 Johnny dollar I am my father's spirit what doomed for a certain term to walk the night Good for you and for the days confined to fast in fires How about that till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away? Bravo, mr. Shakespeare. Now. Why don't you just relax and enjoy it? I wish I could Johnny This is Jack Price down here Corpus Christi. I thought I recognized those pear-shaped tones How are you Jackson? Oh fair fair. Why the long-winded quote from act one of Hamlet? Tell me Johnny Do you believe in ghosts? Are you kidding? Not a bit because a lot of innocent people down here in Corpus are beginning to you are kidding. No, sir. How come? Because of a so-called psychic medium who's moved in on us a medium He's been holding seances or whatever you call them and making with the clairvoyance bit He's a rare one Johnny now, which is a jack rare medium or maybe well done well the act He puts on as well down. All right, which you worry about him. He's cost us money. How come on down here Johnny I'll give you the story and you can get to work on him. Okay. All right Jackson. Why not? The CBS radio network brings you a Mandel Kramer in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-pact expense account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator yours truly Johnny dollar Expense account submitted by a special investigator Johnny dollar to try Western life insurance company office in Corpus Christi, Texas Following is an account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the medium rare matter Expense account item one 132 15 for a cab to Bradley Field and plane fare to Corpus Christi Item two is a buck 35 for the airport limousine to the Robert Driscoll hotel Where I got myself a room parked my luggage before walking over to Jack Price's office in the cats building I bet your tickled pink together way from that cold to England winter weather is the truest thing you ever said Jackson How are you fit to be tied Johnny on the kind of this so-called sackic medium? Oh sit down? I'll tell you all all right Tell me don't the police around here kind of frown on such this one is the pony isn't he sure is But somebody's got to prove it and put him out of business Johnny There are a lot of people who believe in spiritualism But when a ranked charlatan like this comes along in the face of Jack you find them all over they ought to be locked up But they're usually too smart Now let's have the story Well first off he operates out beyond the city limits That's why our Corpus Christi police are helpless. Yeah, his name is Udi Vishnu Vishnu at least that's the name he uses You asked me that Hindu or whatever it is accent he uses has a touch of Brooklyn in it No, phony phony phony, but they continue to fall for him Knowledge of the past present and future mind-reading message from the dead Fui you really don't like him do you he's already cost us money Unless you can stop him you cost us a lot more us and a lot of other people And that means a lot of heartbreak too don't tell me that he makes a charge for his meetings Say answers whatever you want to call them too smart. He'd be up against the laws on fortune telling No, Johnny. All it takes is Contributions, there's no law against that Just where and how does he operate a few miles out South Staples Street? You remember the place they call Ranch 66 Wasn't that a gambling joint among other things? Well, they prefer to call it a roadhouse Anyhow on a side road or ways beyond Ranch 66 is a little theater that's been empty for years Mm-hmm and now all decked out in fresh paint with a new facade. It's Udi Vishnu's Temple of the living truth And Johnny every single night of the week that place is packed with the poor suckers who think he's some kind of a new prophet He must be good. Yes. He's great and brother. You should see the money. They lay on the drum Plenty him right including proceeds from the insurance policies. They've been cashing in ah So that's where it hurts. You bet it does We made a big thing over the years of ensuring the little guy The one that some of the big companies don't want to bother with Policies for only a grand or two Don't you see Johnny those are the people who need that insurance and you've got to stop him Well Jackson, I don't know got it Johnny before any more of these people get hurt Every single night. They're out there shilling out that dough to hear his glorified magic act people from all over this part of the country Oh, yeah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama Wherever he's carefully planted his literature at least that brings some extra money into this thriving city of Corpus Christi wrong I forgot to tell you The suckers don't know it or if they do they don't care But he also owns a big old hotel that just happens to be only a block away from his temple It's always jammed with his followers This thing's been going on for over a month now, so he's really cleaning up But mostly of course on the contributions down I don't know Jack. I mean if he's not committing any actual crime. I think he is What do you mean? What sort of crime? murder murder yeah He's been getting his people in his con in his While his followers to name him as the beneficiary of their insurance not temporal Johnny, but him. Oh, yeah, and listen Go ahead in the last two weeks for no apparent reason and remember that yeah Two of our clients both of them in good health, but neither of them wealthy or anything like that now go on for no apparent reason they've been murdered and The murders are unsolved and you think this Woody Vishnu did it Now wait, no, he's too smart But knowing his influence over his followers their fanaticism the way that some of them do anything for him And I mean anything Johnny even murder Well, what do you think you want to look into it? Looks like somebody better than them good Now just how do you plan to start your investigation of this phony mystic this