A plain clothed detective is a man under many pressures.
His life is lived in contact with crime.
Most crimes involve money, sometimes a great deal of money.
And it can happen that a detective solves a crime involving money, but somehow the money
stays missing.
Then he's on the spot.
Ugly whispers start behind his back, and only he knows whether he is innocent or...
Sure, there was money missing.
Sixty grand to be exact.
Tony Belmont and two hoods took it away from the Summit Finance Company by holding up one
of their messengers.
But I thought I recognized the description the messenger gave of the leader, and I brought
in Thomas.
But I didn't bring in the money.
Sixty grand is a lot of dough.
So there was bound to be talk.
Well, talk's cheap.
And I wasn't surprised when I walked into the precinct house and got a sour look from
Sergeant Bronson on the desk.
Hello, Bronson, what's booked?
Hello, Drasner.
Don't be so enthusiastic, it's bad for your heart.
I said, what's booked?
A couple of break-ins, kid stuff, no money in them.
What's that supposed to mean?
I wouldn't know, Drasner.
I want to see Sloppy Peters.
Where is he?
You can look downstairs on the pistol range.
Thanks, I think.
I went down the splendid old stairs to the pistol range in the basement.
Sloppy Peters was my sidekick.
He usually dressed like a scarecrow after a bad winter.
If he ate soup, Sloppy spilled it on himself.
If he got his hand dirty, he mopped his hand over his face, got that dirty too.
Half the time, his socks didn't match.
But he did his job.
Down on the range, Sloppy was popping away with his police special.
Hiya, Sloppy, hiya.
Hey, Sloppy, I said hello.
I heard you.
Hey, what's eating you?
Why should anything be eating me?
That's what I'm asking you.
You're holding your gun wrong again, let me show you.
There, five in the blank.
Hey, Sloppy, where are you going?
But Sloppy Peters had turned his back and walked out.
I spent the afternoon going over the breaking, got back to the precinct in the evening.
I was checking out.
I had on a new outfit, 150 buck tan linen suit, custom made silk shirt, 50 dollar two-tone
shoes and a 10 dollar tie.
But what was anybody to say?
Those were my gimmick, my trademark.
The newspapers even had a nickname for me, Nifty Dresser.
And besides, I said it was vacation time for me.
I expected a comment on my new dud from Bronson, but he just looked at me and looked away.
Hey, Bronson, Bronson, I'm talking to you.
Oh, it's your dresser.
What do you want?
Just a civil answer.
Is Sloppy Peters around?
Should he be around?
Never mind whether he should be or not, is he?
I couldn't say, dresser, I couldn't say.
Maybe he's out looking for some missing dough.
Yeah?
Just what dough did you have in mind?
Oh, I heard tell something about a payroll being missing.
Somebody had to get his name, caught the holdup guy, all right, but somehow the money got
mislaid.
60 grand, I think it was.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right, 60 grand.
And it was me who caught the hot rod who stole it.
Tony Belmont.
So it was, so it was.
It all comes back to me now.
Congratulations.
Too bad you didn't find the dough, too.
What did you?
Maybe we can finish this interesting discussion later on, Sergeant.
Right now I'm looking for Peters.
Anytime, dresser, anytime.
I turned on my heel and walked out.
By now the talk was all over the precinct.
Sloppy had broken up with his old sidekick, Nifty, dresser because of this missing 60
grand and holdup loop.
But I had to find Sloppy.
So I started making the rounds.
A little later I dropped into the Ace bowling alley on 10th Avenue to have a little chat
with Ace himself.
Yes, sir.
Hey, hey, same man, you're hip tonight.
You're really hip.
Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I'll put on my dark glasses before I look at you.
It's a new outfit.
You like it, huh?
Well, if this was Christmas, I'd just stand here in the corner to beat a Christmas tree.
Looks like money, real money.
Yeah, yeah, it does at that, huh?
Say, I hear you're going on vacation tomorrow.
That's right, two weeks at the beach.
You're coming back in two weeks, I suppose?
Well certainly I'm coming back.
Why shouldn't I?
Oh, no reason, no reason, unless maybe you came in the morning and decided to live it
up.
My rich uncle left me out of his will.
He always hated cops.
What's on your mind, Ace?
Oh, nothing personal, Drescher.
But there's talk going around.
Yeah, such as?
Well, last week, Tree Hunt Rods, who left the Summit Finance Company, get away with
60 grand.
A clerk was able to describe one of them.
That's right, I recognize the description.
Tony Belmont, so...
So you picked up Tony in his room.
You left Sloppy Peters downstairs and handled Tony single-handed.
You were alone with him 15 minutes.
Oh, I spent 15 minutes trying to make him tell me who the two muscle men were who helped
him.
Why, anything wrong with that?
Am I saying that was?
But the talk goes around that Tony still has that 60 grand.
He hasn't split it up yet.
Tony isn't talking, of course.
Tony never talks.
But there's some people who think that 60 grand is still around.
Of course it's still around.
Everybody who's in my sidekick, Sloppy Peters, thinks I got my mitts on that 60 grand and
then latched on to it, right?
That's the talk, Drescher.
That's the talk.
