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Kolchak: The Night Stalker :: The Zombie (01x02)
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Episode Information |
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| Title: | The Zombie |
| Episode #: | 01x02 |
| Original Airdate: | Friday September 20th, 1974 |
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Popular folklore would have us believe that there exist in the Underworld ruthless men who fear nothing. This story should debunk that myth.
August 14th, 2:00am. While the upper strata of the Syndicate were accustomed to dealing in millions, the foundation of their fortunes was here in their counting houses, in the small change of the numbers racket. Mr. Albert Berg, head collections man. A graduate of an Ivy League business school, he was an incompetent even by Syndicate standards. About the only smart thing he’d ever done was marry the boss’ sister. Willie Pike: he’d never been convicted of anything, by anybody, except the Boxing Commission. Willie took a dive into the canvas, and on through into the bulletproof car set. Willie was making a bundle – a bundle he would never get to spend.
Several men are gathered in a trailer where they count the day’s receipts. The trailer shakes and the heavy bar securing the door flexes and begins to splinter. The men seize their documents and begin shredding them as fast as they can, then draw weapons just as the bar cracks. They shoot at the intruder without effect. He hurls men aside and seizes Willie Pike.
2:30am. Willie Pike, one time heavyweight contender, now just one heavy pile of lifeless junk.
The police report claimed Willie Pike’s death was due to severe blows – clearly a gangland killing. Carl has arrived at work early and is banging out the story when an overturned cup of coffee heralds the arrival of Monique Marmelstein. Then Tony visits Carl’s desk. Tony is ebullient and Carl is suspicious. First, Tony offers to take him out for coffee and a Danish; Carl remembers the last time that happened he wound up covering a hardware convention in Sioux Falls, Iowa. Then Tony calls him a “co-worker”, and Carl remembers the time he spent three days rewriting obituaries because Charlie Creech was on a bender!
Tony offers Carl an exclusive: a police raid story at a syndicate burial ground. Then the other shoe drops: Carl must take Monique Marmelstein under his wing. Her uncle Abe Marmelstein is a powerful executive at the INS home office in New York. Tony is trying to help the girl get started in the business as a favor to Abe (or maybe to keep his job). Carl isn’t interested. Tony tries a hard sell; Carl’s answer remains “no”. But Tony wears him down; he gives in and takes Monique with him.
It is late afternoon and police have surrounded an apple farm and cider works owned by the Russo brothers. Via megaphone they demand the brothers’ surrender. The reply is a hail of gunfire.
Kolchak skids to a halt and Monique spills out of the car, racing up to the police line to take photos. Carl grabs her and hustles her back behind his car before she can stop a bullet. Then he gets an idea: Monique can hide in the trunk of his car, and get pictures from there! She accepts and Carl closes her in – he’s rid of her for now! Carl then gets pictures of his own, as the gunfire begins to die down.
Captain Winwood enters the barn. Moments later he emerges, forbidding pictures. Unable to get the lurid details from the scene, Carl visits Gordon Spangler, aka Gordy the Ghoul, at the morgue. Gordy runs a lottery and offers information on the side – to those willing to buy lottery tickets. Carl learns that the Russo brothers were brought in and that there’s a wall around their case. But the coroner sent for an X-Ray taken during Willie Pike’s autopsy. Seeing the X-Ray, Carl realizes that “severe blows” doesn’t begin to describe Willie’s end. Gordy throws in another tidbit for free: a body brought in with the Russo brothers had been brought in the previous week… “as dead as six .44 Magnum slugs can make you.” Strangely, this body had chicken blood in its ears.
Tony calls the morgue; he knows Carl’s habits well. Monique is furious at her stay in Carl’s trunk and Tony is afraid her uncle Abe “The Smiling Cobra” will come down hard. A three-way conversation follows that leaves Tony with the impression Carl is prepared to apologize. But Carl is mostly discussing the strange state of the extra body with Gordy. When Tony hands the phone to Monique Carl thinks he has hung up and hangs up himself – making Monique even angrier!
The official police briefing is at 9:00am, August 16th. Carl asks about “rumors” that Willie Pike’s back was broken and wonders if the Russo brothers died the same way. Captain Winwood ignores him, moving onto discussion of the reason for the raid: the farm’s use as a burial ground. A bit of sparring later, Winwood does confirm that the body of a black man was brought in but that this individual has not been identified. He leaves the meeting without answering further questions.
Gordy tips Carl that the unidentified body is being reburied at city expense. At Saint Lucie’s Cemetery a cantankerous old gravedigger tells Carl “they’re stacking ‘em like a high rise” – this is the second body buried in the same plot. Strangely, Captain Winwood is taking a personal interest in this case. Carl buttonholes him but all he gets is a threat suggesting curious reporters sometimes get broken arms.
