Dimestore Radio Theater!

Artie Shaw

When Dan wakes up, he finds himself 15 miles out to sea, on a boat with Marie Gordon. She explains that she has chartered the boat, and Dan will catch swordfish and Marlin with the captain while she hides in her room, and Manny does… whatever, back on shore. 

After four days of fishing, Dan finally gets angry, and insists that he needs to go back to shore. Marie forces Dan into the dingy and makes him row to shore on his own. Meanwhile, Manny goes to meet someone named Edward B. Spalding, a Fence, who is waiting angrily for the goods that Marie had promised to deliver, and begins to threaten Manny. Dan makes it back to shore eventually, discovers that Suzy is missing, and that Edward is waiting for him.

Dan tells Edward exactly what happened, and Edward believe him. Dan goes to The Star Times to see if they’ve heard anything about Suzy, and a clerk explains that Suzy went on a vacation, like Dan told her to do in his note he left for her. Dan didn’t send a note and doesn’t like what this suggests. Dan picks up all the mail left for him, and discovers that there’s a box with what sounds like a ticking sound inside, which he immediately takes to the police. However, they discover it’s full of jewels. Dan pieces together the smuggling plot: Marie is bringing jewels to Edward, who can then sell them to someone else. But now Edward is mad because Marie seems to be trying to run off with the jewels to sell to someone else. Dan tracks down the captain, to find that Edward and Manny had just done the same, and were looking for Marie, too.

On his way, Dan runs into Manny outside Marie’s cabin, and knocks him out. Dan overhears Marie and Edward arguing, and Dan uses the advantage to knock out Edward. Marie tries to talk Dan into joining her, but Dan refuses. The police explain that they’ve been looking for these smuggler’s for a while, and they wanna thank Dan. Suzy comes back from her vacation to deliver the final zinger. 

Not much later, a heavily perfumed Chinese Man with a Charles Laughton accent introduces himself as Ah Sin, and takes Phil out of his cell. Ah Sin explains that he is incredibly rich and dishonest, and needs the assistance of an honest man. Ah Sin has moved Phil’s ship and has murdered The Colonel. Ah Sin takes Phil to an expensive house where Alice is waiting, and a Texan named Mangan is introduced as Ah Sin’s sidekick. Ah Sin explains that he intercepted a communication from Kang, deduced that The Scarlet Queen is probably in for a payday soon, and pulled strings to get Phil released from prison. Ah Sin also contacted Kang and Constantino separately, and each offered a reward for Phil: $5000 from Kang, and $10000 from Constantino.

Phil claims he never told anyone about the true purpose of the Scarlet Queen. But Alice claims she was raped by Phil, who told her all the details afterwards. Phil is taken to a room with Gallagher in it, who Ah Sin also captured. They get some sleep, and in the morning Alice shows up and feeds them a convoluted story about double crosses that neither Phil or Gallagher believe, but she proceeds to break them out and take them to The Scarlet Queen. Mangan is there to ambush Phil, and shoots Alice, supposedly dead. Mangan explains his plan: to have him and a few Chinese men sign on the Scarlet Queen, so when they get to Kang, they can kidnap him for Constantino.  

A fight breaks out in the shadows of the ship, and Ah Sin shows up, explaining he has a crew of men in the shadows. Ah Sin would like to drop the matter entirely, if only Phil could offer a little something in return for the help Ah Sin has given him. Phil says he would have gladly traded the Ginseng if he still had it, to which Ah Sin is thrilled; in fact, Ah Sin already confiscated it from the Colonel earlier, and now had it to rights thanks to this conversation. Ah Sin sorts out getting Phil’s crew out of prison, and they set sail for Shanghai, with only enough repairs to get them to their next stop. 

Charlie Barnet

Chandu pulls him in the window, and uses his powers to make the intruder think he is seeing snakes about to attack him, and that a knife is about to fly at the intruder. He immediately reveals that Roxor hired him to kill Ben Ali, and then to kidnap Betty, too. As he is about to finish divulging his plan a knife is thrown at him by someone else, and both men run off. 

