Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Deadly Maze

Late at night, Jim shows up at a potential client's house, only to find it dark & deserted. Following a tapping sound to the basement, he finds his client, Mr. Albach, checking the water heater for leaks. This is one of his properties, he explains. Jim isn't crazy about the "trick or treat atmosphere" but hears him out. His wife has gone missing. He can't go to the police; she's mentally unstable & has a deadly fear of the authorities. Jim is concerned my Albach's complete lack of emotion, but is finally talked into taking the case, for an extra $50 a day. Alback gives him a wedding photo, & explains that a suspicious car was seen inthe neighborhood right around the time his wife disappeared. He even has the plate #.

Jim asks Sgt Becker, who has broken his nose for some reason, to trace the license #, under the pretext that the driver has hit & run Rockford's Firebird. The car is registered to a man named Savagi. When Rockford goes to the man's house to snoop around, he hears a scream inside, & finds a bloody apron in the garbage. The occupants of the house flee.

There's no victim or evidence of foul play, so police are reluctant to investigate. Jim is finally able to get Becker to send the apron to the lab to see if the blood is human or not. Turns out Savagi is a butcher by trade, & the blood isn't human after all. When Jim reports to Albach, he remains unconcerned. We also learn that he's secretly been recording his conversations with Rockford. Savagi & a chain-toting goon show up at Jim's trailer, warning him in no uncertain terms to forget about the case.

Jim tries & tries to get a hold of Albach, & doesn't know what to think when he can't get through. If a man's wife is missing, why isn't he waiting by the phone? Jim drives over to Albach's office, where he finds the missing wife talking on the phone. He overhears her talking to a "George" at a bar, & talking about an old man in a limousine. When he confronts her, she says that her husband is the crazy one, & admits to having an affair with Savagi. Jim watches someone pick her up in a Trans-Am & speed away.

Jim's had enough. When Albach calls him for an update, Jim tells him he's found his wife, & that he's officially off the case. Albach offers Jim $300 a day, but Jim isn't having any of it. One thing that's bothering him, though, is the shoes Mrs. Albach is wearing in the wedding photo, supposedly taken over 10 years ago. She's wearing shoes that women are wearing nowadays. Why would Albach give him a fake wedding photo? Jim finds the bar Mrs. Albach was on the phone with, "The Alvarado", & cons the bartender, a good friend of hers, into giving up her address. Turns out her #1 client is an old movie-star from the talkie-days; that's who's been picking her up in the limo. He gets to her apartment just in time to bump into her killer, who promptly knocks Jim out.

Now that the police are involved, it's discovered that the woman was not Albach's wife. She was a local prostitute. Sure enough, the shoes from the wedding picture are in her closet. Jim rushes over to Albach's office, but it's been cleaned out & he's vanished without a trace. Jim has no choice but to go through the building's garbage to look for clues. He finds a receipt in Albach's name for lab rats. When he goes to check it out, he learns that Albach is a doctor conducting a study at Pepperdine. Now things are starting to make sense.

Jim's suspicions are confirmed whenhe sees Albach, at the University, paying off Savagi & his cronie. A rabbit purchased from the lab animal outlet provides cover for Jim to get into the research facilities, where he overhears Albach discussing the entire affair. It was all government-funded behavioral-science research. Jim barges in & breaks the bad news. The woman posing as Albach's wife is dead, & Rockford is going to break the whole story to the police. Albach is more concerned with not jeopardizing his research than with helping solve the murder, & doesn't want to cooperate with the police. Jim hauls him down The Alvarado, where the burly bartender, furious over the murder, is able to convince Albach to help.

They head out to the old movie-star's house, where her boyfriend, Stan, who matches the killer's description, is working as a chauffeur. They break the bad news to the broken-hearted john, & right on cue the chauffeur barges in with a gun. He had been trying to get his girlfriend to help him rob the old man, & when she wouldn't, he killed her. Now he figures on holding them all up & getting out of Dodge. The wheelchair-bound silver fox is able to get a gun from a drawer & take a shot at Stan. Rockford siezes the opportunity & rushes Stan. He manages to disarm him, but ends up pinned underneath a toppled dresser-drawer. Stan runs out the front door, but Jim gets up & is right behind him. He runs him down, tackles him, & punches his lights out.

That night, back at Jim's trailer, Rocky is serving Jim & Becker a long-overdue dinner of fish that Rocky caught off the pier. When Dr. Albach shows up & tries to get Jim to answer a questionnaire to complete the research project, Jim calmly refuses, but sincerely offers to kick Albach's teeth in instead.

It was interesting to see that this episode had foregone car chases in leiu of a fair amount of dumpster-diving, a staple of real-life private investigation. I was in the bathroom when it started so I never found out how Becker broke his nose.

5 Comments:

Blogger Gavin Elster said...

thanks for these posts. I don't get channel 56.

8:16 PM  
Blogger Gavin Elster said...

ya know somthin? I ever a psycic was needed to investigate your demise... I have a horribe feeling she'll just be able to recall episodes of the rockford files. This will send law enforcment spinning for years!

8:25 AM  
Blogger I. P. Frehley said...

"I see...a car chase...& a man being framed for murder...look out! there's a gun in the cookie jar!"

2:07 PM  
Blogger Gavin Elster said...

by the way i'm not sure Howie is real. but by far my favorite 3x5 notecard headlines are "45.15 People News: Phony Mr Magoo died again--are millions of Rockefeller ones pouring money to everyone for their side of war--"not our family--"
45.16 Magoo Cartoons: Are stealing real one's cartoons on law claim & used them already--long term perhaps--

I suspect Robert may have the issue.

1:31 PM  
Blogger I. P. Frehley said...

Readers who are interested in learning more about phony Mr. Magoo dying again are encouraged to check out:

http://virtualsalt.blogspot.com/

11:21 AM  

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