 And the producer of radio's outstanding theatre of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure, William N. Robson. The radio actor is a very special kind of thespian. He has no assistance in creating illusion. He cannot call upon the magic of make-up, nor the protective coloring of costume. He has only his voice and your ears. Yet this is enough for the superb radio artist, and such a one we present tonight. He how he runs, starring Mr. Jim Bacchus. A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. Late evening paper! Dime. Hi, Mr. Parker. That's a half rock. You got forty cents change coming. I bet you can hear the difference between a ten and a twenty dollar bill hitting the ground. To run a newsstand this time you have to. People just soon cheat me as anybody else. Being blind don't make me an exception. Hey, here you are, Mr. Parker. That's a forty cents change. Hey, but... No, I can't do that. Come on, keep it. Maybe I could put it on a number for you, Mr. Parker. You know me, puppy. Never play the numbers. My sainted mother used to say to me, Ed, you're going to break the law, never play for pennies. Make it pay. See you tomorrow night. Mr. Parker? Yeah. You left your umbrella, Mr. Parker. What? Hey, here's your umbrella, Mr. Parker. Mr. Parker? You all right, Mr. Parker? Yes, and me. Who's there? You with the tops on your shoes. Come back here. Give us some names. You can be a big help to us, Poppy. Boy, boy. Poppy's been blind since he was fourteen. How am I supposed to tell you who rubs out Big Ed Parker when I can't see them? Think you're nice, young fellas. Let a poor old man go home and get his rest. All right, Poppy. Knock it off. This isn't a couple of house fires. You're trying to set up for a touch. We got your record laying right here on the desk in front of us. 1938, arrested and convicted for petty theft. 1943, arrested and convicted for an attempted defraud. That was the year you posed as a blinded war veteran. 1949, arrested and convicted. All right, all right. So I got a record. You want to hang me on it? I served my time. Ain't you guys happy? There's one thing about you, cops. A guy tries to go straight. You don't care. But let him make one little mistake and you hound him until the day he dies. Don't try to paint any pretty pictures from me, Poppy. I know you. People call you the only man born without a conscience. Is that right? What's the price for fingering a man as big as Parker, Poppy? Who contacted you, Poppy? Give us a name. Now what is all this? All of a sudden the poor news is in charge of who gets rubbed out on his corner. You're the police department. This is your town. You're in charge. It's getting so an honest man's afraid to walk the streets anymore. Oh, shut it out. Look, Poppy, Parker was the second syndicate boy to get knocked off in the last month. That means new talent is trying to move in. Carl and I have to know who, Poppy. We have to have names to fit faces. You can help. Well, now if I knew, I'd tell you. Ed Barker was my friend. Oh, don't make me laugh. You would set up your mother for a price. What did you get for Parker? Somebody contacted you, Poppy, who? Come on, come on. You ain't deaf and dumb, too. Give some names, Poppy, some names. Now you look, cop. This ain't your old citizen you're trying to punch in the back. This is Poppy. I've been in this crummy police station before. I know my way around. You try to hang an ink on me. I'll have my lawyer slap a false arrest on you so fast it'll make your head swim, because you and I both know you don't have enough evidence to make it stick. You ain't going to charge me. I'm going to go home. Now you listen to me, you small time loss. You don't give orders to me and my police station. You take them. For your information, we shook down that little rat hole you call a new stand and found a fist full of number slips. That stand was clean. You only thought it was clean. You lousy freak. You planted him, man. That's your story. You find him a policeman dead. He'll testify of course. That stand was clean. Why? Well, you're expecting the police to be crawling with cops before the night was over? I don't touch your numbers. Not since the last time I got busted. I learned my lesson. That's why you sent me to jail, ain't it? To learn a lesson? Well, yeah. Give me a minute. Okay, Poppy. You can go home now. What is this? Take a good look at our little friend here, Al. This is probably last time we'll see him alive. What are you talking about? Word just came over the phone. Poppy, somebody must have seen you, fingerbarker. People on the street say that the syndicates passed a death sentence and they passed it on you. No, that's a lie. Okay, it's a lie. You guys made it up. If we made it up, what are your hands shaking for? It's a straight scoop, Poppy. If you go back out on the street now, you're dead. On the other hand, if you turn state's evidence, we can place in protective custody. And send me up the river when you're through with me. That's better than being dead. Okay, Poppy, that's all. Get out of here. Ain't you got no more questions? Not me. Ain't you gonna hold me for your numbers? Poppy, you can throw rocks to city hall right in front of me and I wouldn't touch it. You're going right back where you