Well, let him talk, Ace.
Talk is one thing.
Proving it is another.
I left the Ace bowling alley and went on making the rounds.
A bar here, a dance hall there.
All places where I might pick up a whisper of interest to a cop.
At each place I asked for Sloppy Peters, but nobody had seen him.
Apparently Sloppy had crawled into a hole and disappeared.
It wasn't like him.
I wanted to find Sloppy.
And I wanted to find two unknown muscle men.
I'd been in with Tony Belmont on that holdup.
Even if by any chance I was planning on taking a vacation, for which I wouldn't bother to
come back, I didn't want to leave those two hoods in the loose.
I wanted them behind bars for a long time.
Then in a pool parlor on ninth, I got my first loop from Nick the Pick.
A combo pickpocket and pool shark.
Oh, hello, Nick.
Watch me put the seven ball in his side pocket.
Hey, nice shot.
The rumble is you're looking for your sidekick.
You seen him?
Right ball in the end pocket.
What?
Answering in words of one syllable?
No.
And what's your interest?
Nine ball in the side pocket.
Yeah, I never met...
Neither do I.
Now what do you know about Sloppy Peters?
Oh, that was a guy.
What did he say?
Ten ball in the end pocket.
What did he say?
Luigi's Bar and Grill half an hour ago.
Thanks.
Don't mention it.
I started down the dark side street for Luigi's Bar and Grill.
The trail was getting hot now, too hot, because the red neon sign that said Luigi's was 50
yards ahead of me when footsteps scuffed in the doorway just as I passed, something jabbed
into my back and a voice said, OK, close horse, stand quiet with your hands up.
I'll give you a chance to see how you like the little two piece back wall.
In just a moment, we will return for the...
It was a gun in my back.
There were two men behind me, a big one and a little one.
I recognized the voices.
Phil Whipp, the little one, and Wheezy Blaine, the big one.
Wheezy took my gun and then frisked me.
Fifty bucks, that's all he's got to do in here.
What do you expect?
Did he be carrying on him?
They could have 60 grand in his pocket.
He's got it hid someplace.
Hello, Phil Wheezy.
So you two mental giants with the ones in on the finance company hold up with Tony Belmont.
Shut up, dresser.
We'll do the talking.
So you laid a trap for me, huh?
You knew I was looking for sloppy Peters.
He left word he was in Luigi's to get me to come this way.
All right, since you feel so much like talking, talk.
About what?
About where you hid the stuff.
What stuff?
Let me slap his ears, Phil.
That'll make him talk.
I'll slap your nose.
Dresser, we know you got that 60 grand hid someplace.
You know more than I do.
Okay, you're asking for it.
Oh.
Now let me clip him one foot.
I'll clip you.
Just keep your eyes open so we ain't interrupted.
Okay, Phil, okay, but he's gonna do it.
He'll talk.
He'll sing like a quartet.
Now listen, dresser.
I'm listening, but so far I don't hear much.
We know you got the dough.
Tony Belmont slipped word on a grapevine.
You took it.
You can fool the police commissioner, but you're not putting anything over on us.
After you napped Belmont, you managed to hide the payroll loot someplace.
Now where is it?
Suppose I say I don't know.
In that case.
We can keep this up all night, you know.
Question is, can you take it all night?
What about it, dresser?
Okay.
Maybe I know where the money is.
Okay then.
Since you know where it is, suppose you tell us.
I, uh, I hid it in the junkyard behind Belmont's room and house.
A junkyard?
Yeah, Phil, there is a junkyard right out the back way and down the alley.
That's it.
I locked Belmont in the closet, see, I wrapped a door in a newspaper and I went down the
back way while sloppy P.S. waited for me out front.
Then I hid the money, went back and got Belmont and I, uh, I took him down the front wing.
You cops are all alike.
Only difference between you and us is we admit we're crooks.
The difference between you and me is that you're stupid.
Now can I clip him, Phil?
No.
Now he's gonna lead us to the dough.
There's an alley ahead, lead us to that junkyard and start moving, dresser.
I started moving.
With a gun nudging me and a kidney, there was nothing else to do.
We went down a long dark alley, listened to the televisions playing in the buildings we
passed.
The people, quallibrum, babies crying.
Then we came to a high board fence that surrounded the junkyard and I, I stopped.
What are you stopping for?
Well, uh, here's the junkyard.
How are we gonna get in?
You got in the other time.
You can get in this time.
Oh, that was from the other alley, you see.
There was a loose board.
Wheezy.
Yeah, Phil.
Look for a loose board so we can get through this fence.
Wheezy Blaine began yanking at the fence while Phil Whip kept the gun grinding hard into
my back.
I was in no hurry.
I knew they were figuring on killing me as soon as they had their hands on the money.
Shooting me in the back and leaving me along with the old boilers and wash tubs in the junkyard.
Oh, I was perfectly willing to postpone that as long as possible.
Then Wheezy Blaine found the loose board.
Phil used his gun to steer me to the opening and we all squeezed through.
Okay, what are you stopping for?
I'm just trying to figure where we are.
Now, uh, the other time I got in this junkyard from the other side.
If you're Stalin, you're gonna be sorry.
