November 24, 2025 • 24 mins
Suspense was one of the most popular and successful radio series during it's run of over 900 episodes, spanning 1940-1962. Guest stars included Orson Welles, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Agnes Moorehead, Marlene Dietrich and Humphrey Bogart. The plots were mostly engaging crime dramas, science fiction and some horror - usually with a surprise ending.
Hope you enjoy this episode of Suspense! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | Amazon | iHeart
Hope you enjoy this episode of Suspense! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | Amazon | iHeart
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And now tonight's presentation of radio's outstanding theater of frills
Suspense Tonight the story of how perhaps the smallest of
items can be the cause of unbelievable terror and hardship,
in this case, the lack of a little loose change.
So now, with Harry Bartel as Clark, here is tonight's
(00:27):
suspense play.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Chicken feed.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
All right, it was a silly thing to fight over.
I admitted a nickel, a measly worthless nickel chicken feed.
Junior asked for a nickel, and I flipped it over
to him, and Mary said I shouldn't spoil the kid.
It was time he learned the value of money. And
I said, great, Scott, if I couldn't give my own
child a nickel without her jumping down my throat. Oh
you know how those things get going. You keep saying
things you shouldn't and she is out with an answer.
(01:01):
Before you know what, You've stormed out of the house
and you're taking it out.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
On the car.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Fifty miles cooled me down a little, but not much.
I automatically slowed up when I came to the sign
you are now entering Lancing, California. Go slow and see
our town, go fast and see our jail. Driving through
the quiet Sunday street gave me time to think of
something besides the biting words Mary and I had slugged
at each other. I pulled up at little cafe next
(01:30):
to the police station. It had a whitewashed sign on
the window. Best cup of coffee in town for five cents.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I went in.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
I present that Officer Brady. Do over easy, Sam, heavy
on the pride.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
What's yours?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Mister coffee?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Please coming up here you are, thanks, say Officer Brady.
How's your starboarder?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh Phillips are coming for in the morning.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I think you'll be able to hold intil then you
get out of that bedding and jail like a paper bag.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Oh worry, sister, Philip won't get out of it.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I listened to them with half an ear while I
sipped my coffee. There was a stack of the local
papers nearby, and I pulled one over to look at it.
As Phillips was on the front page. Bank robber killed
the teller. He had a face I wouldn't want to
run into clothes. After a while, the hot coffee made
me feel better. Maybe maybe i'd been a fall as
(02:28):
much as Merrick. She wasn't the only one who had
a bad ever. On a sudden impulse, I left my
coffee and went over the phone on the far wall.
I heard the dial tone, then I fished in my
pocket for change. It was empty. Say, miss, could you
change a dollar for me? I want to use the phone. HM,
(02:53):
it's the matter, mischief, my wallet, I seemed to look.
I'll be back in a minute. Mary wasn't the only
one with the temper. I'd stormed out of the house
without changing the contents of my pockets to the suit
I was wearing. I didn't have a dime on me,
not a nickela. I rummaged in the glove compartment. Mary
sometimes left the coin first, but this time, naturally, it
(03:15):
wasn't there. What seems to be the trouble, mister oh oh,
I seemed to have come up without my money. Embarrassing. Yeah,
I didn't realize it until I tried the phone.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Where's your driver's license?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's my wallet in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Got any other identification?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well, the registration slip on the car. That's the car.
What about you, look, officer, I'm Ralph Clark. Clark and
Jacobs and the Hatfield building. We're attorneys kind afar from
home to be without me door, aren't you?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Well?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I came out of the house without changing the stuff
into this suit.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know how that how you happen to have the
keys to the car?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I don't take them out when it's in the garage.
See you don't think I know it's it's funny, but
nowhere really you see, I had a fight with my
wife and I just batted out of the house to
cool off.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I'll tell you what, mister Clark. Suppose we just mosey
over to the station station.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
See what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Nothing? Nothing at all.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It's just next door and you can call your wife
from there. I don't see why that's necessary. If you
just lend me the money, I could call here and
reverse the charge.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
We'll go. You can leave the car here. I'll take
that key.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Now look here, officer, right, don't go. I'm on move.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Hi, Jim, what do you got this time? Uh? Tell
you better? After he makes a call, give me the phone?
Will you run? That's out of order? Once that happen
an hour ago?
