Yours Truly Johnny Dollar Show
Johnny Dollar - The Baltimore Matter
https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free! Step into the shoes of America's favorite freelance insurance investigator with Yours Truly Johnny Dollar Show. This series captures the essence of the golden age of radio, featuring Johnny Dollar as he tackles deceptive insurance cases with charisma and intelligence. A must-listen for lovers of detective stories and classic radio dramas.
- Duration:
- 30m
- Broadcast on:
- 20 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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Renterswarehouse.com or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a rent estate advisor today. That's right, Chumbah Casino.com has over 100 casino-style games, join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Chumbah Casino.com. Don't forget to click the button and click the link in the description, and I'll see you in the next video. All for John Lund as Johnny Daller. Don't you get me any routine, Daller, for the more you can help me and make yourself some money as legitimate. I don't know what it's all about. I suppose I can pull over and tell you. Okay, I'll be waiting for you. John Lund in a transcribed adventure of a man with the action-packed expense account. America's fabulous Pre-Lance Insurance Investigator, yours truly, Johnny Daller. Expense accounts submitted by special investigator Johnny Daller to all states insurance company Wilmington Dallerware. Attention Mr. Don Freed, Chief Investigator. Since your office authorized me to conduct certain inquiries based on information supplied by Oren Vance, I am billing you accordingly. The following is an accounting of expenditures during my investigation of the Baltimore matter. Expense account item 1, 295. A phone called a prisoner dismissal board at Sing Sing Prison, where I was informed that Oren Vance had been released three days before the above date. He'd completed seven years of a seven to fifteen year term for grand theft. It was an unparalleled release. The chaplain described him as a model prisoner with a better than average chance of remaining out of prison for the rest of his life. For that reason, I was willing to listen to his story when he showed up an hour later. Hello Daller, you haven't changed a bit? Come on in Vance. I like it. Sit down and tell me what's on your mind. Daller, look. Don't treat me like a con even if I am one, huh? I'll sit down, I'll have a small party, I'll talk with you. Forget the other part for a while, will you, please? Okay. That one? Nice. Just, everybody's doing that, even my wife, went over to see you the first day I got out. You know what? What? Katie wouldn't let me in the house. She gave me $40, told me to go out and get a decent job, telling you she had it all worked out. Work hard, she said. Six months, if everything's okay, and you're not in any trouble, you can come home to me and the kids. If not, she said I'm going to divorce you. What do you want me to say? But you don't offer me a seat and invite me to sit down. Sure. Thanks again. You know, I thought about it a lot. If you hadn't been out to get me seven years ago, I'd have had you over for dinner. Maybe we would have been friends. Maybe. Look, I can't get a job and I'll have to go in business for myself. I need a stake. That's why I'm here to see you. I talked to you maybe 20 times while you were working on that Zimin case and I think I got to know you. I call you today because of what I saw of you, then. I think you're an honest man. Thanks. You ever hear the town of case in Baltimore? Towner loan company in 1946? Yeah. Everybody's heard about that. Million dollar theft. The insurance company still have a reward for information leading to the arrest and connection. They're sold, I suppose they do. I can help you help them salvage the half of that reward. Can you? I know two of the men who did it. Two of the six men. I talked to one of them yesterday. I'll tell you who they are, where you can pick them up, but I want my name out of the picture. Could you fix it? Yeah, probably. But I have to talk to the police sooner or later. Oh, look, this is a good thing, dollar. And all I'm asking is you promise to keep my name out of it. Tell me how good before I make any promises. That's fair enough. They had some of their serial numbers on part of the take here. This is one of the bills. Why don't you check it with them? Then we'll take it from here, huh? Spence account item two, $14.85. A long-distance phone call to chief investigator Don Friedall State's insurance, who verified that the serial numbers on the $10 bill or advance had it metied in with the towner loan company theft. I explained the information I had at hand and the source from