wanted to be all along, back on the streets. In a couple of days, you'll be out of my hair forever. Well, what are you waiting for? Ain't nobody gonna take me home? You know the way. Well, at least lead me to the front door. I can't find it. By myself? You know your way around this crummy station? You said so yourself. So find the door yourself. Poppy! Poppy, you in there? Answer me! You go away! Tell him I'm not home. Tell him I don't live here anymore. All right, suit yourself. No, no, wait, wait. I'll answer it. Maybe the cops change their minds. I'll answer it. Well, it's all the same to me. I'll just turn off this light. You don't need it anywhere. I keep forgetting that. Well, turn it off. Just leave me alone. Hello? Yes? Who is it? Who is this? It wasn't a lie. I marked. You come here, I'm in it, boy. You come here, Bobby boy. I want you to do me a favor. Come here, I'll tell you. I want you to... Here's a whole quarter for you. I want you to run to the store. Can I keep the quarter? Yes, bless your little heart. All for yourself. You come here so blind, old Poppy can put it in your hand, son. Give me your hand. I'll put your blade knife and one more peep out of you, and I'll cut your little head off with it. No, you listen to me. Just do as I say and you won't get hurt. One word or you'll try anything funny and I'll cut your little pieces. You understand, Bobby? Yes? You know where that old Morton warehouse is down by the river? We're going there. Why? Never mind why. You just come with me. I'll hurt you a lot more if you don't do as I say. You've been inside us moving very slowly. Who's in it? Two men. What are they doing? I don't know. I don't know. I'm looking for house numbers, I guess. You're driving away now, I think. Yes? Let me go, old Poppy. Please, you walk around all the time by yourself. Shut up. Don't start crying now. I'll kill you right here on the street. I swear. I don't want to hurt you. I need you to help me. There's some bad guys after me, Bobby, and they'll kill me if they catch me. I can get around town all right because I use my ears and I memorize things, but I still can't see. Those two men in that car could have had a gun on me and I'd never have known it. That's why I need you, Bobby. I need your eyes to see with. Are they like the bad guys on television? Yeah. Yeah, that's right, dear. Have you got a gun in the warehouse? No, Bobby, but I can hide there. I own that warehouse, Bobby. Lots of people think I'm just a poor old blind man, but I've got lots of property in this town. More than people who drive big cars. I save my money, Bobby, and that's the difference. Why are the bad guys after you? Because I'm a good guy and if they don't get us on the way, we'll be safe. And I need you to see who's behind us and things like that, okay? Okay. Listen, there's someone walking behind us with taps on his shoes. What does he look like? He's not a bad guy. What does he look like? He's just one of the big kids with a black leather jacket. That's the idea, Bobby. You keep your eyes open and we'll make it. Okay. We're getting there. The warehouse is at the end of the block. Can you see anybody hanging around down there? No. Oh, look, careful, boy. I am. It's too dark. Just the street lights are on. I don't see anybody there. Good, Bobby. They're behind us. They're so far back it's hard to see. And now they're all near the street lights. Who do they look like? Who do they look like bad guys? We'll walk faster and you tell me if they walk faster. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm hurt. You keep up with me. I can't. Too well. There's a few more steps. I want to go. They're in my territory behind me. Hit those lights. I tried to. They don't turn on this. We got them trapped in there. We'll search till we find them. You go along that wall. Maddie, are you scared of a blind old man? No, I just can't see. You got any matches? Yeah. Get later. For all that good, it'll do you. All right. And you dumb punks figure out how to get me out. I'll be over on the roof of the building next door and down through that condemned tenement. Out the back way. Down here. It's funny. I can't feel anything on the other side of the parapet. Did I get turned around? Here. You feel it on the edge. Here's some place now. What was that? Somebody's up here. I hear you. But we never laid a hand on him. You mean to stand in front of Poppy's poor mangled body and tell me I caught you guys down here taking the air? Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Oh, look. You bit off. Yeah. Come here. Couldn't have pushed him off. The only way onto that roof is the door from the catwalk. Poppy had barred it from his side. He was all alone up there. You ain't trying to tell me he jumped. Poppy wasn't the type. I don't know. Either that or he ran for the edge and not knowing that they tore down the old tenement next door. Well, because there wasn't anything else up there, but him and an empty tin can blown around in the wind. This is production of See How He Runs, written by George Bamber. Supporting Jim Bacchus in See How He Runs were Gail Bonney, Norm Alden, Lou Krugman, Barney Phillips, Dick Beals, and Sam Pierce. Listen. Listen again next week. We return with another tale well calculated to keep you in.