Gordy has unearthed more: the young black man was François Edmonds, Haitian, an up and comer in the numbers racket. A syndicate hit ten days ago claimed Edmonds’ life. Gordy believes the Russo brothers dug up Edmonds and took him to their barn thinking he’d swallowed some receipts and that they might be able to retrieve these. It might also have something to do with the increasing tension between the black numbers operators and the syndicate. Carl knows where to go next: the South Side.
None of the South Side numbers runners will take Carl’s bet or answer questions, but Carl finally learns that as a former Edmonds customer he will need something called a “lucky number.” Eventually Carl learns the address: a small shop stuffed with curios, powders and strange objects. There he meets “Uncle Filemon,” a houngan who can sell him a lucky number. Uncle Filemon asks Carl to recount his dreams. When Carl mentions François Edmonds, Uncle Filemon tells him his dream must have been a bad one for François Edmonds is dead. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Bernard “Sweetstick” Weldon and two of his thugs. The thugs corral Carl for their boss, who isn’t happy. Already peeved at Carl’s earlier description of him as “Duke of the South Side numbers fiefdom and an all around civic headache,” Weldon is doubly unhappy with Carl’s attempts to learn the truth behind François Edmonds’ death. He has Poppy throw Carl out of Filemon’s shop.
As bad as Carl’s luck was at that moment, Al Berg’s was worse. A huge and shadowed figure lifts Berg overhead. The crunch of a breaking back is the coda to Berg’s syndicate career. The news of Berg’s death instigates a summit meeting between the biggest operators in the numbers racket. Carl visits an informant called the Monk to learn more.
From the Monk, Carl learns a meeting will be held at the Midtown Garage, decrepit property of Syndicate top man Benjamin Sposato. Somehow the Midtown Garage never opens. Roof repairs, plumbing repairs and other construction projects keep it closed – and secluded. Sposato is there to meet with Weldon. Carl hides behind some construction materials with tape recorder ready. The meeting is short and acrimonious; each side threatening the other. Sposato has a witness from the counting house who told him Willie Pike’s killer was a black man; Weldon denies involvement. Sposato wants reparations: 25% of Weldon’s take for the next fiscal year, and if just one more Sposato henchman comes down with back problems, there will be war. Weldon dismisses the request and turns to leave. Carl retrieves his hidden recorder, but a miscue with the rewind button gives him away. Sposato’s henchmen find him and bring him to their boss.
Sposato is furious to learn he has been recorded. At first he does not know who Kolchak is, but then remembers him as the man who crashed his daughter’s wedding. Sposato then tells Carl about Mercy General Hospital, where one of the finest gastrointestinal man in the Midwest practices. The meaning escapes Carl until Sposato tells his henchman Victor Freise to “make an appointment” for Carl. Desperate to escape serious injury, Carl blurts out that he knows who is killing Sposato’s men. That captures the gangster’s attention. The criminals know François Edmonds is dead and buried. Carl bets his life – perhaps literally – that Edmonds is no longer buried.
At Saint Lucie’s cemetery, Carl is made to dig up Edmonds’ grave. When the old caretaker arrives he’s pressed into service too. Sure enough, Edmonds is no longer in the coffin. Sposato is taking Carl more seriously now and is worried: Carl’s theory is that anyone connected with Edmonds’ death will die of a splintered spine. Sposato and Victor begin debating exactly which of them authorized Edmonds’ death, each trying to pin it on the other. A slow shuffling interrupts them; François Edmonds has come for his next victim. Gunfire doesn’t stop him, neither is he slowed by hand-to-hand attacks. Seizing Victor, he raises the thug high overhead, and crushes his spine. And then, as the horrified Sposato watches he drops Victor’s broken body and leaves.
Police discover Carl alone next to Victor’s body and take him for questioning. Vincenzo, half asleep, must retrieve him from police custody. Carl is charged with grave desecration, theft of a body and Victor Freise’s murder. At first, Carl is silent on threat of jail. When Winwood grants him permission to speak he becomes enthusiastic, recounting Victor’s murder to Tony – including the part about how it was committed by a dead man. Winwood’s theory is that the body was exhumed for unknown reasons. He can’t begin to understand why because, after all, “these are people from a foreign country.” Carl believes François Edmonds has been turned into a zombie, one of the “walking dead.” The process involves corn kernels and chicken blood. Winwood and Vincenzo scoff.