which it had come, leaving out any mention of names. Freed talked with his boss and phoned me back half an hour later, giving me the go-ahead. OK, Vance, you're in business. All right, how does it work? You tell me who they are, I'll handle it from here. I mean the money. Why? Well, we have something you'll get paid for it. All I've had so far is talk. This bill could have come from anywhere. They might have picked it up with a cigar counter. Look, I got it from a man named Leonard Torpy. He lives in New York. He's one of them. Leonard Torpy? Yeah. I met him my second year at asking. He was up on an old petty theft charge. He did 18 months, told me to look him up when I got out. This part may sound crazy, but we got a few drinks together in his place yesterday. I was weeping on his shoulder about all my hard luck, and he said, "You think you got hard luck?" Then he marched me into the bedroom and showed me a stack of money in a bureau drawer. He said he couldn't spend it. He gave me one of the bills, fell. Must have been pretty drunk out. Yeah, it was. I got the thinking about it. I checked the bill, found out it was in the town of me. I looked up the story in it. Torpy fits the description of one of the hold up men right down on the line. I will see. You see, you know, two of them. Who's the other one? Harold King lives in Reno, Nevada now, runs a filming station. He used to come see Torpy on visiting days. I saw him several times. I'll make you think he had a part in the town, I think. From what Torpy said while he was drunk in the general description of the other hold up men in the story. You see, while Torpy was drunk, he mentioned his old part in a Harry King to only where he was living his own one. Is he saying anything about the hold up? No. I told you, I found that part myself. But King is the other man, I'm sure of it. King have a record? I don't know anything about him. Okay. Where do you be? California. Two days, Belanga. Oh, I should know something by then. Remember. My name's out of it. Is it the police or anybody else? Sure. You afraid? Yeah. I'm a stool pigeon, but haven't you noticed? I'd noticed, and have worried me, so I followed him when he left my place. I was buying a package of cigarettes at the corner drugstore while he boarded a streetcar for downtown. I tagged along in a taxi to the main business section, watched him get off and head for the bus terminal. I bought another package of cigarettes while he bought a one-way ticket to New York. In the half hour before departure time, I telephoned a private detective friend of mine, Pete Florian. He appeared at the bus terminal 15 minutes later. What's the rumble, Johnny? A man over there on the Grey Overcoat. His name's Awn Vance. Uh-huh. He's on his way to New York right now. Maybe you'd better tag along, see that nobody kills him. Uh-huh. What he told me is true, somebody might try to do just that. Stay close to me, settle somewhere, and see. I haven't got anymore to tell you, Pete, because I'm just starting to look into it. Find out where he's living there and contact me at this number. I'll let you know what to do then. Alright. Anything else? Don't let him out of your sight, Pete. Spencer count item three, one hundred bucks. Retainer for private detective Pete Florian for explained purposes. I stayed at the bus terminal long enough to watch Pete board the New York bound bus and take a seat across the aisle for more events. Item four, eight dollars and eighty-five cents, plain fare, Hartford in New York. Item five, four, fifty, cab fare at a hotel and then to Metropolitan Police Station, where I explain my business to a lieutenant Randall. Who gave you this chip, darling? I'm afraid I can't tell you that, lieutenant. Why not? Because I promise not to disclose any names. I can tell you that the source is a man who couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the case, since he was in prison at the time of the hold-up. But you want me to stick my neck out and get up a search warrant and maybe take this word "torpy" into custody on your say-so. Why do you have plenty to start with with that $10 bill? It should be enough for you to look into it. That why you look into it? Frankly yes. Name a facie evidence. But no name. No name. I've told you all there is no. Believe me. Let's get busy. The mug folder on Leonard Torpy showed a balding forty-year-old man with a long record of theft and burglary. There was no record for a Harold King, although he was listed as an associate of Torpy's. Lieutenant Randall Wired Reno authorities requesting they locate King and hold him for possible questioning. Once these preliminaries were accomplished, Randall and I went out to the address or advance it given to me. This turned up a blank. The landlady informed us