 the Columbus Circle, the Gaudius, the lonesomeest mile in the world. It's my beat with Larry Torres, Detective Danny Clover. The lack of heels in the light slung downwards in the spectacular. And occasionally people notice it and squeeze somebody's hand, point at it, wink at it, then walk into whatever shadow they've planned for the night. And the moon holds briefly, rides its long, slow curve across town, then drives the river. Broadway's happier. Stand at the tenement, the district of the wrath and the low rent. The moon completes its transit rapidly. That's why the light had to be furnished by the city. Specifically the spotlight from the squad car parked in the alley, and cutting the darkness out of the backyard. The smoke from Detective Markovan's cigarette curls up into it. G-Point, too. Right there, Danny. Tried not too long ago. Could be suicide, do you think? No, no I don't. This girl fell or was pushed, neck broken, see? The attitude of her body? Yeah, I saw it. That's why I said maybe suicide. Women don't pick backyards of tenement houses, Markovan. They register in high-class hotels, or find a bridge, you know that. Yeah, most of them, Danny, not all. Then take a look. Brewers are on the floor. Here. Look here, Brewers. Another one here. This girl died instantly. These Brewers were from a beating. I think she got thrown, huh? I'd say so. Who is she? I can't tell, no identification, Danny. I'd say she was about twenty-two, huh? Twenty-two. What? Nothing. But take care of the technical boys when they get here, mugglin'. I'll get back to you later. The clothes of Mazda Whip windows, like yellow posters, piled one on top of the other against the foot-dry tenement walls. Concentred in them, the leaners upon cells, the man whose arm warms the bare shoulders of the woman beside. The kids leaning far out, shrinking to each other across the littered yards. Littered now with a new refuse. The dead girl with the black hair, broken, thrown away. And finally the shroud over her that draws the curtain on the spectacle. She turns out the twenty-watt bulbs in tenement galleries. Then the night time, used up by the seekers of their private dead, the men and women beckoned out of sleep to identify the girl lying in the morgue. And while rubbing sleep out of their eyes, they tell you they don't know her. I've never seen her. The faulting, dragging parade of lost faces. And then the one the storm touches, the one you won't easily forget. The one who looks at the girl and knows her, tells you. She went out last night, early since she'd been back a little while. Who is she, Mr. Carter? Eleanor. That's Eleanor. Someone you've known long, a friend that's... My wife. Eleanor's my wife. May I sit down, please? Is it all right if I sit down? No, of course. I'm not benched against the wall, Mr. Carter. Can I get you something? You understand I'll handle that. I know something. I didn't know that she was gone all night. I woke up this morning and she wasn't beside me. That's the first day I knew. And I reported to the police and they asked me to describe it. And I did in detail. And they said, please come down. What happened to her? You. You tell me why. Help us find out why, Mr. Carter. I can't. I don't understand it. I just don't understand it at all. Your wife went out like this the other time, stayed out all night? What are you trying to say to me? We have to know, Mr. Carter. If you want your murderers, you'll have to tell us a lot of things. Well, the world is nothing, Mr. Carter. I don't know if it's a good wife. She was beautiful. Sometimes she'd like to go out in the evening. Oh, to a movie. Just for a walk. She told you she was going to a movie last night? Yes, that's what you said, but I never checked on her. I'd just go to bed and read and wait for her. Last night, I was asleep. Just leave me alone with her in just a minute, please. Please. I'll wait in the hall for you, Mr. Carter. Oh. For as long as it took me to smoke two cigarettes. For as long as it took Mr. Carter to consider that his wife laid dead in a public morgue. Then Mr. Carter came out into the car. There was a drink of water from the fountain. Not that he was ready to go. I showed him to the street and watched him go. Near the corner, he stopped walking, leaned against the building, bowed his head, and ran his hand alongside his cheek. Once the woman stopped and stared