One of Chandu’s friends arrives, and explains that he saw Betty get taken, and tortured other men to get the information about where she was taken. Apparently, she was kidnapped to be sold on the slave market. Rumor has it that she tried to escape, but if so, is lost, on her own. 

Duke starts teaching Junior that humans are evil, in addition to what the Professor has taught him, and soon Junior revolts against the Professor, and kills him. Duke takes Lola and Junior to Charlie’s, and asks Charlie to scout out a new job, which Charlie says will take 50 men. But duke has his mind set on taking down a payroll truck, and with Junior’s help, is successful, too.  

Seeing Junior in action makes Charlie nervous, so Duke asks Junior to kill Charlie. Duke decides to leave Lola with Junior while he steps out to plan his last heist. Junior asks Lola to oil him, and in talking to her, realizes she thinks Duke is the smartest and the strongest, and that’s why she’s with him. Duke comes home to try and kill Junior, but Junior kills Duke instead, and comes to offer himself to Lola, who is horrified to find what Junior has done. Junior explains that he is “almost human,” and that maybe she could love him, anyway. She screams.

Dan leaves to go home, only to get a call from Agatha at 2 AM, explaining that she had confronted Vascari, and now someone was trying to get into her room. Dan goes to her room, but only finds a paper airplane on the desk. Dan realizes she’s been taken to the airport, goes to find her and a thug waiting to board a plane. Dan tries to talk his way through the situation, but it doesn’t work, so Agatha stabs the thug with her hatpin, giving Dan a chance to knock out the thug. She & Dan run off, and she explains that Vascari wants her on a plane, to get her out of town. Dan takes Agatha to the police station, where Agatha double crosses Dan, and blames him for everything, and leaves the police station on her own. As Lt. Kling questions Dan, he doesn’t believe Dan’s story, and eventually lets him go, too. 

Dan goes to the hotel, and finds Agatha in the closet where the dead body had been, put there by the thug that had previously tried to put her on a plane. Lt. Kling shows up, having followed Dan, but there is still no evidence to support Dan’s version of the story. Lt. Kling puts Agatha and Dan back in Agatha’s room, where she reveals to Dan that she was actually the killer, as she was about to bump off Dan. Agatha had just seen, “Arsenic & Old Lace,” and got the funny idea to commit a murder while on vacation. The coda explains that psychiatrists have determined she is, “batty as a loon.” It was her idea to try and pin the murder on Vascari, who then tried to get rid of her via airplane. At the very end, Suzy reveals that she has been fired from her job, and asks Dan to hire her as his secretary. 

Phil takes Gallagher back to The Scarlet Queen, arms the crew with guns, and then returns by boat back to the island, to sit at the dock to keep an eye on anyone who might try to leave the island and take the Queen. Nora arrives and tries to lay it on thick, in an effort to get Phil to want to take her from the Island. Phil slaps her around and then makes out with her, but then she leaves. While Phil is continuing his watch, he is attacked by two men who Chloroform him. While Phil passes out, he hears the men put a boat in the water, supposedly making their way to The Scarlet Queen. 

Phil wakes up, and finds himself being tended by The Doctor. Phil discovers that his ship has been stolen. The Doctor was supposed to kill Phil to ensure a ride from Ramirez, but instead merely knocked Phil out, which was considered a betrayal by Ramirez, who left The Doctor behind with Phil when it left. Phil climbs the highest mountain on the island to see if he can spot The Scarlet Queen, but the ship is gone. He decides to try and find Nora to get more information about what happened, but instead finds Ramirez, who apparently has been abandoned by his crew. Ramirez says that Nora took the Queen.  