Speaker 6 (04:47):
Yeah, I reported it. They said they can't have a
man here before tomorrow. Well, did you tell him this
as a police station, for Pete's sake. Sure phone, it's
not bad though, we get incoming calls. We still got
the nickel snatcher over there.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Here's the pay for mister Clark. You can make your
call from there.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I don't have any money, remember.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Okay, here's a nickel. A nickel. That's all it takes
in this time.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Jerk water.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Let me speak to your wife when you get it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's gonna sound just fine. She'll think I've really tied
one on operator Operator. I want to call San Francisco
Fillmore six oh oh nine eight and reverse the charges.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Please, thank you your number please?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
This is four six oh.
Speaker 7 (05:38):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
So I have a collect call from Lancing, California for
Fillmore six oh oh nine eight.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Will you accept it?
Speaker 8 (05:52):
Lancy? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It's me, Mary take the call.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh it's you, is it? What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Fifty? Accept the madam?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I should say not Mary. Wait, I'm sorry, the party
will not.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Accept the car book operator. Get her back with you.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
This is important again, she's there, the little Why didn't she.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Pick up that phone?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Your party doesn't answer?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh so, hu alry they kept our nickel.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Let me have another one. When you'll get hold of
my partner, he'll identify.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
But we've wasted enough time. Morn in here.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
If you're locking me up right, what's a big idea?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I'm holding you on suspicion.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Suspicion of what?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Defrauding the cafe for one thing? And I want to
check that car?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Do you think I stole? It's been done on our wait.
If you'll let me fall entitled to one call, you've
had it now look here off on this side, jail, jail,
all account of amazingly nickel. A lousy stinker?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You mean you ain't even got a nickel? No, you
see a cheek that's too bad in it? Peat is
wish we could help you out?
Speaker 9 (07:16):
Maybe we can.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
If you got nickel?
Speaker 9 (07:19):
Sure got three of them?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Will you lend me one? Just one?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What's it? I'll send you ten dollars pie in the sky.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Hey my wristwatch what's the matter with nothing? Nothing's the
matter with it? It's worth fifty dollars here you full
look at it. It's yours for five cents for one
measly nickel? What can you lose?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Is it hot?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You mean stolen? Of course?
Speaker 8 (07:41):
Not.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
Why are you offering it for a nickel flu?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I want to get out of this felting place.
Speaker 9 (07:45):
Oh so you don't like our company?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Is that it? No?
Speaker 8 (07:48):
Ain't that just too bad? What do you think of that,
mister Phillips, You don't like it? If you got any nickels?
Speaker 9 (07:56):
Mister Phillips, I.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Followed his glance. For the first time, I saw, deep
in the gloom of the locked cubicle, the face that
i'd seen on the front page of the newspaper, the
face I said I wouldn't want to run into. Close. Well,
it was close, and I was glad there were bars
between us.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Mister Phillips. Here he's a big shot.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
Robbed Ford Banks and broke out her two jails, killed
a man too.
Speaker 8 (08:19):
Here we're just vagus. But mister Phillips, he's going to
the hot seat. They're coming to get him and take
them back to Utah and burn him.
Speaker 9 (08:28):
Ain't that right, mister Phillips. Mister Phillips don't want.
Speaker 8 (08:32):
To talk about it. Mister Phillips don't want to talk
about nothing. Mister Phillips ain't very sociable.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Just like this.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Now, look, fellas, I want to get out of this jail. Here,
take the watch and give me that nickel.
Speaker 9 (08:44):
Huh. I tell you what, I'll match you for it.
Match me, yeah, nickel against the watch? Well take it
or leave it? All right, leave Pete hold the watch.
I'll flip the nickel on the floor.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You call heads tails? I went, hey, wait a minute,
get your foot off it.
Speaker 9 (09:02):
How do you know it's it's tails?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Ain't it?
Speaker 8 (09:04):
Pete church tales?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Here's the watch?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Watch it? Brother, Well, you're not gonna get away with this.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Don't kick me, go on.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Offer then?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Ain't nothing this? No guys acting up us all.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Get up?
Speaker 9 (09:34):
Can't trying to get us in trouble.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Click fellas for heaven.
Speaker 9 (09:42):
Okay, kangaroo. I'll be the judge and you'll be the prosecutor.
Maybe mister Phillips will be defense attorney. You want to, mister.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Phillips, you don't want it?
Speaker 9 (09:55):
Isn't not the bar?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Stand up pots, cut it out, all.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Right, counselor what's the prisoner charged.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
With your honor? This man is de but criminal. He's
charged but breaking into jail, insulting a fellow borders four
sportsmanship and fight a very dangerous character.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Your honor?
