OUR STORY SO FAR: Vic Murkland (Roy Barcroft)—racketeer and beneficiary of illegal HBO and Showtime—has escaped from a not-so-maximum security prison and has laid siege to an unnamed burg by trying to shakedown big bidness tycoon R.J. Cook (Edmund Cobb) with pranks like detonating a tunnel and burning down housing projects. He is able to get away with such misdeeds thanks to a presidential pardon Robert “Doc” Benson (Stanley Price), graduate of the Copacabana School of Medicine, who has applied plastic surgery to Murkland’s features and transformed him into the spitting image of Police Commissioner Angus Cameron (also played by Barcroft).
Trying to put the kibosh on Murkland’s reign of terror is Special Agent Ted O’Hara (Clayton Moore) who, without his faithful Indian sidekick, is pretty much playing it by ear…though he does have the assistance of Sergeant Francis Blake (Ramsay Ames), smokin’ hot policewoman and recipient of O’Hara all-too-transparent passes. In our last chapter, it would appear that O’Hara is endanger of having to try one of the local escort services since Francis is trapped in the back of a truck that’s about to go careening off a cliff…
As O’Hara continually fires upon the vehicle being driven by Duke Graham (Drew Allen) in a desperate attempt to escape the long arm of the law, Francis has managed to break the back windows of the truck and attach a rope (don’t ask me where she got it, maybe it was in her handbag) to the truck’s doors. Then—follow me now—at the moment when Duke leaps out of the truck to avoid going over the cliff and ending up as spam in a can; Blake throws the other end of the rope, perfectly looping it over the guard rail in order that the oncoming slack will pull both doors off. Then…she calmly walks out of the back before it takes that header over the cliff, just like she was disembarking a plane. (Honest to my grandma, you have to see it to believe it.) O’Hara pulls up in a car and brings her to her feet—she seems perfectly okay, needing neither Bactene nor Band-Aid.
Back at Doc Benson’s Sanitarium and House O’Waffles, Duke begins to pace the floor while Doc is working (“Siddown, you’re botherin’ me”) and then we witness something rare in a Republic serial: a nice little arty camera pan that winds up with the camera behind Benson’s back in order to focus on the door to his office, which opens and deposits Murkland:
GRAHAM: Hey, Chief—O’Hara and that female copper got away with the Cook payroll…
MURKLAND: I know it; O’Hara called me…gimme a cigarette…
GRAHAM: Since O’Hara’s on this case, Cook’s getting all the breaks…
MURKLAND: Yeah? We’re not through with Cook yet…we’re gonna sell him our protection insurance one way or another…when he pays off, we’ll be able to crack every merchant in town…
GRAHAM: Sounds good, Chief—what are you cooking up for Cook? Get it? What are you cooking up for Cook?
If I were Murkland, I’d-a shot him for that atrocious pun. But Murkland’s just come back from burning down an orphanage, so he’s in a pretty upbeat mood.
MURKLAND: Yeah, I get it…I want you to wait here…O’Hara’s bringing the money over to my office…and I’ll send it over to Cook by messenger…
GRAHAM: So…I do a little hi-jackin’, huh?
MURKLAND: That’s the general idea…I’ll call you as soon as O’Hara leaves my office…
In Commissioner Cameron’s office, Mr. Murkland. Leave us not start getting the big head here. Anyway, O’Hara and Blake are waiting for the faux Commissioner, with Francis pausing to primp in her hand mirror:
MURKLAND: It was good work…Cook will certainly be happy to get his money back…
O’HARA: Yes, but I’d feel a lot better if we had gotten a lead to Murkland…
Ted’s a glass half-empty kind of a guy. Besides, he’s standing right in front of you, idiot…how’s that for a lead?
MURKLAND: He does seem to have a perfect hideout, doesn’t he?
O’HARA: Well…clever at least…
BLAKE: Are you sure Murkland’s in the city? Perhaps he’s directing his gang by long distance…
MURKLAND: I believe you’ve got something there… (To O’Hara) You may be in the wrong town…
O’HARA: It’s a possibility, but…I don’t think that’s the answer…Murkland would almost have to be here…he works too fast to be out of town…
Ted says this line about working fast to Francis…make of it what you will.
O’HARA: …besides, he’s getting information about my moves…
Oh…I think everyone’s pretty much subscribed to that newsletter, Teddy.
BLAKE: Are you suggesting that there’s a leak in the police department?