I hid the money inside an old furnace someplace about the middle.
Uh, yeah, ought to be over this way here.
I led the way toward the center of the junkyard.
Rusty iron ripped holes in my nude suit and a cat jumped up snarling.
There were a million people inside a few blocks of us, but there in the silence of that deserted
junkyard, Phil and Wheezy and I might have been the last men alive in the whole world.
Okay, now what are you stopping for?
Now, someplace around here I hid the dough.
Uh, one of these old furnaces.
Now, which one?
Now, don't try to stall.
Listen, I was in a hurry.
I crammed the money into an old furnace.
Now, just let me look in this one here.
No, no, no, it's not here.
Maybe it's that one over there.
Now, my suit was covered with a messy black stain from reaching around inside the furnace.
There wasn't much left in my outfit by now, but this was my life that was worrying me,
and now my clothes.
They followed close behind me as I worked my way toward the other furnace.
An overturned bathtub lay about ten feet from it, and on the bathtub a black cat sat and
just watched us.
Hey, look, it's Phil, a black cat that's bad luck.
Bad luck for Dresser if this ain't the right furnace, because then I'll know he's stalling.
No, no, no, no, this is it.
I'm positive of it.
Yeah, the package is right inside the firebox.
Yeah, here it is.
It's right here.
In just a moment, we will return for the concluding act of sus.
I reached inside the antique furnace, and there was the package, but it didn't hold any money.
It held her above.
As soon as I had it in my hands, I dropped to my knees and I yelled, OK, sloppy, shoot!
Phil, the bathtub is shooting at us.
Yeah, but the trick dresser up makes no wagon.
I ducked behind some scrap iron.
Before Weezy Blaine could find cover, he grunted and fell over an old wash tub and laid it.
Phil Whip started to run.
He couldn't get a shot at him, but the bathtub was sloppy.
Peters was heightened under heathen jerk and top load.
He stood up a six foot scarecrow and lifted his gun.
Phil Whip fell into some rusty machinery and laid there, not even moving.
Sloppy Peters put his gun away and came over to help me up.
I had gotten tangled up in some loose wire.
OK, Johnny, give me your hand.
That's it.
Oh, thanks, Sloppy.
Now, let's find the money.
It's here, isn't it?
Well, sure it is.
I told you it was in the same boiler where I had the gun hit.
I'll get it right out.
There it is.
In the pillowcase I dumped it in after I cuffed Tony Belmont.
Stay just as safe as in a vault.
Let's have a look at it.
Sure.
Pretty, isn't it?
Yeah, very pretty.
Now let me have it.
But you have it.
All of it.
Now don't argue, Johnny.
Your gun?
What's the devil in it?
The money, Johnny.
You want all of it?
I don't want it.
I want it.
I want it.
I want it.
I want it.
You want all of it?
All of it.
Start walking, Johnny, toward the street.
And don't hurry.
We have a little trip to take.
With Sloppy Peter's gun nudging me, I didn't want to say it.
Oh, he's tired of having gun to my lips.
But his grim look told me he wasn't fooling.
We hailed a cab and took us to headquarters, and then we walked up to see the commissioner's
office.
Sloppy put the pillowcase of money on the commissioner's desk and told him the story.
Do I understand, Detective Peters, that you are charging Detective Dresser with trying
to appropriate this $60,000 for himself?
Yes, sir.
I, uh, I hate to do it.
Believe me, Johnny, I'd rather cut off my arm.
There's nothing else I can do.
He had a smart scheme to get Weezy Blaine and Phil Whipp out of hiding, but I could tell
he was planning to keep the money.
I pretended to go along with him, sir, in order to locate the money.
Excuse me, Detective Peters.
Well, Dresser, I guess you're a better actor than you realize.
Your looks at Weezy.
Act, uh, Commissioner, I don't understand.
Your partner came to me three days ago, Detective Peters, and told me where the money was and
what he was planning.
I gave him my okay, even to leaving the money hidden.
Because there are a lot of ears in this city, and if the money was actually turned in, someone
might have talked.
Yeah, you mean, Johnny.
You were just acting like a crooked cop.
Weren't you?
When you took that money from me, after all, 60 grand, huh?
It's 60 grand, yeah.
That's the way I thought you figured.
Peters, I'm glad you did what you did, convincing proof of your own integrity.
And Dresser?
Yes, sir.
I want to congratulate you.
It was a well-worked-out plan, except for one bad mistake.
Mistake, Commissioner?
Look at your partner.
I believe they call him Sloppy Peters, and no wonder dirt all over him.
Face, hands, hair.
Your mistake, Dresser, was this.
You had him in a bathtub.
Why didn't you put in some soap and water, too?
Suspense.
You've been listening to 60 Grand Missing, written for suspense by Robert Arthur.
In tonight's story, we're Bernard Grant as Dresser.
Others in the cast included Ralph Bell, Leon Janney, Sam Ryskin, Joseph Julian, Mason Adams,
Michael Caine, and Nat Poland.
Listen again next week when we return with Daisy Chain, written by Robert Forrest.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
The Kingston Trio next, followed by latest CBS News and Have Gun, will travel.