that Mr. Torpy had lived there, but it checked out the preceding morning. No forwarding address. The Good Lieutenant and I parted company outside the apartment house and I walked back to my hotel. I was going to change clothes and grab some dinner, but the clerk waved me over to the house phone. A call would just come in. Johnny Daller. Hi. Big foolie, Johnny. How'd it go? When your boy got in town, I'd trail into a place of 155th Street. He's got a room with a view except there now. Alone? You think so? Any visitors? No. Like one out about an hour ago, might be sleeping. What's the number? Uh, 680. The room's in the back. First floor number ten. Where are you? Drugstore run across the street. Expense account item six, 160. Cab fare to the drugstore where Pete Florian was keeping a watchful eye on my nervous informer or in advance. I found the drugstore, but Pete was nowhere in sight. The girl behind the soda fountain recognized him by my description and said he'd stepped out of humanist before. I glanced up and down the block and then spotted him standing just outside the shadow of a straight light across the street I walked over. Hi, Johnny. That's the room back there. Lights on? He's got a couple of visitors in there with him. He showed up about five minutes ago. Car? Taxi. What'd they look like? Once thin, medium-sized, dark suit, the other stocky, dark suit too, both in the early 40s. Chopin wears glasses. Didn't make either one. Yeah. That's one of them. Let me see. Yeah, he's in there. What's his name? Leonard Torpy. We better go in, okay? Right back there. Yeah. Who's Leonard Torpy? That's somebody who might want to kill Vance. I wish I knew more about what this is all about, Johnny. Yeah, it's not a lie. It's all talk so far. You see, you better cover me from over there. Okay, okay. Mr. Vance? Oh. Orange Vance? You must have the wrong number, buddy. Nobody by that name lives here. Well, are you sure? Positive. Why don't you try the manager? Well, I did. He said Mr. Vance had this role. And he's all wet. Good night. Just a minute, Torpy. What? Johnny, you're down. Before I went down, I heard it go off a couple of more times. It must have been six inches from my head. My eyes couldn't see and my feet wouldn't move, but I could hear. Whoa. It was someone very close to me and he was dying. Johnny. Johnny. Johnny. We'll return to yours truly Johnny Dollar in just a moment. Sign up and roll now. Open the seven million strong who buy United States defense bonds through the payroll savings plan where they work. The bonds you buy help keep America strong. And now series e-bonds earn more. They give you a quicker return on your investment. Through the payroll savings plan, you'll save the sure way before you spend. So sign up. Make more in United States defense bonds. Now with our star John Lund, we bring you the second act of yours truly Johnny Dollar. I won't talk about my operation, but I had one at the police emergency hospital. As a matter of fact, I had two. They prodded a thirty-eight slug out of my neck and another one out of my shoulder. It was forty-eight hours before I was allowed to sit up and bed and talk. Naturally enough, my first visitor was Lieutenant Randall. He looked haggard, tired, worried. You say you hired this street for you? Yeah. To keep an eye on our advance. Is this your tipster? It's okay to tell it now, I suppose. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thorian died right there in the hall, four slug city. Vances on the floor beneath you still hanging on. You're giving track of all this? What about Torpy? Did you get him? We didn't, but Thorian did. Torpy's in the morgue, the other man got away. Quite a night. Yeah. Look, darling, you're the only one who can give me the story now. Vances isn't able to talk and won't be for another three days. If then, everybody else is dead or gone. Now, what happened there? I don't know. I didn't see anything, Lieutenant. I was trying to push into the room past Torpy and the whole world caved in. Any line on the man who was with Torpy? Good descriptions, but no luck so far. He heisted a car outside Vance's place, found it two hours later, no prints on it, some blood. He might have one of Thorian's slugs in him. Yeah. Have you got to land that bird? Hey, are you all right? I fell to awful, and Lieutenant Randall left me alone for the rest of the day. At 3.30, the following day, or in Vance regained consciousness long enough to relate what had happened. I was wheel-chaired down to his bedside, statement and closed. That was Harry King with Torpy. King blew here three days ago of Reno. He came to my place to find out what I'd done with the $10 bill. Torpy, give me that when he was drunk. They told him I spent it, but they didn't believe me. It was King