IWCF 068The Red Snow

Communist for the FBI. Starring Dana Andrews and an exciting tale of danger and espionage. I was a communist for the FBI. I was a communist for the FBI. From the actual records and authentic experiences of Matt Siverik come many of the incidents in this unusual story. Here is our star, Dana Andrews as Matt Siverik, who for nine fantastic years lived as a communist for the FBI. 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 Svetik, undercover man. Now here is Dana Andrews as Matt Svetik, undercover man. This story from the confidential file is marked The Red Snow. The Red Snow. Over the telephone, Comrade Revchenko's tone of voice is imperative. Report to 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 and 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 Svetik. I expected Comrade Revchenko. Please, sit down. Okay. I am Comrade Daggett. All right. Naturally, Comrade Revchenko could not intimate the nature of my business with you. Urgent and special is how I put it. At least. I have in this drawer a handful of related items. So, do they suggest anything to you? Eh? 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, Comrade Frederick? Correct. Suppose I should ask you to heat some water in this teaspoon, dissolve the heroin in this packet in the water, and inject it into your arm. That's enough, Dagon. 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. 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 consequences. 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 reeking opium eater's abyss I'm expected to explore. For what unspeakable reason? I dial the FBI's unlisted number from a pay station. Ten minutes later, I'm parked on the side street with my FBI contact behind the wheel. I've seen him serious before, but I've never seen him this serious. It'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. Dag, 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 Comrade Daggett said. I study the dopey lingo and dag its handy little guidebook, taxi over to the east 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, hooked, 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. Uh, waiter. What's your problem, bud? Hey, look, chum, I'm kicking the 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 that girl in the phone booth? Yeah. She's plenty hooked. She'll help you out. Thanks. Here she comes now. Hey, Ellie. Yeah? Prince Charming to see you. Take it from there, sonny boy. You the fella 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 bindle. 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 druggists. The real legit. Pharmacies, I mean. You got some money? Mia, I'm awful broke. Fifty do for a while? Yes. Yeah. Here, you take this key to my apartment. What for? You wait in 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 Fowlitz. 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. Won't the druggist know I'm not Dr. Fairby? The only prescription he ever got from Dr. Fairby, I planted there. Yeah, but Dr. Fairby's telephone number must be on the prescription form. How do you get him to call you a number? It's my number on the prescription form. We get them sort of printed up for us. Forward and 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. 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 bureau fed would go around looting honest druggies 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 rats. rotten... Yes? Dr. Fairby, 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 her mother. 50 tablets morphine sulfate, HD one-quarter grain, one tab TID, PRN for pain. 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, doctor. 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 a society of pushers and drug traffickers. I've made it traffic in narcotics. I've used a helpless and pitiable addict to obtain illicit M. They're rats. Dirty, obscene, murdering, soul-destroying rats. I hate them. I've got to work with them. 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? 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. Penning 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. No. I won't answer. They'll only hang up on me again. This war of nerves. I won't answer. Hello? Hello? Hello, do you hear? Hello? Hello? Hello? THE END. Now back to Dana Andrews, starring as Matt Siverik in I Was a Communist for the FBI and the second act of our story. Now 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? I've got to get out of here. 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 don't... I'm sorry I blew my top like that. Because 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 Communists control a vast Asiatic area. If they decide to go into the traffic in a big way, they can get it wholesale. And how? It's a bomb, Matt. Now I'm scared. We all are. How am I figuring all this? Why me? The Reds will need an organization, a machinery for their narcotics racket, distribution, a sales force that knows the ropes. They can build their own. Or 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 data on this L.A. girl, whatever her name is? Probably. A 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 kid's S, plural. Well, I'd better get back and see if he's back yet. Uh. Matt. Yeah? Call me after you've seen her again, will you? Sure you want me 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 her number, didn't I? Yeah. Okay. So long. I want to walk. I'm going 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. A communist plant. I signal a taxi. Showdown. In sweet, unfortunate little Ellie's ugly flat. Oh, there you are, Matt. Come in. Yeah, here I am. Now, where were you? 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 flash that at Swiney and he'll know you're safe. Swiney? Swiney's my pusher friend. Sounds like just the right name for him, too. Here. 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? Swiney. 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, Haley. Then suppose you roll up your sleeve. Show me your arm. What for? You claim you're a hopster, but you may mind the 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 Raggett. Informers? You heard me, informers. Sneak FBI or Bureau of Narcotics informers spying on us, running to the FBI in the commerce. You're crazy. Running to the Bureau of Narcotics, yapping all you know to the feds. 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. Cut it out. 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 wrestling 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 Swiney you had some M. What? Oh. 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. In this case, you're out of line. Ellie's okay. Ain't you okay, Ellie? Sure, sure. How'd you know my name? Ellie's a mainliner from way back, ain't you, Ellie? Sure. Sure. 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 the stuff you need. It's an outfit. Shoot. Right now? I mean, now? 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, what about those fight tickets, mister? I told you. Two at the ringside, stupid. Listen, I've checked up on that Ellie girl. So how about a couple further back, then? Ellie isn't a narcotics addict. What? Oh. Well, that's an awful price way up there. There's a Bureau of Narcotics plant, an informer. What about those cancellations? I just found out she used to be an addict. She took the cure, and now she hates the racket so much she's turned federal informer. I see. And that puts me in quite a jam. It does? Yeah, and a date with this dame, and I'm all hemmed in up in a bleacher 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 fella. Look, all right, I believe the both of you. Now let's get down to business. This is business. He wants to buy a lot of stuff from you. We ain't in a rush. Oh, 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 listen a minute. You got the H, heat water and a spoon and go. Show the fella. Hypnotized, I stare at that awful drama in excruciating slow motion. The big guy viciously, sadistically 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. The glass of water. I'll reach for the glass of water and stumble. Stall for time. I can't let that kid destroy yourself. I'm sorry. You slob. You knocked the stuff out of Ellie's spoon. I just reached for the glass of water and stumbled it. It's all right. I can get along without my ration for now. That's all right, kid. I just happen to have another bindle for you. But, honest, I don't have to have it. Not right now. I got it, I tell you. There. Sweat. Yeah. And let's go, huh? Sure. Let's go. All right. Hands behind your heads, all of you. Hooray. Beat it. Grab him. Grab that guy. Yeah. Okay. 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. 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. She thinks I'm a dope merchant and. 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. Then where would I be? Yeah. Well, so long, boss. It's late. Lonely 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 a tenth as game as Elly. Maybe I'll see her again when this fight is over and won. 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. Details are disguised naturally, but the spirit of fact remains in all its power and significance. Next week, another adventure from the file of Matt Svetik, who worked undercover for the FBI. It's quite an experience, so be listening next week. Thank you. Thank you.