Another trip to The Monk gets Carl the name of François Edmonds’ only known relative, his mother Marie Juliette Edmonds, also known as “Mamalois”. Arriving at her house, Carl is unnerved when she knows who he is before he knocks. She makes a point of mentioning that her son is dead, countering Carl’s assertion that there is no body in the grave by telling him the body was removed and privately burned – the custom in her country. But Carl saw François last night – he didn’t look good, but he didn’t look burned either. Marie dismisses his opinion that François is a zombie. Carl asks her why she is called “Mamalois.” She asks if he understands what that means; he points out the similarity to a papalois, or bokor, a practitioner of Voodoo magic. Marie replies that the title refers to her ability to make “little medicines for little sicknesses.” Carl realizes he has accepted a drink of rum from this woman and that might have been unwise. He leaves feeling stupid until he sees the trash.
A dead black rooster in the trash leads Carl to a shed in the back yard where he sees a ritual taking place. Marie is swinging a rooster back and forth and chanting, facing a strange altar. There is a cross hung with beads on the wall; skulls and other objects rest on the altar. Chief among those objects are miniature coffins lined up in a row, each bearing a name written in chicken blood. Some of the names are individuals who have died at the hands of François Edmonds since his death. Horrified, Carl watches as Marie Edmonds adds a new box to the row, carefully spelling out on it the name “KOLCHAK.”
Carl returns to the office and begins researching zombies. Captain Winwood interrupts; Winwood intends to crush the story and plans to bring the full weight of the Chicago machine to bear if he has to – starting with Chief Langsdorf and a fire inspection. All those papers stacked near a heating plate; the back door used for storage. Chief Langsdorf might well shut down the INS office.
Carl suggests Winwood should equip his men for the destruction of zombies: they need salt, needle and thread and candles. One must find the zombie in a place of the dead while it is inactive, fill the mouth with salt, and then sew the lips shut. Carl emphasizes the instructions with mimed sewing motions. Then, he continues, one must light white candles around the creature. If the zombie is active, one must light the candles around it while trying to strangle it. Captain Winwood in particular should learn this technique – for his name was among those on the coffins. Carl’s theorizes that Winwood is on Sposato’s payroll and Marie knows it.
Carl has one lead to the zombie’s location: Laura Perette, Sposato’s latest girlfriend, is singing at Zachary’s in the Alley for the dinner show. Where she is he will be. And where he is the zombie will come. And so will Monique, who has again attached herself to the story.
Carl arrives moments too late. The zombie ignores Sposato’s pleas. It hoists him aloft and snaps his spine, discarding his body like rubbish. Monique enters the alley and is shocked by the sight of bodies strewn everywhere. Carl calls her a cab and tells the cabbie to take her to Manhattan. Then he spots Edmonds at a bus stop. Retrieving his zombie kit, Carl tries to flag down the bus but must settle for hopping the bumper.
The bus delivers man and monster to the Moore Auto Graveyard – a place of the dead, after a fashion. Inside Carl picks his way through stacks of car corpses; the place is a maze. Then he sees it -- an antique hearse, and inside it, the rotten remains of François Edmonds, resting, though hardly in peace. Disgusted, Carl crawls inside and fishes candles and salt from his bag.
Elsewhere Marie conducts a ritual that repeatedly mentions Kolchak’s name…
The candles are lit, and the salt is poured, the zombie’s mouth is full. All that remains is to stitch the lips closed. Carl puts needle to lips – and Edmonds’ eyes snap open. Terrified, Carl drops the needle in a mad scramble out of the hearse, with Edmonds hard after him. Edmonds follows him onto a stack of cars where Carl notices a wire loop hanging from a crane. He waits, and as the zombie reaches him, opens the loop. In goes François’ head! The monster can only dangle as the loop closes tightly about his neck. At this moment Marie utters a moan of distress. Carl retrieves his candles and arranges three of them on a hubcap. Lighting them, he slides them under the dangling and rotten creature’s feet. One by one, the candles gutter out. When the last one goes the zombie stops moving. Sadly, Carl landed on his camera during his escape and his pictures are ruined.
With my camera in pieces, Captain Winwood’s story of innocence was intact. He never stood trial for murder; my proof was gone. But that doesn’t mean my story was false; quite the contrary.
Monique’s uncle is delighted she’ll be returning to New York; he never wanted her in Chicago in the first place… Carl did the right thing sending her to Manhattan, if for the wrong reason.
Item: Mamaloa Edmonds was deported to her native country only one day after the events of the junkyard. Item: Captain Leo Winwood was relieved of duty for, quote, reasons of health, unquote. Item: François Edmonds, the deceased, was buried a third time at public expense – a third time. However, this time, rock salt was poured in his mouth, and his lips were sewn shut. City officials will deny this, but you can see it for yourself, if, IF, you’d care to venture out to Saint Lucie’s cemetery, and exhume the corpse. Be my guest. If you’ve got the nerve.
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