Speaker 8 (10:19):
Yeah, yielding and all counts, isn't it? Have you anything
to say before I pronounced sentence? No, okay, I find
you five cents hand it over.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know I haven't got it.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I can't pay her.
Speaker 8 (10:39):
Well, then you can work it out rate a one
cent a day. Your first job will be to shine
the court shoes, shine your own shoes. Oh so he's
going to be like that. Huh, hold them slim?
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Oh oh, the fight in her?
Speaker 9 (11:09):
All right, I'll get on them shoes.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
The next hours were unadulterated acony. It was unbelievable, the
filthy and human jobs they could think up for me
to do. And with every move I made, I could
feel the glittering, steely eyes at Phillips, the silent man
in the lock caage next to me, following waiting, and
then he winked at me and nodded his head as
old as signy. And then his two huge arms came
(11:41):
through the bars and thrust me reeling across the cell,
and I fell and hit my head. And that's all
I remember.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
You are listening to chicken feed Tonight's presentation in Radio's
outstanding Theater of Prills Suspense. Every Thursday night on night
Watch a CBS radio police recorder goes right along in
(12:23):
the prowl car with actual police. There's nothing added to
the truth, nothing subtracted from it. When Night Watch tells
its stories, don't miss it later tonight on most of
these stations. Now we bring back to our Hollywood soundstage.
Harry Bartel as Clark in tonight's production of Chicken Feed
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I don't know what time. It was two or three
in the morning, and I felt a stealthy touch on
my shoulder. I opened my eyes and were still on
the stone floor, and Phillips was bending over me holding
a revolver.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
You fool, I.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Want to wake them punks, get up quick. I glanced
quickly at Philip's said tip was open, and so was
the door to mine. We walked to the front desk there,
bound and gagged securely. Sergeant Ross glared at us.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Here, which is the key to your car?
Speaker 7 (13:30):
This one?
Speaker 8 (13:31):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Take up, let's move. Where's the car over there?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
You drive?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
We made it.
Speaker 10 (13:54):
Hic wools. They paniced me. I could spring that crack
with a hairpin. You nearly done a fine job. Allow
some things up. What happened to you getting thrown in
the can in.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The middle of the day.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
He picked me up on suspicion I.
Speaker 10 (14:09):
Wasn't supposed to be at midnight tonight. What and all
that phony kid's stuff about the nickel the nickel. Yeah,
all he had to do was slip me the word
that Jerry Nichols sent you served. You're right the way
them Lussi has treated you.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Jerry Nichols. Nichols, he thought I was an accomplice sent
by a partner to help him break jail, and all
my screams about a nickel had been nothing but a
signal to him, a signal. But I came from Jerry Nichols.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Jerry got the head out set up.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Uh yeah, where is it?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
The hideout?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Hideout? We're going to Jerry's place first, right then? What well,
I I'll take you to Jerry's and then he'll take
over from there.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Up bars at the Jerry's well it.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Hey, look behind you, what's the matter. There's a car
following us without light fire. I don't see what the so,
what's a big idea you're trying to cross me?
Speaker 8 (15:13):
Go?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Ihead get it started.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's flooded. I'm getting that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Let car passes, you make for the other side of
no tricks.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
Just to make sure I'll take this key.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I remember, no trick. I made myself a chance, and
I took it. I slipped out of the car on
the other side and ran across the field until I
could run no more. After an interminable two miles, I
found a road, and after a while a dark shape
loomed up before me a gas station, and through the
(15:48):
glass I could make out the outline of a telephone.
I tried the door. It was locked, of course, but
I found a tire iron and sprang a latch. I
ran to the phone and almost threw myself on it
before I saw it was a paypalls. In a rage,
I shook the black box. There must be some money
in this room. My eyes focused on a battered desk.
(16:10):
There was some change in it.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
I took a nickel.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Number.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Please kept me San Francisco, Satter one five.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
There may be a slight delayter.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I'll hold on, but hurry operator, it's.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Important one moment, please.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I waited far down the road. The headlights of a
car joggled over the rise and aimed toward me. I
hung up the receiver, closed the cash drawer, snapped the
lock on the door, and then I crouched beneath the desk, try.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
To wake up. All right, alright, who is it? Radi
and Rods open up?
Speaker 6 (17:15):
Well, you got a fine bunch of cops running out
of gash in the middle of that. Come on, here's
Hilly with the door open. Phillips broke jail, right, you
don't tell me how did you do that? I was
two of them.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
He had an accomplished so he was a lawyer.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
We found their car abandon on the road back of
Ferris's hop field ran out of gas.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
It can't be far away. There was a big reward
for Phillips shafty broke jail at Bennington, wasn't it?
