The Dude from Manhattan

Get this and get it straight. Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave. There's no other end, but they never learn. This time it was going to be a vacation in the wide open spaces, but a black stallion, a tiny emerald, and a battered horseshoe met a 24-hour delay.

It could have been worse, because to the dude from Manhattan they meant death. From the pen of Raymond Tranpler, outstanding author of Mystery comes his most famous character and crimes most deadly enemy, as we present.

The adventures of Philip Marlowe. Oh, with Gerald Moore's star, this Philip Marlowe, we bring you tonight's exciting story, The Dude from Manhattan. Every so often life in the city seems to boil down to nothing but noise and concrete.

Where all a deep breath does for you is to pack more exhaust fumes into your lungs. And the nearest thing to nature is a mangy, sparrow pecking survival out of a dirty alley. So when I got a long distance call from an old friend and invited me to spend a week in the great outdoors in a ranch

She just bought me a raffle snake mountain. I snapped at the chance Inside an hour I was rolling down the highway towards San Bernardino and a hundred and twenty miles later at five o'clock I turned in under a big arch of Nal's cedar that spelled out rainbow ranch But the layout beyond was about as primitive as a dry martini a ranch house the size of Union Station was backed up by blue tile

swimming pool, paved tennis court, and a semi-circle of bungalows with all the rustic charm of a Hollywood motel. I drove on in slowly as a broad-brimmed hat, red-gabberding shirt, hiccuped belt and hand-tooled boots, bounced out the door and ran toward me. It was my host, the ex-o-tell man, Harold, our loss.