at him, then hurried away. Back into my office to consider the various reports from the coroner, the technicians, the lab boys, and stare at the photograph taken of Mrs. Eleanor Corbett in death, printed and retouched to represent a reasonable facsimile of Mrs. Corbett's living. And go now back to the tenement, knock on the door, show the picture, ask the question, get no answers. And between the fourth and fifth floors, a man walks your way, painting the banisters, and you wait until he straightens up. Tough job, huh? It is. You work here all the time or just this job of painting? Who are you, mister? Oh, police. Danny Clover. I work here all the time. Name's Luss. The soup. I go with a rent in a cold water. Right now I'm up to my elbows in yellow paint. That answer you? Take a look at this picture. It's coming now, huh? What? I've been expecting cops to pat me on the shoulder, the picture. What about it? Ever seen this girl before? Last night, about ten. How? Explain the last question. What do you mean how? Under what circumstances? I just finished putting on the first coat of paint, and I was in my room. She rang the bell, wanted nowhere, was the room of Al Martin Rubin. I told her, went back for my coffee and locks. Where is Al Martin's room? Top of the stairs, right there. Look, mister, you want to know why I didn't come running for the police? The girl's dead. I don't scratch over nobody's grave. That's for you to come scratch. Stick around, Luss. Sure, I got a week's banisters yet to pay. I'm Danny Clover, police. Hi, my name. You want a drink? Some Johnny Walken on the bottom of that bottle. Your name, Al Martin? Al Rome's here with me. I'm Frank Hagen. It's about what happened last night, Frank. Yeah, I know. I figured. Have you ever seen this girl before? Let me see. This is the girl you found, huh? Yeah, yeah, I saw last night. With your roommate? Can't to see him. I got introduced. Her name's Eleanor Corbin. It could have been. I didn't take the time to remember. I said hello and walked up. How long did you stay away? As long as it takes to walk from here to 40 seconds, feet to your double feet, you can come back. Wait a minute. It was longer than that. All night movie house, I fell asleep. Got back here long enough to put on a clean shirt and go look for the job again. Was Al here when you got back? Nobody. Just a smell of perfume. Had a scrub of lipstick, stained up a cheese grater, get a drink of water. Where's your roommate now? Al? No, wait. Fuck service down at Atlas Airplane. If he ain't on his way to California, he always wanted to go to California. I'd say this was an A-1 excuse for going. Wouldn't you say it was an A-1 excuse for going? I have permission. And I got a schedule appointment. See this sign in the front of a pin on my denim. It says Bella Faff, final assembly. And you see this yellow rim around his sign? That means I'm the preacher and attention must be paid. I'll pay attention, Miss Faff. I promise. I'm working at it, so no hanky-fanky, huh? I wasn't thinking of it. Hey, they sent you to me for work? I got news for you. They'll break your heart. This morning I can use you. That bank with the work commission from in front of it, you picked that one. Too dirty a hand for little and honest toys. Well, let me try to explain it to you, Miss Faff. I'm from the police. Oh, huh, from the police. So that'll prevent you from picking up a few part-time nickels. I'd like to talk to Al Martin. Al Martin, a worker who don't show up for work. You mean Al Martin hasn't shown up this morning? No, that caliphant. How much can a demand from a woman? Huh? Al Martin, that's no good. Where? All right, so I sent some boys down to mark him up. You want a job as a forlady, Mr. Police? That's mine. Well, it's in good health. Martin? Drunk. Drunk is a skunk in Paddy's bar on 9th Avenue. Hey, keep pushing, Mrs. Faff. I'll go get Martin for you. My pleasure. Is he here? Since last night. You'll need a drink to make you as equal, honest you will. You'll need a carload. Where is he? Here. Bend your nose to the crook of my long slender finger. I'll glance your eye along it and back will be Al Martin. In the back boot around the corner through the paper flower draped doorway. Thanks. Hey, don't go yet. I'll give you a jig around the house for taking them out of here. He made trouble? Not trouble, only grief. All last night