some
of the smaller items and then go into the big
overarching themes as we get to the close of the commentary.
First of all, let's talk about the scene with Johnny
on the trail An episode four, looking for Kathleen and
dealing with Benny Stark and a blizzard. This is, simplite,
some of the best radio you will ever hear, with
the mix of music, sound effects and Bob Bailey's narration
and acting. Just grab your attention and carry the scene through.
And this is actually the only scene that I've ever
actually paid someone to animate, and I'll include a link
to it in the show notes. It's fascinating to see
how they interpreted it at even if the pictures don't
quite make the vivid ones that would be in the
heads of most listeners, it's just such a well executed
and suspenseful and dramatic sequence. And of course that comes
down to Bob Bailey, and let's just appreciate how good
he is in this serial. Bailey is praised oftentimes for
being the best Johnny Dollar actor, but in this serial,
I think it really is at another level. He has
so many great scenes and really his performance is just
a master class. And having listened to the serial a
few times this time through, I noted some of the actors,
and the first few times through I was so into
the story, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention,
but I noticed that you had a couple of actors
in this who were playing parts that were very different
from the sort of roles that you would associate with them.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Ken Christy tended to play a lot of generic cops
and policemen. It wasn't exclusively, but that's probably the most
common role I've heard him. And of course he had
ongoing roles as Lieutenant Johnson on Let George Do It
after Wally Mayer was no longer available to play Lieutenant Riley.
And he was also the second actor to play Noah
Danton on Mystery as My Hobby, and in the serials
Don Diamond. I've noticed he plays a lot of younger
edgier Hipper characters. For example, in the Broderick Catter he
played a jazz musician. In the Que Bono Matter, he
played the guy who was running the underground club sort
of top from the city, and that tended to be
his roles. Yet in this one, Ken Christie plays Old
Mike and Don Diamond plays the sheriff's deputy, and I
think it really works well. I don't think I've ever
enjoyed a Ken Christie performance more than in this story.
The start of the final episode was really interesting from
a character perspective, not just for the way it handled
the Johnny Dollar opening in a very different way, because Johnny,
of course is a bachelor, and that's a conscious choice.
Speaker 4: If there's any.
Speaker 1: Part of the character that carried over from the O'Brien era,
it may be from that one story where Johnny said
he didn't like policeman's wives, and it was applied to
both policeman detective what have you, And what he meant
by that is he didn't like what the job did
to them and how hard it was on them. And
so Johnny says a really strong conflict between his job
and having a family life, and he loves his job,
plus the fact that his heart has gotten broken so
many times probably doesn't out matters. Yet in this brief moment,
Johnny indulges in a bit of imagining what if or
what could have been, but which he never expects to happen.
I think that the fact that Johnny has conflicting desires
about family life actually makes him more interesting than those
sort of characters who you just know they're never going
to get married and have no interest in anything else
than their work. And I think it's really particularly well
handled in his interactions with Jill. As for the story itself,
it's such a story of striking contrast. The majority of
this serial, after the first episode and and a half
in New York, takes place in Bramberry, which feels like
the sort of town a Hallmark movie would be sent in.
Instead Johnny's hunting for a killer. The contrast between the
Christmas atmosphere and the deadliness of the situation occurs time
and time again. Christmas music is often played at times
of extreme peril. It's such an odd but intentional juxtaposition.
The conversation between Mike and Johnny in episode three, when
Johnny compares Benny to those who hunted Baby Jesus drives
home the point that this contrast between the spirit of
the season and the cruelty and harshness of the world
has always been present. I think there can be a
view that Christmas, with its joy and hope and peace
on earth, really can only fit into a sort of
idyllic place, a sort of fantasy, because reality is far harsher,
because the more we look at the world and all
that goes on, the more Christmas and all of its
themes can seem out of place. Yet one of the
big themes of this episode is that evil in the
world and Christmas have always coexisted, and so they coexist
in this story. The other big theme is courage. Johnny's
confrontation with Kathleen, as well as her final line, really
drive home thiss theme and the idea that fundamentally Christmas
is about courage. It takes courage to celebrate peace on
earth and goodwill toward men in the face of all
the evil and heartache in the world, to do the
right thing in your life all the year round, no
matter how fearful the consequences might be. And it explores
this idea through the Christmas story and what I think
is a really effective way. The Nick Scharn Matter manages
to be a very good detective story and also a
very good Christmas story, while also offering some unexpected thematic depth.
It's acting is on point, and its use of music
to drive the themes home is effective without ever feeling overbearing.
I'm the opinion that this is one of the truly
great audio dramas ever made. It's an all time classic,
and it's always such a pleasure to share it with here.
Now we turn to listener comments and feedback, and we
start with an email from Miranda. Miranda writes, Hi, Adam, first,
just want to say that I love the podcast. I
grew up listening to the old time radio shows on
Serious XM with my family. MY favorite was always Dragnet,
but I also love Johnny Dollar and Boston Blackie. Hint, hint.
Now I drive a ton for work, so it's great
having the podcast to listen to. I look forward to
my Dragnet day and my Johnny Dollar days every week.
Thank you for reviving these old detective shows. I also
wanted to comment on the nixt Shearn Matter. I grew
up and live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which
is where I chose to think bran Berry is mostly
because of the references to the logging cams and the snow,
and because we tend to get overlooked in entertainment. The
writing of that serial was phenomenal and the was on point.
