The Prepper Broadcasting Network - IWCF 068The Red Snow
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Communist for the FBI.
Starring Dana Andrews and an exciting tale of danger and espionage,
I was a communist for the FBI.
From the actual records and authentic experiences of Matt Cervatic,
come many of the incidents in this unusual story.
Here is our star Dana Andrews as Matt Cervetic,
who for nine fantastic years lived as a communist for the FBI.
Aye. For nine long years, I lived a dream, but a dream filled with strangely gesturing, menacing figures and portents of disaster.
Sometimes the figures didn't menace, but beckoned, temptingly, attractively.
And I wanted desperately to answer.
They promised decent human satisfactions, but I couldn't answer.
I had my job to do and my role to play.
And in that job, one travels the safest who travels alone.
In a moment, listen to Dana Andrews as Matt Sabetic, undercover man.
Anna Andrews as Matt Savetic, undercover man.
This story from the confidential file is marked, the Red Snow.
The telephone, Comrade Refchenko's tone of voice is imperative.
Report the headquarters at once, urgent and special.
I walk into Revchenko's office.
No, Revchenko.
Somebody else is sitting behind my chief's desk.
A dreadful blood-chilling caricature of a man.
The kind of figure that editorial page cartoonists draw to represent famine.
He's lean with a yellowish skin and leaden lips in a derisive mouth.
His sparse hair is parted almost obscenely over his melon-like skull.
He sits back in Revchenko's chair and looks at me with smoky, contemptuous eyes.
Nothing good can come from an apparition like that, and it doesn't.
Sit down, comrade, Siddick.
Well, I expected Comrade Rufchenko.
Please, sit down.
Okay.
I am Comrade Daggett.
All right.
Naturally, Comrade Ravchenko could not intimate the nature of my business with you.
Urgent and special, is how he put it.
At least.
I have in this drawer a handful of related items.
So, do they suggest anything to you?
What if they do?
What's the idea?
This teaspoon.
packet of matches, eyedropper,
hypodermic needle,
and the small paper of powder
represent, of course,
a crude narcotic addict's outfit.
All right.
What about it?
You are committed to do
whatever the party requires of you?
Correct, comrades, Vedic?
Correct.
Suppose I should ask you
to heat some water in this teaspoon.
Resolve the heroin in this packet
in the water,
and inject it into your arm.
That's enough, Dagger.
You can put all that assorted junk
right back into your desk drawer and find yourself
another boy. Do you say you would disobey party orders?
On that, yes. That's where I draw the line.
A party can make anything out of it that they want to.
Good.
Good.
We want no sniveling, spineless hopsters babbling all our secrets
in exchange for a jolt of cheap heroin.
Then what's the idea?
Here.
Here is an envelope containing $2,000 in currency.
Take it.
And?
There is an area on the...
East Side overrun with drug and dope
pushers and their overlords. Go there.
Buy all the drugs you can.
$2,000 worth?
Morphine, cocaine, heroin, marijuana?
Accent on heroin.
But I... Learn the vocabulary of the dope addict
from this small manual we have had prepared.
Learn everything about the dope racket.
Everything.
It's a big order.
Experience everything.
And find out who is at the top of the East Side Syndicate.
Be careful.
Naturally.
You'll be moving among desperate.
people jealous of their huge profits, all as addicts, completely irresponsible and heedless of
consequence.
It's a nice assignment, Comrade.
One of the most important we've ever given you.
May I ask why?
You may not?
Sit down, Comrade.
Let me brief you on your urgent and special assignment.
When I finally swim out of that office, I'm sick and giddy with revulsion.
I've got to tell the FBI.
I've got to reassure myself of a sound, sane bottom to this rule.
reeking opium meters abyss I'm expected to explore for what unspeakable reason and now the
FBI's unlisted number from a pay station ten minutes later I'm parked on a side street with my
FBI contact behind the wheel I've seen him serious before I'm never seen him this serious
that's big Matt anything touching on narcotics has to be big big and dirty and yeah what are they up to
now exactly what we're depending on you
to find out, Matt.
Learn the business thoroughly and reach the top guns, Daggett said.
We've been trying to find out who heads up the East Side mob for a long time,
but this goes a lot further than that.
Tag, I'm it again.
And, Matt, you're heading into the most vicious, irresponsible crowd anywhere in crime.
That's right. Rub it in.
Watch yourself, Matt.
That's what Cameron Daggett said.
I studied a dopy lingo and Daggett's handy little guidebook.
Taxi over to the East Sidegit said.
side and then walk slowly down the teeming tenement streets memorizing my ugly little lesson.
M is for morphine, H, heroin, C, cocaine, or snow.
Bang a muggle to smoke marijuana.
Hook, addicted.
Mainliner, veteran addict, etc., etc.
Until I can use them in sentences.