who be Vishnu? Well, it seems to me Jack that it might be smart to go on out there. It was temple and catch his act That's what I thought so here you better have this what says and mission ticket You mean you have to have a reserved seat sure do And here you are a row H seat number 43 I thought you said there was no charge. Well, there isn't but you have to have a ticket or you'll never get in Funny most of them are handed out there at the temple of the living truth hotel And just to make it look good some of the small hotels and motels on the edge of town are given a few dockets, too I see Anyhow if you want to go tonight here Okay, Jackson. Thanks Item three fifty dollars deposit on a rental car By the time I'd got it and going back to the Robert Driscoll or freshen up Well item four is 680 for a cocktail and a leisurely dinner Then I drove out to the temple of the living truth Literally scores of people were standing around begging to be let in But only those with tickets for reserved seats were admitted and remember that reserved seats The audience rather the auditorium held something over a hundred people and the house was packed The wide shallow stage was hung with gray velvet drapes and was bare Except for sort of reading stand or lectern There were steps leading from the audience to stage center and Jack had been right most of the people gathered there looked like rather poor folks The very kind most likely to be taken in by this self-styled mystic My ticket stub said the service would start at 830 at exactly 827 the lights were slowly dimmed Except for a blue spotlight that's shown on the lectern and on the steps that led up to it And from somewhere came the recorded music of an organ low haunting Mysterio so the crowd grew silent They all lean forward expectantly and then at 830 on the nose from one side of the stage into the spotlight Glided I'll say this for him He cut a mighty impressive figure He was tall with curly chestnut hair and a smart short beard Brown eyes that were set deep in their sockets, but that almost seemed to glow in the spotlight His face rather pale and one like that of someone who has suffered He wore a long grey robe bound in the middle by a cord that looked like gold It reached to the tips of his gold colored sandals His hands were those of the artists with long slim fingers and barely gracefully curved as he gave the sign of a blessing He simply stood there for a moment his eyes raised upward As a soft almost imperceptible sigh passed through the crowd then he lowered his hand and the music died out As he looked out over the crowd I realized that there was something almost Magnetic in that gaze of his almost hypnotic Believe me, whatever it was This man had it And do you know that I and I alone possess the infinite knowledge Of all things then and now and forever Then you know my children that through me you too can be possessed of Supranormal supernatural powers Can't share my unification with the omnipotent consciousness that rules the cosmic destiny of all mankind My mom with the supreme intelligence and you can gain psychic powers beyond belief Know all things about all people Now these tremendous forces lie dormant within you They must be aroused and developed as only I can show you If you will uphold me not only in worldly things, but in things spiritual if you will believe believing me and Show me that you believe Your lives will be successful full and complete You know this Then be silent As I close my eyes as I concentrate on someone here I have never seen before But who will be the first tonight to be relieved of all worldly cares Who is one of the elect to share with me the Yes Yes, I see now a number the number age for one That's my ticket. I see never Oh, I'm sorry, mister. Let's see. It's the number of my yes. I see miss, but no This is my child that I will speak In the eye of my mind There comes a vision now A farm in Oklahoma near the town of A little girl perhaps ten years old Her name is Martha Martha Winter with her a little dog The dog she was not supposed to have she never told her mother His name was Skipper I'd almost forgotten then Martha school and Miss all right at the core to come here to see me But blue he's right. He's right for Seven four one eight That's the license number and people there in the audience all about themselves names places dates Intimate things about their far away homes their childhood friends events in their lives that they themselves had almost forgotten Believe me. It was impressive and very convincing And when he promised eternal supernatural help for all those who would help him Brother you should have seen the money pour into the collection baskets After it was over in the crowd outside I talked with those people to find out how he had learned so much about them But they'd only arrived that very day that morning And more important not one of them had told anyone not any one of the personal things that he had known Who could blame them then for believing him and for believing in him And for going on back to their farms or whatever convinced that thanks to him all their troubles were over and forever And the next night there'd be another a fresh mob there to shove out their money for his phony promise of supernatural help But how to stop him you know the only way of course do I jack sure Somehow proved to those followers of his how he actually does get all that information about him But it's pretty fantastic isn't it he's never seen him before doesn't even have any way of knowing they're gonna be there Yeah, he's mighty convincing and what he does is just plain impossible But until you or I or somebody can duplicate his act and tell him it's all a phony But how even Houdini or Thurston or Blackstone or any other magician would have to take a backseat to this punk Wait a minute wait a minute Jackson Yeah reserved seats Huh and one of those names you mentioned a magician years