Speaker 8 (17:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (17:41):
Not?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know, don't you? You're in the Benningham folk when
he did that break? Yeah, yeah, we was room made
for a night. I was pretty scared. How'd he do it?
The break? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 7 (17:52):
I was sleeping it off.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
If that was not a reward, huh. Don't you go
getting any ideas now.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
And Phillips is a killer and his partner most likely
well exactly helpless.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Michelle got me a nice little fellow in my side.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Here. You take my advice, gum, and put the gun
away and show up here. You talk so off and
let us do the capture. Sure, sure, I'll play save.
We'll be gone. Just wanted to alert you, Jerry. Yeah,
well thanks a long boy.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
All right, you come out from under that desk, mister,
Come on out. I say this gun is mighty nervous,
and get.
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Your hands up.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Stand over there.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Look, mister, I'll do the talking.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Who are you?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
You gotta believe me. I'm not a criminal. I'm a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Oh yeah, you must be that other. Keep them hands up?
Now where's Philips?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I left him in the car. Now that's another thing
you can get the reward. I know who's going to meet.
They're going to a who's she going to meet? Somebody
named Jerry Nichols there. Now, if you let me get
to that phone, I can clear everything up.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
No, your dogs, you still right where you are.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
But that's my partner, my law partner in San Francisco.
I only broke in here so I could phone and
he'll identify me. Don't believe me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
I believe you?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
All right? Then what answer it yourself? You'll say not
on your life mystery. You think I'm out of my mind,
but you've got to answer it. Jerry, you don't know
what I went through the place I called. You can't
just stand there, Jerry. You're Jerry Nichols.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yep, that's right, so you see it. Jerry. Sorry, I
turn off that light.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
It's Phillips.
Speaker 9 (19:41):
If you stand over there where you can't shoat a
one all right?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He coimonion Phillips, hey right out of gatch and that
Jerry yep, did her alive? I just made me one
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You're worse than he shut up. Maybe I can get
a reward for you, too, a small one. I could
feel the bullet land in my side, just below the belt,
and the avenue was of pain, spread out like the
cracks in the hammered window glass. But somehow, strangely, it
didn't stop me. I kept moving toward him. He backed away,
(20:24):
surprised he was aiming for another shot.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
When we drapped.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
I got the gun and he got my foot. I
fell back us over the chair, and I was on
top of him as he threshed around on the floor.
I brought his hand up suddenly and smashed his own
gun and he lay still.
Speaker 8 (20:45):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
He was alive. I got up, gasping for breath, and
then I realized that that I was all right. Yeah,
he shot me, hit me. I should be lying there
on the plank floor instead of that grotesque heap in
the ship, papeless flannel, night good. I felt my side
where the bullet had struck, brought my hand away. There's
(21:07):
no blood on it. There should be blood. I touched
the spot again, fingered the contour or something small and round.
I pulled it out of my watch bucket battered where
the slug had struck. It bat almost double nickel nicchol
On the twentieth part of a Dog. All a man
(21:29):
needed to buy a cup of coffee, to make a
phone call, to pay a fine in a kangaroo corn,
to say this life and I'd had it all the time,
I'd had it all the time.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Whoo, I have your buddy now in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Shall make you sure, yea. But first the lensing police
station with.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
The opera lancing police.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, shut up, Jerry, you're gonna live. I'm gonna be
in cood with you.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And I wouldn't give a plug nickel.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
For a Chance.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Suspense, in which Harry Bartel starred as Clark.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Crime Photographer has now Heard Friday Nights on CBS Radio Tomorrow,
marking his move to the new night and time. Casey
tackles a tough assignment, confronting a corrupt political boss, a
beautiful redhead, and the wayward son of a respected cop
in his efforts to crack a protection rooted in the city.
Don't miss Crime Photographer in Action Tomorrow Night against Crime and.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Criminals Next Week.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
The simple tale of a woman who finds herself accused
of murder and yet has no remembrance of either the
act itself or the.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Person she is said to have killed.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
We call it lost.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That's next Week on Suspense. Suspense is produced and directed
by Norman MacDonald, with music composed by Lucian Marlowick and
(23:41):
conducted by Lud Blusting. Chicken Feed was specially written for
Suspense by Lawrence Goldman. Featured in the cast were Clayton Post,
Jack Krusian, James Nusser, Vic Perrin, Edgar Barrier, Michael Ann Barrett,
Larry Thor and Eleanor Tanning.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
M H.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Rosemary Cooney sings Thursday Night So on the CBS Radio network,
And now tonight's presentation of radio's outstanding theater of frills
Suspense Tonight the story of how perhaps the smallest of
items can be the cause of unbelievable terror and hardship,
in this case, the lack of a little loose change.