A huge wind arrives, and Ramirez explains that it is a typhoon, and that they will need better shelter to make it through the storm. They decide to help each other, to survive the storm. The Doctor, and Fairfield (Nora’s husband) all come out to huddle together, to find shelter together. The Doctor gets hurt, and dies. They get past the storm and find a trail that leads to a bay where The Queen is docked. Suddenly, the alliance drops, and Ramirez says he’s gonna take the queen. A fight breaks out, and Ramirez gets beaten up by Phil. Nora tried to con Gallagher into thinking that Phil was gonna take her on, but since Phil was supposed to be dead, she could work on Gallagher, and they could live on the Queen together. Phil decides to leave everyone on the island as he found them, and leaves on The Queen immediately. 

Phil and Gallagher have a drink and discuss going into Kobe, Japan ASAP. 

Glen Gray

Barnhouse contacts the government, with the hopes that he can use this power to do some good. Barnhouse is immediately captured, to be used as a tool of the government. He takes issue with the government ideas, as they cost too much, and want to only use him to cause destruction. The experiments are a resounding success, and Barnhouse is more powerful than they thought. But Professor Barnhouse escapes in the confusion of the government tests. 

According to Clinton, Barnhouse begins to systematically stop all weapons in every country on the planet. Once a weapon is reported and publicly known, Barnhouse destroys it immediately. The government enlists Clinton to find Barnhouse, as they are now concerned that another country will capture Barnhouse and use him against us. The hunt for Barnhouse is on, and Clinton has taken up using Barnhouse’s office as his own, where Clinton is rolling Barnhouse’s dice, too. Barnhouse has been taken by two enemy agents, and while their plane takes off, Barnhouse does destroy the plane, and himself in the process. The force of the explosion somehow hit Clinton.

Afterwards, Clinton is filing the report on what happened, and notices that he is only rolling 7s, now, just like Barnhouse was. 

Phil and Red take the job against their better judgement, but the statue was rigged to kill the buyer, which seems like sabotage to our heroes. Phil and Red decide to retreat to where they were supposed to get their instructions from Kang, but find Cyril the nephew and an attractive woman named Clair instead, with a huge crew of thugs. The contact isn’t around, but Red joins in on a poker game while Phil has a drink makes time with Clair, assuming this is normal. However, when the contact arrives, the crew of men immediately kill the interloper. When Phil and Gallagher try to suss out what happened, one of the thugs says that tossing them in this mess was payback for Gallagher’s double-cross in San Francisco, and the thugs take Gallagher with them. Now it looks like Phil has killed two people in Honolulu, which should make it difficult for them to leave. 

Phil finds a message on the dead messenger that is for him, which explains that the jade statue buyer – who is now dead – was Phil’s contact to get Kang’s instructions. Phil returns to where he met with jade statue buyer anyway, to find that the shop was open, and an extremely helpful clerk gives Phil Kang’s new instructions to go to Japan, with money and a set of numbers that Phil must memorize. This Helpful Clerk has cleaned up the body, and has misled the police and Bradbury into thinking that the Jade Statue Buyer is alive, but out of town. The Helpful Clerk then directly Phil to The Farmhouse, where Bradbury and Cyril might have taken Gallagher. 

The Farmhouse is a night club, and Phil arrives to find Gallagher with Cyril & Clair together. It appears Gallagher has betrayed Phil. Cyril insists on getting Kang’s instructions from Phil. A fight breaks out, and in the confusion, Clair betrays her gang, and sneaks out with Phil. They hide out at a beach bar and make out to pass the time, but Phil quickly figures out that she’s waiting for someone to arrive, and realizes he’s in a trap. However, when Bradbury arrives, Clair betrays Bradbury, and suggests that she’s gonna stick with Phil now, and leave Bradbury behind. Bradbury believes he’s got the upper hand, as Gallagher arrives, who apparently drove Bradbury to this meet-up. But Gallagher has double-crossed Bradbury. A fight breaks out, Clair accidentally kills Bradbury, and fleas the scene. Gallagher explains: after he was taken from Phil earlier, Clair moved in on Gallagher to try and get him on her side, and he noticed she had an Opal Earring that matched the one Phil found on Bradbury’s boat earlier. Clair was willing to double cross anyone, and her offer to split Kang’s reward with Gallagher and to join up with Constantino would probably leave Gallagher high and dry. So Gallagher went out of his way to make Cyril and Bradbury think he was betraying Phil, so he could double cross them later. 

