The Mary Demming Murder Case

Arthur Gottfried, who usually comes around with his talent scouts at this time on Monday, is just about finished his summer holiday. Gottfried will be back with us two weeks from tonight on August 28th. Broadways My Beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesome-est mile in the world.

Broadways My Beat, with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. Broadway, it's the shrieking edge of a numb universe that lies in the shadows and licks its wounds. It's wasteland, a tensile wasteland that wears the motley, wears the scarlet of neon, the harsh gold of a trumpet scream, the kaleidoscope of color a tear makes when it's held up to the light. There's the color of the desolate

wind that's sized through Broadway, nameless and cold. The wind that drifts, touches everything, seeps in through windows and under doors, lends its quality to whatever room in which it dies, like the room where I was standing.

Mrs. Branch's rooming house, Kriton Drapes, Dusty, Beat-It-Lamp, Dusty, Wash Basin, Rusting, The bed pulled down from the wall, The crumpled sheets, and the dead woman. Mrs. Branch, not believing a bit of it. I know it, I know it, I know it.

What, Mrs. Branch? Someone's gonna come along and pinch me, and I'm gonna wake up in this whole thing and be a dream. Won't it, Mr. Clover? No. Who is this girl? Who is this girl?

I'm gonna tell you because it doesn't matter, because it's a dream. Her name's Mary Deming. How long has she lived here? Four years, four, five. One morning she rang my door, though. She had a black suitcase in her hand.