We see the doors where Munro Dean has methodically visited every Private Investigator in the city.  Rather than maybe optimizing his time by doing it geographically, he apparently tackled this task alphabetically . . . Acme Detective Agency, Confidential Detective Agency, R.W. Harris Private Investigations, Wilson Detective Agency.  He fears he has tried every agency when he realizes William Tyre Investigations was not a place that fixes flats. ^[1]

Tyre recognizes Dean’s name due to “something with his wife”.  Dean recounts how his wife was killed in 1948 by a slim dark man with bushy black hair.  He saw the man run out the back door, but the killer was never caught.  He has had the titular 40 private detectives on the case, but they came up with nothing.  Tyre says he would probably do no better and shows Dean the door.  But Dean says he has identified the man; he just needs help proving it.

He randomly saw the man in a bookstore.  “It was one of those run-down shops on the north side of town.  You know the kind of thing.”  The guy was working behind the counter.  Dean wants Tyre to set up a meeting.

Tyre goes to the store and pretends, as all jazz-lovers do, to like jazz.  Otto the owner — the man Dean tracked down — is also a jazz-lover.  He tells Tyre he prefers the new hi-fi recordings to the scratchy old ones.  He has quite a collection, but is inexplicably eager to sell it.  I guess investment is one reason people pretend to like jazz.  Tyre asks Dean if he would bring a few of the records to his hotel room that night, which sounds like the other reason people pretend to like jazz.

Otto says it would take a truck to lug all his records over to the hotel.  Also I suspect most hotels in 1960 did not have a turntable among their amenities of a Coke machine, flypaper, multiple ashtrays, and segregated bathrooms.  The other boarders unwittingly dodge a bullet when Otto invites Tyre over to his house to listen to the dreadful caterwauling. ^[2]

Tyre later briefs Dean on his progress.  Dean, who had earlier said he just wanted to talk to Otto, tries to give Tyre a pistol.  He offers Tyre $3,000 “to avenge me.”  Tyre declines and Dean keep upping the offer until Tyre says, “Stop before you get to a figure that tempts me!”  which sounds like a joke by that old comedian Winston Churchill.  As Tyre leaves, he warns Dean not to take the law into his own hands.

At Otto’s place, Otto is showing off his hi-fi set, and his girlfriend Gloria is showing off her bongos (hee-hee).  Otto offers the records to Tyre for $250.  Tyre says he doesn’t have that kind of cash on him, and suggests Otto come back to his place the following night for the dough.  They agree and Otto writes down the address of the room where Dean will be waiting for him.

Before Tyre can leave, Otto insists they listen to his stereo recording of 2 trains crashing together.  Otto takes such joy in his records that Tyre regrets having to go through with his assignment.

He returns to Dean and tells him when Otto will be showing up at his door.  Dean pays Tyre, who takes the money but encourages Dean to call the police rather than handling it himself.  Dean tells him to butt out.

Tyre just can’t stay away though.  He barges into Dean’s room just as he shoots Otto, and shoves Dean against the wall.  In an uncharacteristically clumsy exposition:

• The wounded Otto scrambles to Dean’s dropped gun.
• Otto Shoots Dean.
• Otto then shoots at Tyre as “the fingerman”.
• Tyre hides behind one of those bullet-proof hotel chairs you always hear about.
• Otto is suddenly stone cold dead.  What?
• Tyre confirms that Dean is dead.
• Tyre goes back to Otto who is suddenly not quite dead.

Otto spills his guts, literally and figuratively, to Tyre.  In 1948, Dean had hired Otto to kill his wife.  12 years later, Dean was worried that this happy, chubby, jazz-loving business owner who has a girlfriend with big bongos might implicate himself in a murder for hire cold case.

It just seems a little thin.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Tyre would have made more sense if this were an England-based episode.  But then a guy who fixes flats would be a carpenter.
• [2] Not all jazz, by any means.  But, if there is coherent moment on Bitch’s Brew, please timestamp it in the comments.
• AHP Deathwatch:  James Franciscus (Tyre) lived to only 57.  All the other actors have passed away, and bookstores are next.
• I say this with an unbroken life-long streak of heterosexuality: That James Franciscus was one handsome guy.
• For an authoritative look at the source material and production, check out bare*bonez ezine.