O’HARA: No, but…again, that’s a possibility, too…
Tonto say: “Kemosabe just going through the motions here.” O’Hara suspects that the inside man might be in Cook’s employ, and he plans to pursue that angle when delivering the recovered payroll to his office. Francis is also curious about the connection to Fiddler’s car lot, so Ted suggests they pay him a visit, too, after dropping off the money. After the super cops leave the office, Murkland places a call to Benson at the sanitarium, bringing him up to speed and telling him that the previous plans will have to be changed since O’Hara’s volunteered to return the payroll. He also issues orders that Duke is to hie himself to the car lot and help Fiddler “clear out.”
At Fiddler’s Best Cars, Duke and Fiddler are carrying several Post Office-type buckets of files out to a parked truck—who would have thought racketeering required so much paperwork? Ted and Francis are seen pulling up:
FIDDLER (to Duke): Hey! Here come those nosy coppers!
GRAHAM: Get in back of the building…
O’Hara, having spotted Fiddler, yells after him…prompting Duke and Fiddler to greet their police pal with a round of gunfire. It soon becomes apparent that not one of the four individuals involved in this exchange of bullets can hit the broadside of a barn:
BLAKE: You think we can flank them?
O’HARA (looking around) Can you run a dump truck?
BLAKE: Yes, I think so…why?
Maybe it’s just me, but in a situation like this I’d want someone just a little more positive that they can operate heavy machinery.
O’HARA: Climb in and raise the body…then back up toward the shack…I’ll cover you…let’s go!
Oh, marvelous…neither of you can qualify on the shooting range, and yet you pick this point in the narrative to try something fancy. (Bring on the stuntwoman!) Francis climbs into the cab and soon has that truck working like she was a member of Local 645, using the raised back of the truck as a shield as they back up toward the two men. In the melee, Fiddler is shot and killed…so naturally, the ever-loyal Duke gets the hell out of Dodge by running, hopping a small fence, and making himself scarce:
O’HARA: That did it, Francis…let’s see what they were up to…
(Both of them meander towards Duke’s truck and examine the papers piled up in the back…)
BLAKE: It looks as if they were getting ready to clear out…
O’HARA: These records might be a tip off to Murkland…let’s take ‘em to my apartment…
It all comes back to your apartment, doesn’t it, big fella… Dissolve to O’Hara’s apartment, where Francis makes an unusual discovery:
BLAKE (glancing at a document): Another bill for gas and oil… (She picks up a large notepad) They were even saving blank paper…
O’HARA: Wait a minute… (He examines the pad) Odd that this should be on a used car lot…
BLAKE: What is it?
O’HARA: A transparency pad…you know, the kind you draw on and then have blueprinted…
BLAKE (looking it over): There aren’t any drawings on here…
O’HARA: No, but there was some sort of drawing on the sheet before this one…see, you can just make out the lines…
BLAKE: Probably a new engine or something…
O’HARA: We’ll find out…
Ted’s going to play Mr. Wizard again, but instead of setting fire to dollhouses he sprinkles a black, powdery substance on the pad of paper and then brushes the excess off:
BLAKE (reading out loud): Starboard…midsection…super structure…hanger plate…sounds like part of a ship…
O’HARA: It is…
BLAKE: What interest could Murkland have in shipbuilding?
O’HARA: Cook builds ships, and Murkland’s concentrating on them…we’ll take this to Cook’s office and see what goes…
Cut to R.J. Cook Enterprises. Cook, having been presented the document, searches for and finds a blueprint in a file cabinet and pronounces it an exact match. He explains to Ted and Francis that his ships are built in sections, and from the evidence presented Ted concludes that Murkland is planning to sabotage Cook’s shipyards by subtly changing the specifications on the blueprints. That’s when Cook drops the bombshell that the next ship is due to be assembled…that afternoon. (I hate when that happens.) Since they only have a half-hour, O’Hara tries to contact the shipyard’s superintendent by phone, but the operator informs them there’s no answer. Handing the phone to Francis, he urges her to “Keep trying…if you get through to the shipyard, stop everything til’ you hear from me.” Taking his leave, he tells Cook: “I’ll get out there and see if I can stop them before they hoist that super structure.”
Ted races to the shipyards like a Domino’s Pizza driver, squealing his tires at every opportunity. He arrives in the nick of time, and orders the foreman (Matty Roubert) to stop the super structure from being set. The foreman phones in the request…but suddenly slumps to the floor when shots ring out…and a swish pan reveals the gunman to be none other than Duke “Good to his mother” Graham:
GRAHAM: Relax, O’Hara…you’re going to see Cook’s toy go boom…
Well, we’ve managed to get this far into this chapter without allowing the stuntmen to get in a good workout, so O’Hara picks up a roll of blueprint and heaves it at Duke, which means the leaping and smashing of balsa wood will now commence. O’Hara overcomes his opponent in the struggle—and races outside where a crane starts to lower the super structure…
Next Saturday, Chapter Five: The Dead Man Speaks!
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