who shot me. I've got reward money coming. I'm not going to die. He was still hanging on two days later when I left the hospital. Spencer can't item 7, $14, ambulance ride, from an emergency hospital to my hotel. The doctors told me to take it easy for a month, and I'd be all right. I had a phone call a half hour after I started to take it easy. Johnny Dollar. Are you interested in finding Harry, King? My name is Milva King, I'm Harry's wife. Oh? Do you want him or don't you? Sure. I'm a trash restaurant on 42nd off Broadway. Can you meet me? Yeah. How will I know you? You won't, but I'll know you. Your pitch has been on the paper for the last three days. Hello Mr. Dollar. Mrs. King? Yes. And you look pretty weak. I feel that way. Maybe we better sit down. The small, pretty brunette woman in the nice clothes looked like anything with the wife of a bank bandit and murderer. Made of more like a housewife on a shopping tour or a schoolteacher on a New York vacation. And listen, while she cleared up some questions I had in mind. There's a reward posted, isn't there, for that hold up in Baltimore? Ten thousand dollars, yeah. Will I get it if I turn Harry over to the police? Sure. How much? Half? Well, that isn't much for giving up your husband. I'll get him sooner or later, Mrs. King. The other half spoken for her. And this Vance Man? Yes. Wait a minute, just trying to figure it. What about you? I'll pass it up. Five thousand dollars for Harry. Providing he was tied in with the Baltimore hold up. That's what the insurance company is interested in. He was in it all right. I want to get something else straight. What happens to me? What do you mean? I'm his wife. No, he had a partner hold up for the last six months. I haven't said anything. Does that make me a party to it or something? Well, you could have been the former, but you couldn't have testified. Being his wife. I'm a rain. I don't want to spend all the money hiring lawyers to keep me out of jail. My company have covered that. Where's Harry? Oh, not yet. What now? I better get something in writing from you. Something that says your insurance company will pay me the reward and give me help if I get in any trouble. All right. I'll talk to him. This time, I'm thinking of the future. I'm going to have one once this is over. I hope so, Mrs. King. I know so, Mr. Dollar. Did Harry have money he couldn't spend to? $45,000. Where is it? I can give you that when I give you Harry. Well, you've started everything. I tried to. Harry and that torpy man were fools. All he ever got out of it was the marked bills. Worthless money. You don't happen to know the other four men, where do you? No. I suppose that's what you'll ask Harry when you get him. That's the idea. Poor Harry. How long will it take you to get things arranged? Not more than an hour. I can do it by phone. I'll call you. Okay. I gave her a 50-second start before I left the table and went out on the street. I was just in time to see her climb into a cab. I was trying to hail one to follow her when a black coupé pulled up to the curb. Come on, Johnny. Hey. Hustle it up. Light will change. How do you feel? Terrible. What is this? Advanced told us it was king. We checked the airlines and found out he had his wife with him when he flew in from Reno. That is Mrs. King up there in that cab, isn't it? That's who she said she was. She wants to sell you her husband for part of that reward, doesn't she? Yeah. What's the delay? She wants to make sure she'll be handled all right, the money and all. So to advance? Don't needle me around. I don't mean to. It's all figures. I thought she might try to get in touch with you for just that reason. I don't get it. Well, that's why I put a man on your hotel. I followed you when you came to meet her today and then he phoned me. We looked her up. Her name was Melba Thaler before she married King. Her old man had a lot of money in Minnesota, but she couldn't keep herself out of trouble and got disinherited when he's always been her problem. It's everybody's problem. Not the way it is with her. Now King's worth a lot of doubt over if you pay off. He's no good doer now, lines somewhere with a slug in him and he hasn't been any good doer with a marked money. He's gotten the towner hold up. There's something else, Randall. What? He's stalling me, I think. He said she didn't know who they were, but if she was lying and she does know who the others were in that towner hold up, King would be worth even more money. They'd want him dead instead of with the police talking his head off. That's right. We followed Melba King's taxi for better than 45 minutes, all the way through the Holland Tunnel and into Jersey. She finally left it at a train station in Bucks County. We watched her buy a magazine and sit down