While there were a couple murders that could be pinned on them, Gallagher and Phil leave Honolulu before the morning comes. They set a new course for an island between Honolulu and Japan, and start in on a drink to close things out. 

Coleman Hawkins

Meanwhile, Mr. Underhill’s wife, Aurora, has taken in a border, and inventor named Mr. Sledge. He’s a refugee from Wing 4, who had come to Earth to get away from the Humanoid Institute mechanicals. It isn’t long before Mr. Underhill’s business folds and is taken over by Human Institute. Mr. Underhill is offered a free Humanoid to help around the house, and refuses… but Aurora has accepted. Mr. Underhill’s son hates it, as the mechanical has taken away all his favorite toys, and Mr. Underhill isn’t happy, as the humanoid took away his alcohol. Even Aurora is unhappy, because she’s bored without any chores all day. 

Mr. Sledge tries to invent a new weapon that might be able to finally destroy the Humanoids. Mr. Sledge reveals that he invented the humanoids in the first place back on Wing 4, and has made it his duty to destroy them. He unleashes he new weapon, and it seems to work at first. But soon it is clear that it did not, and a humanoid breaks into break up Mr. Sledge’s gathering. Mr. Sledge is injured, but the humanoids take him and fix him, while also lobotomizing him. This horrifies Mr. Underhill, but soon he realizes that the humanoids will lobotomize him if he doesn’t stop rebelling.

Mr. Underhill pretends to do and say anything to keep the Humanoids from lobotomizing him, including just sitting motionless, with folded hands. 

As it happens, a person named Kang has hired Phil while in Shanghai, and warned Phil of an “opposition” who might try to stop Phil, in the form of Constantino, based in Hong Kong. Kang has a lead on a $10 million dollar treasure somewhere in the South Pacific. Phil suspects that David was tortured to discover where the treasure was. While Phil is considering all of this, a gentleman by the name of Red Gallager shows up, and offers to become Phil’s first mate. Gallagher seems to know the general destination of The Scarlet Queen, and this raises Phil’s suspicions. 

Phil sends Gallagher away, then searches Malone’s clothes, to find a clue, in the form of a matchbook with a woman’s name, and a room number: 218 at the Crown Hotel. (Where Malone was found.) This sends Phil off to find Helen at the Gorgonio, bar, associated with the Hotel. Phil chats up the piano player, who was apparently was Helen, and immediately makes a call once Phill starts nosing around. 

Phil decided to investigate room 218, only to discover that Gallagher is now staying in that room. But Gallagher knows Malones murderer: Mr. Fox, who apparently works with Constantino. Mr. Fox offered to pay Gallagher to sign on with Phil Carney to get information about The Scarlet Queen’s ultimate destination for Constantino However, Gallagher decides to double cross Mr. Fox, to help Phil get Malone’s killer and to secure the deal as first mate. 

Gallagher calls Helen and baits the hook, saying that he knows where Phil is, and that the better play is for Helen to seduce Phil. Helen meets up with Phil to make the play, to soften him up. Gallagher brings Mr. Fox around, who happens to be L.B. Funston, Phil’s accountant! Funston decides to double-cross Constantino, in an effort to get a bigger cash payout from Phil. But Gallagher and Phil quickly leap into action and subdue both Funston and Helen. Apparently, banking was the perfect cover to get plenty of details to implement Funston’s plan. Phil calls the police, who wrap things up… but Constantino is still at large. 

Phil takes on Gallagher as his first mate, and they leave San Francisco on their way to Honolulu, their next destination. Gallagher and Phil share a bottle as Gallagher steers the Scarlet Queen for the first time.