So now, with Harry Bartel as Clark, here is tonight's
(00:27):
suspense play.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Chicken feed.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
All right, it was a silly thing to fight over.
I admitted a nickel, a measly worthless nickel chicken feed.
Junior asked for a nickel, and I flipped it over
to him, and Mary said I shouldn't spoil the kid.
It was time he learned the value of money. And
I said, great, Scott, if I couldn't give my own
child a nickel without her jumping down my throat. Oh
you know how those things get going. You keep saying
things you shouldn't and she is out with an answer.
(01:01):
Before you know what, You've stormed out of the house
and you're taking it out.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
On the car.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Fifty miles cooled me down a little, but not much.
I automatically slowed up when I came to the sign
you are now entering Lancing, California. Go slow and see
our town, go fast and see our jail. Driving through
the quiet Sunday street gave me time to think of
something besides the biting words Mary and I had slugged
at each other. I pulled up at little cafe next
(01:30):
to the police station. It had a whitewashed sign on
the window. Best cup of coffee in town for five cents.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I went in.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
I present that Officer Brady. Do over easy, Sam, heavy
on the pride.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
What's yours?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Mister coffee?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Please coming up here you are, thanks, say Officer Brady.
How's your starboarder?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh Phillips are coming for in the morning.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I think you'll be able to hold intil then you
get out of that bedding and jail like a paper bag.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Oh worry, sister, Philip won't get out of it.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I listened to them with half an ear while I
sipped my coffee. There was a stack of the local
papers nearby, and I pulled one over to look at it.
As Phillips was on the front page. Bank robber killed
the teller. He had a face I wouldn't want to
run into clothes. After a while, the hot coffee made
me feel better. Maybe maybe i'd been a fall as
(02:28):
much as Merrick. She wasn't the only one who had
a bad ever. On a sudden impulse, I left my
coffee and went over the phone on the far wall.
I heard the dial tone, then I fished in my
pocket for change. It was empty. Say, miss, could you
change a dollar for me? I want to use the phone. HM,
(02:53):
it's the matter, mischief, my wallet, I seemed to look.
I'll be back in a minute. Mary wasn't the only
one with the temper. I'd stormed out of the house
without changing the contents of my pockets to the suit
I was wearing. I didn't have a dime on me,
not a nickela. I rummaged in the glove compartment. Mary
sometimes left the coin first, but this time, naturally, it
(03:15):
wasn't there. What seems to be the trouble, mister oh oh,
I seemed to have come up without my money. Embarrassing. Yeah,
I didn't realize it until I tried the phone.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Where's your driver's license?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's my wallet in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Got any other identification?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well, the registration slip on the car. That's the car.
What about you, look, officer, I'm Ralph Clark. Clark and
Jacobs and the Hatfield building. We're attorneys kind afar from
home to be without me door, aren't you?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Well?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I came out of the house without changing the stuff
into this suit.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know how that how you happen to have the
keys to the car?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I don't take them out when it's in the garage.
See you don't think I know it's it's funny, but
nowhere really you see, I had a fight with my
wife and I just batted out of the house to
cool off.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I'll tell you what, mister Clark. Suppose we just mosey
over to the station station.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
See what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Nothing? Nothing at all.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It's just next door and you can call your wife
from there. I don't see why that's necessary. If you
just lend me the money, I could call here and
reverse the charge.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
We'll go. You can leave the car here. I'll take
that key.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Now look here, officer, right, don't go. I'm on move.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Hi, Jim, what do you got this time? Uh? Tell
you better? After he makes a call, give me the phone?
Will you run? That's out of order? Once that happen
an hour ago?
Speaker 6 (04:47):
Yeah, I reported it. They said they can't have a
man here before tomorrow. Well, did you tell him this
as a police station, for Pete's sake. Sure phone, it's
not bad though, we get incoming calls. We still got
the nickel snatcher over there.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Here's the pay for mister Clark. You can make your
call from there.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I don't have any money, remember.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Okay, here's a nickel. A nickel. That's all it takes
in this time.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Jerk water.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Let me speak to your wife when you get it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's gonna sound just fine. She'll think I've really tied
one on operator Operator. I want to call San Francisco
Fillmore six oh oh nine eight and reverse the charges.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Please, thank you your number please?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
This is four six oh.