I find a basement cafe specified by Comrade Daggett.
I order a sandwich and buttonhole the unkempt waiter before he can
travel. Waiter.
What's your problem, bud?
Hey, look, chum, I'm kicking a habit,
but I need a ration. Got any ideas?
I don't know what you're talking about, sonny boy.
I got money, plenty.
Translate. Maybe I'll understand.
There's ten bucks under the ashtray.
In that case, you see a girl in the phone booth?
Yeah.
She's plenty of hooked. She'll help you out.
Thanks.
Here she comes now.
Hey, Ellie.
Yeah?
Prince Charming to see you.
Take you from there, Sonny Boy.
You the fellow who wants to see me?
Yeah.
Sit down, Ellie.
I haven't got but a minute.
So?
They told me you know where a guy can get a bendal.
That's right.
Give me the money and I'll help you out.
I want to buy direct.
I'm buying big, see?
You said just a bindle.
To you, I said big.
My connection's got to know his customers.
Introduce me, then.
It isn't that easy.
The feds are cracking down, you know.
What do I have to do to get this connection of yours?
There's a way all right.
All right, then?
Well, I'll have to cross to the north side where they don't know me.
Who?
The druggist.
The real legit pharmacies, I mean.
You've got some money.
Me, I'm awful broke.
Fifty do for a while?
Yes.
Here.
Here, you take this key to my apartment.
What for?
You waited my flat until you get a phone call from a druggist on the north side.
He'll ask for Dr. Fairby.
He'll tell you that I'm there wanting an old prescription he's got there on file.
It's to be refilled for my mother.
He's not allowed to do it by law, but I'll get him to call you about it anyhow.
Don't want the druggist know I'm not, Dr. Fabby?
The only prescription he ever got from Dr. Fairby I planted there.
Yeah, but Dr. Fabby's telephone number must be on the prescription form.
How'd you get him to call you a number?
It's my number on the prescription form.
We get them, so.
sort of printed up for us.
Ford just in counterfeit prescriptions.
It's simple.
Go ahead.
Well, you tell the druggist it's okay,
and you'll send him a prescription in the morning, sure.
Okay, I'll put on my doctor hat.
Only, how does all this hocus-pocus get me to the big dealers in H?
You come to the big guy with some real pure USP-type M
that you didn't get legit, and...
Well, you're just one of the boys, then.
No, narcotics, Budof-Fed would go around looting honest druggist to make a pinch, would they?
That figures.
How am I doing?
You're doing great.
Would you want to tell me your name?
Just call me, Matt.
I'm Ellie.
Yes, I know.
Well, we'd better get going on it, huh?
I find Ellie's incredibly wretched flat
and wait at the phone there for an hour,
shuddering in the tawdry gloom of this place
where Ellie spends her lonely, drug-clouded hours.
The rats who bring kids like Ellie to the squalor.
The rats, dirty, dirty, rotten...
Yes?
Dr. Ferby, please.
Oh, this is Dr. Fairby.
Oh, good evening, doctor.
Doctor, there's a young lady here asking me to refill a narcotic prescription for a mother.
50 tablets, morphine, sulfate, hd-1-quarter grain, one-tab T-I-D, PRN for pain.
The patient is Mrs. Thornwall.
Oh, yes.
She insisted I call you, although I told her I can't refill the prescription, doctor.
Well, couldn't you give her the tablets, and I'll send you a new prescription first thing in the morning?
Oh, it's not regular.
Yes, I know.
You see, I'm held strictly accountable for all narcotics.
I realize that, but the patient will suffer severe pain unless she has a medication.
Well, would you mail me the prescription tomorrow without fail?
Oh, I certainly will.
Thank you very much.
Goodbye, doctor.
Bye.
I hang up feeling dirty and polluted.
I'm acceptable now in the society of pushers and drug traffickers.
I've made it traffic in narcotics.
I've used the helpless and...
pitiful attic to obtain illicit m the rats dirty obscene murdering soul-destroying rats
I hate them I've got to work with him I wait in Ellie's dingy flat fairly to come back
an hour two hours where is she all of a sudden a terrible thought hits me has she used that
m on herself where is she where is she hello Ellie hello who is this
Hello, I say.
Dead.
Hung up.
Now I'm scared.
Who was that on the line?
Why, that stealthy hang-up?
Who was it?
Checking on me, maybe?
Making sure I was still there.
Cending me down until...
What?
This isn't my line.
This is way off my beat.
I can't stand still for this one.
It's too much.
This whole wrecking, worse than murder and I'm in it.
I can't go for this anymore.
The FBI. I've got to go to the FBI.
I won't answer.
Hang up on me again.
This war of nerds.
I won't answer.
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Starring as Matt Severic.
And I was a communist for the FBI
and the second act of our story.
I'm scared but good.