he was in there wiping his tears on my bar apron. Then he passed out over that table to sleep it off. I come to open the joint in the early morning hours. He's waiting for me still passed out. I'm tired sobering him up this time you try. Can I go now? I just thought I'd explain him being a defense waker. He can't afford moves like this at a time like this. This is a time when every man must come to the aid and not go to California. Al, Al, I'm from the police, someone. Al, wake up. Wake up. The bottle flipped out of his fingers, fell, rolled on the floor. The jukebox bled and patty at the bar blew on the glass and polished it. I shook him again. None of it woke him. None of it would ever wake him. A stain of blood under his coat told me that. The paper flowers on the doorway rustled with a new wind. Al Martin was dead. You are listening to Broadway's Y Beat written by Morton Fine and David Brickin and starring Larry Thorne as Detective Danny Clover. The new summer's day is only a few hours old on Broadway and already the street wads up its screening and bounces it against the morning. The gutters have been swept down, washed clean. The neon dusted. The bolts replaced in the spectacular. The form released from the steel trap, hurtling, shuttling underground. The summer's day stretches out before Broadway. Languards and empty, waiting to be filled, waiting to be torn apart. In the headquarters we didn't have that problem. The day was planned. Maybe the night and the days and nights after. All that had to be done was to fill it in with reasons that two people were newly dead in the city. Eleanor Corbett and Al Martin, who had met for a time in the tenement room, then parted. Then in another place, in another darkness, found death, waiting for them. And to help you rid yourself of it, you're left half. Sergeant protected. Danny, I am not in the mood for chitchat of this morning. All right, Gino, any way you want it. The events of the past two days, the murders have drawn a blind, so to speak, down a course, my naturally, good natured soul. Yes, you say so, Gino. I will not even regard you with the flavor of the Zimmerman buns, now lying in my locker, waiting for my teeth to sink into them. Take it back a notch, Gino. Zimmerman buns. Baked by my neighbor to bake it down the street from me. Mr. Zimmerman, his specialty, Zimmerman buns. Oh, thanks for clearing it up for me. Don't mention it. To work. In the matter of the death of one al-Mahdi, the murder weapon, a steak knife, is now being handled by the boys and technicals. They come up with anything? Two dozen assorted fingerprints from the fingers of inhabitants of the bar who have been questioned, recorded, and sent on their way. As not one so far has failed to produce an alibi. Anything else? Established by technicals and according to the position of a body in the yard, Mrs. Corbett was pushed out of the tenement hall window after death. Established that Frank Hagan, roommate of Mahdi, is a man who cannot hold a job. Established? For something else? No. Yeah. A personal question, Danny. How is it a man doesn't know where his wife disappears two nights? I'm speaking of Mr. Corbett, Danny. How can a husband not know? Good question, detective. Why don't I go ask the man such a good question? Your mind. It goes without saying. I need an answer to such a thing. Go, Danny. Go already. But look, it's a small bedroom, Mr. Corbett. No chairs. If you don't mind, I know it's not made up, but don't sit on the bed. Let I bring you some... No, let's all right. I'll stand right here. I was packing Eleanor's things. Storing? No. No. Now look, don't think I... Well, I know other husbands save their wives, Corbett. I'm giving Eleanor's away. I called a goodwill mission. They're sending a truck. Just go ahead. You should look nice in this dress. It's better than well. Well, I guess that's no way to talk. You were happy together, Mr. Corbett? Oh, I was proud when I was with her. Maybe there wouldn't be people anywhere around, but people didn't have to see me with it and make me feel proud. Just to touch it. She had beautiful hair. I see. Oh, just beautiful. You should have seen her in there, Miss Corbett. When she got it, she danced around the room. I watched. And when she got near me, she threw her arms around my neck. I remember because her hair was flying and got between her lips. Mr. Corbett. Mr. Corbett. Did