Speaker 7 (05:38):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
So I have a collect call from Lancing, California for
Fillmore six oh oh nine eight.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Will you accept it?
Speaker 8 (05:52):
Lancy? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It's me, Mary take the call.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh it's you, is it? What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Fifty? Accept the madam?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I should say not Mary. Wait, I'm sorry, the party
will not.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Accept the car book operator. Get her back with you.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
This is important again, she's there, the little Why didn't she.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Pick up that phone?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Your party doesn't answer?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh so, hu alry they kept our nickel.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Let me have another one. When you'll get hold of
my partner, he'll identify.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
But we've wasted enough time. Morn in here.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
If you're locking me up right, what's a big idea?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I'm holding you on suspicion.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Suspicion of what?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Defrauding the cafe for one thing? And I want to
check that car?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Do you think I stole? It's been done on our wait.
If you'll let me fall entitled to one call, you've
had it now look here off on this side, jail, jail,
all account of amazingly nickel. A lousy stinker?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You mean you ain't even got a nickel? No, you
see a cheek that's too bad in it? Peat is
wish we could help you out?
Speaker 9 (07:16):
Maybe we can.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
If you got nickel?
Speaker 9 (07:19):
Sure got three of them?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Will you lend me one? Just one?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What's it? I'll send you ten dollars pie in the sky.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Hey my wristwatch what's the matter with nothing? Nothing's the
matter with it? It's worth fifty dollars here you full
look at it. It's yours for five cents for one
measly nickel? What can you lose?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Is it hot?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You mean stolen? Of course?
Speaker 8 (07:41):
Not.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
Why are you offering it for a nickel flu?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I want to get out of this felting place.
Speaker 9 (07:45):
Oh so you don't like our company?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Is that it? No?
Speaker 8 (07:48):
Ain't that just too bad? What do you think of that,
mister Phillips, You don't like it? If you got any nickels?
Speaker 9 (07:56):
Mister Phillips, I.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Followed his glance. For the first time, I saw, deep
in the gloom of the locked cubicle, the face that
i'd seen on the front page of the newspaper, the
face I said I wouldn't want to run into. Close. Well,
it was close, and I was glad there were bars
between us.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Mister Phillips. Here he's a big shot.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
Robbed Ford Banks and broke out her two jails, killed
a man too.
Speaker 8 (08:19):
Here we're just vagus. But mister Phillips, he's going to
the hot seat. They're coming to get him and take
them back to Utah and burn him.
Speaker 9 (08:28):
Ain't that right, mister Phillips. Mister Phillips don't want.
Speaker 8 (08:32):
To talk about it. Mister Phillips don't want to talk
about nothing. Mister Phillips ain't very sociable.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Just like this.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Now, look, fellas, I want to get out of this jail. Here,
take the watch and give me that nickel.
Speaker 9 (08:44):
Huh. I tell you what, I'll match you for it.
Match me, yeah, nickel against the watch? Well take it
or leave it? All right, leave Pete hold the watch.
I'll flip the nickel on the floor.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You call heads tails? I went, hey, wait a minute,
get your foot off it.
Speaker 9 (09:02):
How do you know it's it's tails?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Ain't it?
Speaker 8 (09:04):
Pete church tales?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Here's the watch?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Watch it? Brother, Well, you're not gonna get away with this.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Don't kick me, go on.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Offer then?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Ain't nothing this? No guys acting up us all.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Get up?
Speaker 9 (09:34):
Can't trying to get us in trouble.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Click fellas for heaven.
Speaker 9 (09:42):
Okay, kangaroo. I'll be the judge and you'll be the prosecutor.
Maybe mister Phillips will be defense attorney. You want to, mister.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Phillips, you don't want it?
Speaker 9 (09:55):
Isn't not the bar?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Stand up pots, cut it out, all.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Right, counselor what's the prisoner charged.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
With your honor? This man is de but criminal. He's
charged but breaking into jail, insulting a fellow borders four
sportsmanship and fight a very dangerous character.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Your honor?
Speaker 8 (10:19):
Yeah, yielding and all counts, isn't it? Have you anything
to say before I pronounced sentence? No, okay, I find
you five cents hand it over.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know I haven't got it.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I can't pay her.