Who was that on the line?
Why that stealthy hang-up?
I know.
somebody, somebody checking on me, holding me down here, making sure I'm in the apartment,
pinning me down here until...
Until what?
The FBI.
I've got to talk to the FBI.
I can't take this.
I've got to get out of here.
All right, Matt, we'll park here and talk it over.
I'm sorry, I blew my top like that.
I guess I shouldn't have come down to FBI headquarters.
I think we slipped out okay, though, Matt.
I was just going all creepy.
I couldn't stay in that awful flat anymore.
Make some sort of plausible explanation to this Ellie.
Go back, you mean?
I think it's important you do, Matt.
I feel filthy.
I know.
It's a mean, vicious racket we're fighting.
What's it all about?
Do you happen to know?
What are the commies up to now?
You got any idea at all?
Matt, the communist control a vast Asianic area.
If they decide to go into the traffic in a big way,
they can get it wholesale.
And how?
It's a bomb, man.
Now, I'm scared.
We all are.
How do I figure in all this?
Why me?
The rents will need an organization, a machinery for their narcotics racket,
distributioners, sales force that knows or ropes.
They can build their own...
Oh, they can take over an operation that's already in being.
I get it.
I say, getting to the top man, planting evidence on him, through you.
Uh-huh.
Then, threatening to expose him.
It's sort of up to you, Matt.
You got any date on this, LA girl, whatever her name is?
Probably.
The casualty, one of the many.
Poor kid.
She's new to me.
I'll check right away with the Bureau of Narcotics.
Poor kid.
Poor kids, S, plural.
Well, I better get back and see if she's back yet.
Matt.
Yeah?
Call me after you've seen her again, will you?
Sure you want me to?
I want to?
I want to keep hearing from you now.
Sounds ominous.
Call me, that's all.
Huh?
From her place?
Just ask about some fight tickets or something.
If everything's okay.
Okay?
I may even call you.
I gave you a number, didn't I?
Yeah.
Okay.
Along.
I want to walk.
I want to collect my nerve again.
But I take care to cross the street when I get near the FBI headquarters again.
I wait at the bus stop.
Breathing deeply, trying to steady myself.
and then the taxi slides past me
and my reeling whirl blows up in my head
I can't be wrong about the girl in the back seat
it's Ellie
off her beat
cruising past FBI headquarters
she must have made that phone call to me then
trying to scare me into making a false move
into betraying myself
she must have made the call from across the street
and then trailed me to the FBI
when I left her apartment
sweet pathetic wistful little Ellie
communist plant
I signal a tax
See, showdown
In sweet, unfortunate little Ellie's ugly flat
There you are, Matt, come in
Yeah, here I am
Where was I?
That's what I said, Ellie.
Well, I can tell you I sure got that M from the druggist all right.
All right.
Twelve and a half grains of real USP pure M.
You flashed that at Swiny and he'll know you're safe.
Swiny?
Swiny's my pusher friend.
Sounds like just the right name for him too.
Yeah.
Here's the stuff.
And it's all there, too.
I wouldn't touch a grain of it.
You're a doll, Ellie, a real doll.
He's coming right over.
Who?
Swiny.
I called him to come.
What for?
Well, you want to buy stuff from him, you said?
My goodness.
I want to talk to you first, Ellie.
Sure.
Ellie, I want to know exactly what you were doing
around the Commerce Building a few minutes ago.
Who?
Me?
You were there not ten minutes ago.
You were seen.
Well, you can just tell whoever saw me
that he was seeing things.
All right, Helly.
And suppose you roll up your sleeve.
Show me your arm.
What for?
You claim you're a hopster,
which you mainline this stuff, all right?
I want to see the needle punctures
on your arm to prove it.
What's the matter?
Don't you believe me?
We can't risk any informers, Miss Ragged.
Informers.
You heard me, informers.
Sneak, FBI or Bureau of Nocotics,
informers, spying on us,
running to the FBI in the commerce.
You're crazy.
Running to the Bureau of Nocotics,
yapping all you know, to the feds.
I'll roll up your sleeve.
I won't.
You'll do as I tell you.
I don't have to.
Then I'll do it for you.
Stop, stop!
I'll show you...
You're hurting my arm.
Cut.
Cut.
Who are you?
Yes.
Hello, who is this guy?
I don't know.
What's with this rassling around and twisting the arm, huh?
We were just horse playing, that's all.
You got some M?
M? I don't know what you mean.
You called.
Told Swiny you had some.
Who? Oh. Oh. Matt. Matt. Give him the M we got. Give him the M. Why should I? Do you want to do business with me or not?
Uh-huh. Okay. Here. Real prescription stuff. Are you the big guy? Tell me. What's this business about you running to the FBI, flapping them out, huh?
Who, me?
But that's the silliest thing ever.
