Detour

Take one man blinded by ambition. Follow him from poverty to public acclaim. That's our story, detour, taken from the files of John Steele. Adventurer! Hello friends, this is John Steele. Very often my guests take you to far off places of foreign scenes and intrigue.

But this week's story takes place right here in the middle of a large city. Because, as I've mentioned on other occasions, Adventure can take place anywhere. Yeah, that's right, even in your own backyard. That's why I know that everyone has at least one adventure worth telling.

Now, I knew Steve Malden's father many years before Steve was born, so his story has a special interest for me. And here's Steve Malden to tell you about it himself. Steve? I've always been an ambitious guy, wanted to make a lot of money.

My dad did, and only he wasn't careful with it, or else he trusted the wrong people. Anyway, Dad died when I was five, and Mom and I moved to the Lower East Side to the ghetto of the city.

The money that she'd gotten for her furs and jewelry saw me through high school, working and going to school after that was a full-time schedule. I wanted to be a lawyer. I got to be one too.

Although it didn't leave me much money for any social life. My buddy Eddie and I had always hung around together pretty much just the two of us, talking, taking long walks. I liked it best when we walked uptown. It was clean, rich.

The day I was taking on my first job at stealing Wendell Law, so she'd mom hand Eddie up for a celebration in it. Oh, wouldn't have been a celebration without him. Ah, that's what I call real cheesecake.