Speaker 8 (10:39):
Well, then you can work it out rate a one
cent a day. Your first job will be to shine
the court shoes, shine your own shoes. Oh so he's
going to be like that. Huh, hold them slim?
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Oh oh, the fight in her?
Speaker 9 (11:09):
All right, I'll get on them shoes.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
The next hours were unadulterated acony. It was unbelievable, the
filthy and human jobs they could think up for me
to do. And with every move I made, I could
feel the glittering, steely eyes at Phillips, the silent man
in the lock caage next to me, following waiting, and
then he winked at me and nodded his head as
old as signy. And then his two huge arms came
(11:41):
through the bars and thrust me reeling across the cell,
and I fell and hit my head. And that's all
I remember.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
You are listening to chicken feed Tonight's presentation in Radio's
outstanding Theater of Prills Suspense. Every Thursday night on night
Watch a CBS radio police recorder goes right along in
(12:23):
the prowl car with actual police. There's nothing added to
the truth, nothing subtracted from it. When Night Watch tells
its stories, don't miss it later tonight on most of
these stations. Now we bring back to our Hollywood soundstage.
Harry Bartel as Clark in tonight's production of Chicken Feed
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I don't know what time. It was two or three
in the morning, and I felt a stealthy touch on
my shoulder. I opened my eyes and were still on
the stone floor, and Phillips was bending over me holding
a revolver.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
You fool, I.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Want to wake them punks, get up quick. I glanced
quickly at Philip's said tip was open, and so was
the door to mine. We walked to the front desk there,
bound and gagged securely. Sergeant Ross glared at us.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Here, which is the key to your car?
Speaker 7 (13:30):
This one?
Speaker 8 (13:31):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Take up, let's move. Where's the car over there?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
You drive?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
We made it.
Speaker 10 (13:54):
Hic wools. They paniced me. I could spring that crack
with a hairpin. You nearly done a fine job. Allow
some things up. What happened to you getting thrown in
the can in.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The middle of the day.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
He picked me up on suspicion I.
Speaker 10 (14:09):
Wasn't supposed to be at midnight tonight. What and all
that phony kid's stuff about the nickel the nickel. Yeah,
all he had to do was slip me the word
that Jerry Nichols sent you served. You're right the way
them Lussi has treated you.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Jerry Nichols. Nichols, he thought I was an accomplice sent
by a partner to help him break jail, and all
my screams about a nickel had been nothing but a
signal to him, a signal. But I came from Jerry Nichols.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Jerry got the head out set up.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Uh yeah, where is it?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
The hideout?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Hideout? We're going to Jerry's place first, right then? What well,
I I'll take you to Jerry's and then he'll take
over from there.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Up bars at the Jerry's well it.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Hey, look behind you, what's the matter. There's a car
following us without light fire. I don't see what the so,
what's a big idea you're trying to cross me?
Speaker 8 (15:13):
Go?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Ihead get it started.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's flooded. I'm getting that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Let car passes, you make for the other side of
no tricks.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
Just to make sure I'll take this key.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I remember, no trick. I made myself a chance, and
I took it. I slipped out of the car on
the other side and ran across the field until I
could run no more. After an interminable two miles, I
found a road, and after a while a dark shape
loomed up before me a gas station, and through the
(15:48):
glass I could make out the outline of a telephone.
I tried the door. It was locked, of course, but
I found a tire iron and sprang a latch. I
ran to the phone and almost threw myself on it
before I saw it was a paypalls. In a rage,
I shook the black box. There must be some money
in this room. My eyes focused on a battered desk.
(16:10):
There was some change in it.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
I took a nickel.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Number.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Please kept me San Francisco, Satter one five.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
There may be a slight delayter.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I'll hold on, but hurry operator, it's.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Important one moment, please.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I waited far down the road. The headlights of a
car joggled over the rise and aimed toward me. I
hung up the receiver, closed the cash drawer, snapped the
lock on the door, and then I crouched beneath the desk, try.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
To wake up. All right, alright, who is it? Radi
and Rods open up?
Speaker 6 (17:15):
Well, you got a fine bunch of cops running out
of gash in the middle of that. Come on, here's
Hilly with the door open. Phillips broke jail, right, you
don't tell me how did you do that? I was
two of them.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
He had an accomplished so he was a lawyer.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
We found their car abandon on the road back of
Ferris's hop field ran out of gas.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
It can't be far away. There was a big reward
for Phillips shafty broke jail at Bennington, wasn't it?