ago when he set out to expose the phony medium What are you talking about in all the big cities where he played New York, Philadelphia, Chicago all the big towns But this one this Udi Vishnu plays to the country folks who couldn't have known about that magician's explosive Will you please tell me Jackson I think I can do it Yeah get some tickets for tonight's performance and drag in all the state of County authorities Whoever has jurisdiction all of them that you can also somebody from one of the news services What are you gonna do Johnny see if I can prove once and for all that this big mystic is just one big mistake A few hours were about the busiest I ever spent first of all through a contact there in Corpus Christi whose name I better not mention I got the answer to the one key question in my mind Amount of the latest monthly phone bill paid by the temple of the living truth hotel Then on the excuse that I wanted a reservation for the night I paid a visit to the hotel Needless to say all the rooms were taken but I sneaked a good long look at the register and sure enough Beside the name of each guest were the two things I needed to know Home address and ticket number for the night's meeting Only let's call it performance now Then back in town I ran up item for $121 in telephone calls I know a lot of calls but very necessary ones Then I don't know where and how Jackson got the tickets but he did And there in the audience where this was six or seven state and county cops out of uniform and looking fresh off the farm And two reporters from the national news services Again the house was full again the dim lights and organ music again the opening preliminaries Do you believe in me? We believe And do you know that I alone possessed the infinite knowledge Yes we know Of things then and now and forever Again I say it was pretty impressive Then he began his demonstration He was every bit as good as he'd been the night before by the end of an hour he had them with him all the way Finally came the break that I'd been waiting for when he called out one of the numbers on the list that I had compiled And I see another number in the eye of my mind Number It's my seat number Then listen my brother Where I tell you of the wondrous things I know Through the psychic powers that have been granted me Yes That have made you one of the elect No let me tell him I was here last night Don't you see you've inspired in me the same powers that you have The same powers Seat number L13 have you ever seen me before? No I haven't Of course you haven't Nor have I ever seen you before but that doesn't keep me from knowing all about you The same kind of trickery that this Uri Vishnu has been using on you Do not listen to him Number L13 Your name is Martin Mephard You came from Cotton Valley, Louisiana car license number CFU 160 You're a plumber's helper, right? Because you broke your leg when you were six years old when Tommy Parkin shoved you out of a tree Do not listen to this man Your teacher in the first grade, Miss Brewster, she promised you a book if you'd stop chewing your nails Is that a fact? Yes But how do you know I forgot it myself? I know by the same trick this crook has been using Seat number C By the time I got through telling some of those people stuff that even Uri Vishnu hadn't found out about them And some of it was pretty personal They fairly tore the place apart Then when Uri dragged a gun from under his robes to protect himself and pulled off a couple of shots Well then the police moved in As for the radio newspaper story that followed But believe me, Uri Vishnu, whose real name turned out to be Bernie Bilrich Won't try that caper again even if he does get out of a pen But you still haven't told me how you got all that dope on those people And in only a matter of hours, John Same way he did, John But pretty intimate stuff too, and stuff they couldn't have told you because they'd forgotten about it What's more, you'd never seen him before Ow, Johnny But the tickets were free, but all the seats were numbered, reserved Now, there had to be a reason, Jackson That's what reminded me of the famous magician, the trick that he'd used up in New York He'd call the ticket agency to hotel Find out the name and address of a guest who bought a ticket to his show Well, down here, of course All I had to do was look at the register Right there at the Temple of the Living Truth Hotel Which will soon be out of business, I promise you Having seat number, name and home address, I got on the phone That Mr. Martin Mefferd from Cotton Valley, Louisiana I called the police chief there and the mayor On the information they gave me, I called his old school teacher Two cousins, a couple of boyhood pals, an old girlfriend Jackson, by the time I got through, I knew more about him He did it by himself and the same with the others Well, I'll be darned So, what's that? You certainly proved your point Point? Big mystic? No Big mistake Whether they can pin the two murders on him The Jack told me about remains to be seen That's up to the authorities, not on my hands now Expense count total? $465.30 Yours truly, Johnny Dollar Well, here is our star to tell you about next week's story Next week, a nice, quiet little town in South Jersey That doesn't stay that way for long Join us, won't you? Yours truly, Johnny Dollar Yours truly, Johnny Dollar, is written by Jack Johnstone Produced and directed by Bruno Zirato Jr. Music supervision by Apple Huber Johnny Dollar is played by Mandel Kramer Featured in our cast were Maurice Tarplin as Jack Price Dan Arco as Udi Vishnu Evelyn Joster as the first woman Bill Lipton as Martin Mefford Tony Darnay as the second woman Also heard in our cast were Guy Rep and Sam Raskin Be sure to join us next week, same time, same station For another exciting story of yours truly, Johnny Dollar Art Hanna speaking The number one network for news, expanded CBS News On the CBS Radio Network