Listening at the door, were you?
Answer the question.
But that's crazy.
Can you imagine?
Me going to the cops?
I guess maybe you got a mistake, huh, fella?
I just wanted to be sure.
The game we're in.
This case, you're out of line.
Ellie's okay.
Ain't you okay, Ellie?
Sure.
How'd you know my name?
Ellie's a mainliner from way back, ain't you, Ellie?
Sure.
Show, way back.
Ellie couldn't get by without her daily ration, could you, Ellie?
That's right.
Yeah.
In fact, I got a little ration for you right now.
Just to prove you the real thing, you're going to bang the stuff right now.
Ain't you, Ellie?
Oh, wait a minute.
Ain't you, Ellie?
Sure.
Sure.
Of course.
Here's this stuff.
Here's an outfit.
Shoot.
Right now?
I mean, now.
No?
Shoot.
I'll take it.
That's for me.
I'm waiting for a call about some fight tickets.
I'll take it.
Hello?
Hey.
I told you.
Two at the ring side, stupid.
Listen.
So how about a couple further back then?
L8.
What?
Oh, that's an awful price way up there.
What about those cancellations?
I just found out she rackett so much he's turned federal informer.
I see.
And that puts me in quite a jam.
It does.
Yeah, a date with his dame and them all hemmed in up in a bleachers someplace.
You need us?
And how, brother?
We're on the way, but don't let us capture you, understand.
And don't miss, foolish.
How do you like that?
Depend on these guys and they'll ruin you.
Okay, Ellie.
Show the boyfriend how you do.
Okay.
I brought you a glass of water.
Show the fellow.
Look, all right, I believe they're both of you.
Now, let's get down to business.
This is business.
He wants to buy a lot of stuff.
You ain't in a rush, are you missed him?
As a matter of fact, I am.
Won't take you but a minute.
A girl likes a little privacy.
Can't you and Matt go into the next room?
No.
I'll go then.
I'll be right back.
Sit down, Ellie.
But less than a minute.
You got the H, heat water and a spoon, and go.
Show the fella.
I stared at that awful drama, an excruciating slow motion.
The big guy viciously,
Distically torturing Ellie
Punishing her in this ghastly way
If she isn't an addict
And I know now that she isn't
Punishing her by making an addict of her
Again
But she won't crack
She's going to go through with it
She fills the dropper
Now the warm solution of H in the teaspoon
Adjust the needle to the tip of the dropper
My throat is thick, I can't breathe
I can't let her go through with this
With a glass of water
I'll reach for the glass of water
and stumble.
It's all for time.
I can't let that kid destroy yourself.
Oh.
I'm sorry. You slob.
You knocked the stuff out of Ellie Spoon.
I just reached for the glass of water and stumbles.
It's all right.
I can get along without my ration for now.
That's all right, kid.
I just happen to have another bendal for you.
But honest, I don't have to have it.
Not right now.
I got it, I tell you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And let's go, huh?
Sure.
Hands behind your heads all of you.
Great, beat it.
Grab him, grab that guy.
Yeah.
I can get out now and walk.
Sorry you cut your hand so badly, man.
Sorry.
The comrades will love me in this bandage.
We just had to make it look as if we wanted you, too.
To keep you in the clear with the commies.
What happens to Comrade Daggett?
Now that we've got the key man, Daggett will be easy.
Anything else?
I'm still thinking of Ellie.
What if she had to shoot that H into her vein?
She'd have been hooked all over again.
Maybe beyond hope this time.
Yeah, that little girl plays for keeps, Matt.
I'd like to see her again.
Uh-uh.
Why not?
All we ever told her was that you were a big operator who might lead us to the big guy.
Oh, she thinks I'm a dope merchant, then?
Or a communist.
She despises me, I guess.
It's got to be that way, Matt.
Why?
Matt.
Suppose one day she's cornered again and gets hooked.
A drug addict has no will.
She'd talk.
Yeah, then where would I be?
Yeah.
Well, along, boss.
Only in the street.
My cut hand trobs me now.
It doesn't matter.
Because there's still rough weather ahead.
But no snow.
No red snow drifting and sifting into our lives.
Not if we're smart.
Not if we're at tenth.
This game is Ellie.
Maybe I'll see her again.
When this fight is over,
and one, when she can come out of the shadow of the poppy,
when I can stop being a living contradiction.
Until then, I'm still a communist for the FBI.
I walk alone.
Dana Andrews will return in just a moment.
This is Dana Andrews.
The story you've just heard detailed another victory
in the continuing fight against the forces of evil in America.
Like all these stories, it stemmed from fact.
The tales are disguised naturally,
but the spirit of fact remains in all its power and significance.
Next week, another adventure from the file of Matt Savetic,
who worked undercover for the FBI.
It's quite an experience, so be listening next week.
Thank you.