in the waiting room and begin to read it. Fifteen minutes later she stepped into the phone booth. When she came out, I went over to the filling station phone to see if she'd phoned my hotel. Well, she wasn't trying to get me. Well, that's out of it. She's contacted the others. She's going to sell to you or them whoever pays most for him. Some operator, isn't she? Well, when you have time, look at the file we picked up on her. Sixteen arrests. One conviction for narcotics since she's eighteen. Well, we'll see what we will see. Didn't take long. When a green Cadillac pulled up at the station, Melba King stepped out in the platform and greeted the two men who were in it. She sat in the car with him, talked for a short time, then got back out. When the Cadillac rolled away, looked at it, Randall was on the radio ordering a pickup. Yay, old 596. I'll pick him up right away, and we'll stay with him. When Melba King caught another taxi, we were right behind her. She took her to an autocort about a mile from the station. We saw her go into the cabin Mark D. Randall radioed in our location. We were about to check the autocort office when the door to cabin D opened. Standing beside Melba King in the doorway of the cottage was a pale, stocky man. It looked as though his legs wouldn't support him another minute. And she saw us get out of the car. No, go down. He'll kill me. He's got to come at me. Don't do anything. Please don't do anything. That's right. If anybody gets in my way. You're hurt, King. You can't go far. I've come this far, and I'm still going to keep moving. You can't go far. I've come this far, and I'm still going to keep moving. The mud can't be full. It was already far once you got back. Yeah. Boys. No, I shouldn't do it specially, but you'll be dead now. That's funny. I thought the same thing about you, King. Please don't do anything. Please. Shut it up. King, listen to reason. I can tell you're hurt, bad, you need help. Why don't you give it up? How much were you going to give her for me, darling? I wasn't. How much? How many? Half of it. We can tell you about it. How much will poor do you have when I give you? I didn't talk to you. Oh, yes, you did. I passed out this morning. You got real busy. How much will you be? Oh, tell me. You're dying on your feet, King? Yeah. Well, that's a good place to die. On your feet. Maybe I won't make it. It'll still be. This is gonna hurt. No, Harry, please. No! No! Yell if you want, oop. King, don't add another one to the... How are you? John. This one too. Let's get this over with. Spence account item eight, same as item two. Transportation back to Harford. Item nine, eighty-five dollars. Doctor bills. Item ten, miscellaneous. Forty-eight dollars while in New York. Spence account total, two hundred ninety-four dollars and sixty cents. Remarks. As you know, the two men, Melva King, contacted were also part of the six who had held up the town alone company. They made a full confession and named the other parties involved. As far as the reward money goes, I think Orr Advanced deserves his five thousand dollars. And I think Pete Florian's widow deserves my five thousand. Here's truly Johnny Dollar. From Hollywood, it's time now. Well, it sounds like the tenants hit your rental property sure know how to throw a great party. You just wish they wouldn't throw so many parties on Tuesdays until four a.m. And if they could pay the rent on time, that would be nice too. Being a landlord can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be. Let renters warehouse handle the hard part of property management for you, like finding quality tenants you can trust. Renters warehouse manages thousands of single-family homes and specializes in locating reliable tenants at the right price for your property, usually in a matter of days. And if your tenant defaults for any reason, they'll replace them for free up to eighteen months under their tenant warranty program. From rent collection to maintenance coordination, their best-in-class property management professionals do it all, all for one flat monthly fee. Get a free rental price analysis at renterswarehouse.com to find out how much your home can rent for. That's renterswarehouse.com or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a rent estate advisor today. Hello, it is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we? Just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting your steps, you know, all the mundane stuff. That is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino. Chumba Casino has all your favorite social casino-style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere with daily bonuses. So sign up now at Chumba Casino.com. That's Chumba Casino.com. 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