you know where your wife went the night before last, the night she was killed? Of course, because she went to school. School? Well, what school? Well, my wife was running ceramics. Her friend next door talked her into going, I didn't want her to go to ceramics. What's that? Ashtrays. But Bernice talked her into going. Why didn't you tell me this yesterday? Because my wife was found in a strange place. My wife was found on the edge of an alley and a place she should never have been. So I lied. First thing any husband would have done. Do you know what she was doing there? No, and I don't want to know. Even if you find out, I don't want you to tell me. You've got to promise me that, Miss Corbett. Even if you find out where she was, don't tell me. I don't want to know why. I don't want to know. I was clutching my coat and trying to pull out of its fabric the promise he wanted needed, so the pride could well up inside him once more. Then he turned away and began packing her things again. And the dead wife belonged only to him. He turned once to show me another dress she had worn. I never really saw it. The door I was closing blotted it out. The mask neon was plain, except for the eagerness in her eyes, except for the hunger in them that waited the feast and the excitement I'd brought into her Tim's curtain life. I did my whole room myself, Mr. Clover. We did the whole thing. Well, you should have seen it when I moved in. Fair and ugly. I only want you to tell me. Now, it's happy, don't you think? The room, I mean. Right. Happy. I lie awake at night and I can hear it sing. I mean, inside me it's singing. You went to school the night before last, Miss Corbett. The night she was found dead, wasn't it? In that awful place. What happened to her, Mr. Clover? How was she killed? I mean, well, you know, the paperies, they don't always... She'd been beaten, thrown out of a window. I saw a paper said. I saw... What, what, Bernice? I don't know. Don't ask me. I don't know what I thought. Was it usual for you to go to ceramics class with Mrs. Corbett? Every week. Of course, there was this time when she had somewhere better to go. She was very pretty. Where did she go? The secret. She made me swag, keep it a secret. Girls like Ellen are always trusting me, Mr. Clover. I'm that kind of girl. She went to Al Martin's. Did she tell you that's where she was going? You can tell it now, Bernice. She's dead. Was... Was the only time she ever went there. The only time she ever told me about it, I mean... She said she had to tell him off. He was bothering her. She told you it was Martin? No. No, she... She didn't say his name. She just said there were two boys living in this room together, and one of them had been making advances, and she wanted it to stop. And... Why are some people so lucky, Mr. Clover? Me? I take night classes and try to improve my mind, and... Oh, I should have been dead. Not a girl like Ellen or anything. Me, Clover. Just tell me what you want. I got enough trouble. I gotta have you. What kind of trouble have you got, Frank? I'm 32 years, Clover. My home's a stinking room and a stinking walk-up. I got no job. I once had a friend, but he got stabbed. Now, you tell me, your trouble will knock our heads against each other and shit here. How come you're not working? Plenty of jobs are on me. Sure, plenty. Me, I got qualifications to get the kind of job where they called your boy. My old man was the same way. He filed things in a big office, called him boy, till he noticed the ball head. Then he was called pop. How do you live, Frank? Sometimes I tout, sometimes I rack pool balls. I know a man that drives a long black car. He thinks I'm good luck. He takes me to card games and rubs the back of me hand for luck. Go away, Clover. Leave me alone. I can't do that. You're still my prime suspect. Oh, you think I lied to you? It's been done in murder cases. Like, maybe it was the other way around. That's right. Like, maybe Eleanor Corbett came to see you and it was Alice at the walk. And later I killed him, huh? Maybe. Come on. I said, come on, Frank, let's go down town. All right, all right. Look, Clover, can't this wait till tomorrow my friend wants me to play lucky that night. He wins. He flipped me a store book. Sometimes he gives me a couple of shits. Come on. Don't crowd me. Look, I got this one suit. They don't have to be