🎙️ 20 min. Abridged Reading Script
(adapted from the original by Robert Leslie Bellem, Spicy Detective Stories v6 n6, Apr 1937)
🎞️ 0:00 – 2:00 Opening
Hollywood.
The only town where dreams wear silk stockings and knives under the garter.
A town where names shine in neon till somebody turns the juice off.
I’m Dan Turner — private eye, sometime stooge, full-time sucker for a pretty face.
Yeah, I’ve been around. I’ve seen angels turn into racketeers and producers turn into corpses.
And this — this whole mess — started with a dame’s voice on the telephone.
“Mr. Turner,” she said, low and shaky, “I need help. Someone’s killing girls — for their names.”
Before I could toss a wisecrack, the line went dead.
🎞️ 2:00 – 5:00 The Call
It was one of those nights when even the moon looked hungover.
Rain hit the street like a drunk pounding on a locked door.
I grabbed my hat, my .38, and a bottle of nerve tonic.
The address she’d given — small bungalow off Sunset Boulevard.
When I got there, the red lights were already flashing. Cops, reporters, rubbernecks.
Inside: a blonde sprawled across a rug, pearls busted like frozen tears.
Name tag on the vanity said Gloria Shane.
Captain Briggs — a barrel with a badge — looked up at me and growled:
“Turner, this your client? Then you got yourself a headache. Somebody carved your name on her wrist.”
And sure enough, there it was.
“DAN TURNER,” written in neat red letters — blood for ink.
“Cute,” I muttered. “Somebody wants me to take the bow before the curtain even goes up.”
🎞️ 5:00 – 8:00 Clues in the Rain
Briggs chewed his cigar sideways.
“Don’t try to blow smoke, Turner. She phoned you an hour ago. Looks bad.”
I gave him the look that says go climb a cactus and walked out.
The rain was still spitting; the city smelled like ozone and guilt.
Whoever set this up knew I’d bite.
They knew I couldn’t stand the taste of a frame job.
I spent the next few hours cruising dives, asking questions nobody wanted to answer.
Then at the Club Eldorado, I found the next chapter of trouble.
Smoke curled through the air like a cheap promise.
And through it walked her — legs up to next week, eyes like midnight whiskey.
She said her name was Rita Vale.
“Gloria was my friend,” she breathed. “She was scared.
Said someone was collecting women’s names — like trophies. For a film, maybe. For something worse.”
Her perfume hit like a lullaby wrapped around a blackjack.
Yeah — she was lying, but the kind of lie you listen to just to hear the music.
🎞️ 8:00 – 10:00 The Warehouse
I tailed her that night.
Not subtle — just far enough behind the tail lights to smell her fear.
She stopped at an old studio warehouse on Melrose.
Inside: silence, dust, reels of film stacked like coffins.
And a metal cabinet marked “Star Names — Series D.”
I opened it.
Eight women’s portraits, each stamped in red: DECEASED.
The ninth folder — blank except for one line:
“Subject: DAN TURNER.”
The punch came out of the dark.
My head turned into a fireworks show — then blackout.
🎞️ 10:00 – 12:00 Fire and Gasoline
When I came to, the air reeked of gasoline.
The floor glowed orange — the place was turning into a crematorium.
Someone had left my lighter on the desk. Nice touch.
I stumbled out just as the roof caved in.
Sirens, shouting — a hell of a night for a frame job.
If the cops found that lighter, I’d be headline news before breakfast.
Only one play left: find Rita Vale.
Because either she’d save my hide — or dig my grave.
🎞️ 12:00 – 15:00 Fog and Confession
Dawn crawled over the waterfront like a sick cat.
Fog thick enough to cut with a dull knife.
Rita was waiting at the old quay warehouse, pistol in her hand, tears under her mascara.
“Sorry, Dan,” she said. “Gloria was my sister. She wanted out.
The producer made me do it — frame you, burn the evidence, walk away with the dough.”
I took a slow step closer.
“And what do you get after that, sweetheart? Fame? Peace?”
“Maybe both,” she said. “Maybe neither.”
Her hand shook. The gun glittered.
Then — a single shot split the fog.
But it wasn’t her bullet.
Captain Briggs stepped from the shadows, smoke curling from his .45.
Rita crumpled, still beautiful, still tragic.
She smiled faintly.
“Guess… I wasn’t worth the name.”
Then she was gone.
🎞️ 15:00 – 18:00 Aftermath
Briggs holstered his iron.
“Hell, Turner, you sure pick the dames.”
“Yeah,” I said, “they pick me too — usually with a knife.”
We stood there watching the tide lick away the blood.
Fog rolled back, slow and heavy, like a curtain falling on the last act.
Next morning, the papers screamed:
“TURNER CLEARED IN HOLLYWOOD NAME MURDERS!”
I was free — on paper.
But I could still smell the smoke, still hear the echo of her voice.
🎞️ 18:00 – 20:00 Epilogue
Back at my office, the sign on the frosted glass door read:
DAN TURNER — Private Detective.
I poured two fingers of rye, watched it catch the neon light from across the street.
Names, I thought. That’s all any of us have in this town.
Names to sell, names to steal, names to die for.
“Here’s to Gloria Shane,” I said softly, raising the glass.
“And to Rita Vale.
They died for a name — and left me with mine.”
I killed the light.
Outside, the city hummed, restless and endless —
like a reel of film that never stops spinning.
Pulpverse — where pulps evolve. 
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