I was driving through some snow early in the morning
while listening to the part where Johnny meets Benny Stark
in the blizzard, and when Benny came up out of
the darkness to confront Johnny, I jumped. I liked the
part where michae O Dare asked Johnny why Benny would
go into town since staying in the woods would be safer,
because I was wondering the same thing. There's also a
moment where they referenced Chippewac Canyon, kind of a throwaway line.
But although I've never heard of a canyon by that name,
there are Chippewa counties and Chippewa River up here in
the Upper Peninsula, so I'm wondering if that's where they
got it. All that is to say that I guess
things haven't changed much here in rural Michigan since the fifties,
especially the opinions and personalities of us locals, and that
the writers of the show did a great job making
the shows accurate and the characters believable. Merry Christmas, and
thanks again for bringing us the detectives of old time Radio. Well,
thank you so much. Miranda really appreciated your email. And
it's the type of email that can really only come
from someone who happened to live in that area, and
it's a fascinating insight. And really, when it comes to
these sort of small town portrayals, there are essentially two
different sorts of fictional small town. The first is almost
completely fictitious. It's imagined based on media portrayals based on
the author's prejudices and preconceived notions, rather than an actual place.
I mean, there are writers whose portrayal of what a
small town is wouldn't change a whole lot whether the
location was supposed to be up in Vermont or over
in eastern Montana. Even those those are very different fields
of towns. And then there are those that fight to
capture and tie into real places, capture that sort of
authentic culture and authentic field. And if the writer is
good at crafting a story, you're not going to know
the difference unless you're from that specific region. So getting
an email from someone who comes from that Upper Peninsula
region in Michigan is just incredibly helpful. I wish I
could find some insight as to how for what might
have inspired crutch Field. I looked into it, and he
was from Kansas, with no specific ties to Michigan and
certainly not to that region. That I could find was
to place he vacation once. Was it someone he knew
from that region of Michigan. I'm not certain, but to
learn that it's got that actual authenticity to place it
really does add a little bit more to what is
a really solid cereal. So so thanks so much for that.
Miranda Lauren's email has the subject line, is it even
Christmas if you don't listen to the Nick shern Matter?
Lauren writes, So, I admit I listened to my favorite
cereal a little late in the season. Listening to the
Nick Shearn matter is a tradition for me, and it
did not disappoint. I even noticed a few new details
this time around. For example, the not so subtle part
that radio plays in Johnny's survival during the blizzard a
sign of the time's too good I actually think I
enjoyed it more than usual. Perhaps this was because I
was anticipating this special tradition of mine, or perhaps it
was because I wasn't distracted by the seemingly endless Christmas
to do list, or possibly I'm just getting older and
appreciating the little joys in a different way. Also, your
commentary on the Cereal was so insightful. I especially resonated
with the cole mingling of good and evil points, which
mimics real life true words right there.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And from YouTube, ryan'sa writes, Adam, I agree with everything
you said about the Cereal, but you missed one of
the greatest features. Barney Phillips made a great sidewalk Santa.
I imagine he and Bob Bailey had a ball doing
that scene. Well, thanks so much for the comment Ryan.
So there is so much good to say about the
Nick Shern matter it's hard to cover it all. Plus,
I tend to be a bit light on my commentary
on the first half of the Cereal, but I think
Bartey Phillips as a sidewalk Santa it really was a
nice highlight. Much like Ken Christie playing Mike O'Dare Barney
Phillips as the sidewalk Santa is really different from the
typical roles we hear them in, particularly in these Johnny
Dowler cereals. And I think that one other thing I
forgot to mention now that you mentioned it. It was
Virginia Gregg who played the Landlady in episode two and
then played Kathy o'dair in episodes four and five. It
really is remarkable just the high quality of her output
and how she's really able to seamlessly play to characters
like that. And then I received another comment. I've made
this comment before. This is my favorite radio episode. The
exposition is perfect and the scenes are so descriptive that
I can easily visualize what's going on. And Mary says, marvelous,
simply marvelous. Thank you so much for your comments, and
I hope you enjoyed this slightly different format for this omnibus.
This version of the Nick Schurn omnibus will actually replace
the version on our Christmas feed, but the old version
will remain on the Yours truly Johnny Dollar feed and
also and also the Volume two feed and are Great
Detective's website. Now it's time to thank our Patreon supporter
of the day, and I want to go ahead and
thank Delilah. Delilah has been one of our Patreon supporters
since December twenty nineteen, currently supporting the podcast at the
shamous level of four dollars or more per month. Thank
you so much for your support, Delilah, and that will
actually do it for today. If you're enjoying the podcast,
please follow us using your favorite podcast software. That will
do it for today. A reminder you can find all
of our Christmas episodes over at christmasfeed dot Greatdetectives dot net.
Check out the amazing world of radio at Amazing dot
Great Detectives dot net, where we have three Christmas episodes
posted now, with one more scheduled for Christmas Eve. We'll
be back on Friday with our regular weekly Yours to
Lee Johnny Doller, but join us back here tomorrow for
the Adventures of the Falcon, where I hope you'll be
with us then. In the meantime, send your comments to
Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net, follow us on
Twitter at Radio Detectives, and check us out on Instagram, Instagram,
dot com, slash Great Detectives From Boise, Idaho, this is
your host Adam Graham signing off