ruined yet. Yeah. Yeah, what? Back in your room, Frank. Sure. Sure thing, Clover. You'll keep your clothes in this closet, Frank? Me and Al. There it is. The one suit. Al. Mine's on me back. The combined shits and unmentionables are in that chest of drawers. You want to look, Clover? Clover did. Frank helped me. He had tried a collection of shirts, monograms, but that's not what I was looking for. Al's shirts were brought off the plane, but they didn't have what I was looking for either. I didn't need anything, but in that room, open the window that spelled goodwill mission was flaked. And inside, a man told me his name and told me that coffee and steel would be served right after the prayer meeting. Yeah, but you don't look like the kind of man who needs a hand. No, thanks, Mr. Stantonie. I'm from the police. I suspect of that. Whoever you want to see, can't you wait until after the prayer? They start in 10 minutes. From time to time, Mr. Stantonie, as I understand it, people will call you and have you send around the truck to pick up magazines, newspapers, old clothes. There are many such kind people. Did Mr. Corbett call you? Well, yes, he did. The truck received his donation just a few hours ago. Has it been delivered to you? Well, the truck load is all over there in the corner after the prayer. It is the men who sort it. Hey, come on, I'll show you. Mm-hmm. Didn't have such a good day today. Let's see. Yeah, I think this is it. There's a tag on it from Mr. Walter Corbett. Do you mind opening it, Mr. Stantonie? It'll have to be done anyhow. Mm-hmm. Lady's dresses. Mind if I look? Pretty dresses. That's a young woman's. Does this look like a young woman's dress to you? Of course not. It's a bad suit coat. We can use that. We'll clean off the paint. Don't bother about it. I'll take it. Thanks, Mr. Stantonie. I'll just come back from Eleanor's funeral. Kill your wife. Kill, Eleanor. Do you mean that? Yes, you do. I can see by your face you mean it. And I thought you were a kind man, Mr. Corbett. Well, you're a cruel man. Did you kill Alma? Is this what happens to people like you? It's paid for. Eleanor wanted to study music, and I bought it for her. She lost interest in it. It makes the place look homey. That happens, I think. Well, I didn't mind. A snapshot album. Oh, huh. All my life with Eleanor's in there. Here. Here, now just let me show you something. You remember I told you she had beautiful hair? Just look at that. On the far rock away. Last year when I took my vacation. Look at that. Look at the sun on it. Then why'd you kill her? Why'd you? You make me remember things. Good things. And then you say I destroyed them. Are you through in here, Mr. Corbett? You're gonna get out now and leave me alone. This is the case of seashells. I told her, ma'am, hope you're happy life together. Put them down. Put them down. As soon as I bought those relative, I told her I'd found them on the beach. But I set away from them. I wanted to... She was so interested in so many things. Sure she was. Al Martin, you followed her to his room, waited outside in the hall. When she left Al, you slugged her and threw her out of the window. I loved her. I was... Even when no one was around. Then waited for Al, followed him to a bar, sat with her. Maybe he talked to him. Stabbed him. He was never there. I never followed her. I never followed anybody. Out in my car. A man's coat, yours. The one you sent to the Goodwill Mission. What are you talking about? The mission will get it back. They'll have to clean it. But they've got ways to take paint off clothing. Paint? Green paint from the tenement where Al lived. Off the door, off the banister, off something where you struggled with your wife. On your coat. Green paint. You're crazy. I was never there. Green paint on your coat. Oh, yes, I remember. Yes, I did get some paint on my coat. That's why I gave it away. But it wasn't green. It was yellow. Yellow. The color of the paint in Al's tenement house. The color that's on your coat. I loved Eleanor. She didn't know how much. I tried to tell her, even out in the hallway, when she came from Al's room. I tried to tell her. I wasn't angry. I just wanted her to know how wrong she was. She was the one who was angry. I tried to reason with her. And then she slapped me. Eleanor hit me. Eleanor. That made me furious. I hit her. I hit her. I didn't want her anymore.