Speaker 8 (17:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (17:41):
Not?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know, don't you? You're in the Benningham folk when
he did that break? Yeah, yeah, we was room made
for a night. I was pretty scared. How'd he do it?
The break? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 7 (17:52):
I was sleeping it off.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
If that was not a reward, huh. Don't you go
getting any ideas now.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
And Phillips is a killer and his partner most likely
well exactly helpless.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Michelle got me a nice little fellow in my side.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Here. You take my advice, gum, and put the gun
away and show up here. You talk so off and
let us do the capture. Sure, sure, I'll play save.
We'll be gone. Just wanted to alert you, Jerry. Yeah,
well thanks a long boy.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
All right, you come out from under that desk, mister,
Come on out. I say this gun is mighty nervous,
and get.
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Your hands up.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Stand over there.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Look, mister, I'll do the talking.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Who are you?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
You gotta believe me. I'm not a criminal. I'm a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Oh yeah, you must be that other. Keep them hands up?
Now where's Philips?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I left him in the car. Now that's another thing
you can get the reward. I know who's going to meet.
They're going to a who's she going to meet? Somebody
named Jerry Nichols there. Now, if you let me get
to that phone, I can clear everything up.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
No, your dogs, you still right where you are.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
But that's my partner, my law partner in San Francisco.
I only broke in here so I could phone and
he'll identify me. Don't believe me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
I believe you?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
All right? Then what answer it yourself? You'll say not
on your life mystery. You think I'm out of my mind,
but you've got to answer it. Jerry, you don't know
what I went through the place I called. You can't
just stand there, Jerry. You're Jerry Nichols.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yep, that's right, so you see it. Jerry. Sorry, I
turn off that light.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
It's Phillips.
Speaker 9 (19:41):
If you stand over there where you can't shoat a
one all right?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He coimonion Phillips, hey right out of gatch and that
Jerry yep, did her alive? I just made me one
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You're worse than he shut up. Maybe I can get
a reward for you, too, a small one. I could
feel the bullet land in my side, just below the belt,
and the avenue was of pain, spread out like the
cracks in the hammered window glass. But somehow, strangely, it
didn't stop me. I kept moving toward him. He backed away,
(20:24):
surprised he was aiming for another shot.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
When we drapped.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
I got the gun and he got my foot. I
fell back us over the chair, and I was on
top of him as he threshed around on the floor.
I brought his hand up suddenly and smashed his own
gun and he lay still.
Speaker 8 (20:45):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
He was alive. I got up, gasping for breath, and
then I realized that that I was all right. Yeah,
he shot me, hit me. I should be lying there
on the plank floor instead of that grotesque heap in
the ship, papeless flannel, night good. I felt my side
where the bullet had struck, brought my hand away. There's
(21:07):
no blood on it. There should be blood. I touched
the spot again, fingered the contour or something small and round.
I pulled it out of my watch bucket battered where
the slug had struck. It bat almost double nickel nicchol
On the twentieth part of a Dog. All a man
(21:29):
needed to buy a cup of coffee, to make a
phone call, to pay a fine in a kangaroo corn,
to say this life and I'd had it all the time,
I'd had it all the time.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Whoo, I have your buddy now in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Shall make you sure, yea. But first the lensing police
station with.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
The opera lancing police.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, shut up, Jerry, you're gonna live. I'm gonna be
in cood with you.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And I wouldn't give a plug nickel.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
For a Chance.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Suspense, in which Harry Bartel starred as Clark.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Crime Photographer has now Heard Friday Nights on CBS Radio Tomorrow,
marking his move to the new night and time. Casey
tackles a tough assignment, confronting a corrupt political boss, a
beautiful redhead, and the wayward son of a respected cop
in his efforts to crack a protection rooted in the city.
Don't miss Crime Photographer in Action Tomorrow Night against Crime and.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Criminals Next Week.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
The simple tale of a woman who finds herself accused
of murder and yet has no remembrance of either the
act itself or the.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Person she is said to have killed.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
We call it lost.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That's next Week on Suspense. Suspense is produced and directed
by Norman MacDonald, with music composed by Lucian Marlowick and
(23:41):
conducted by Lud Blusting. Chicken Feed was specially written for
Suspense by Lawrence Goldman. Featured in the cast were Clayton Post,
Jack Krusian, James Nusser, Vic Perrin, Edgar Barrier, Michael Ann Barrett,
Larry Thor and Eleanor Tanning.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
M H.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Rosemary Cooney sings Thursday Night So on the CBS Radio network,
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