The BEST episodes of The Untouchables
Every episode of The Untouchables ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Untouchables!
The Untouchables chronicles the campaign of Eliot Ness (Robert Stack), the young U.S. Prohibition Bureau agent, to smash the beer and booze empire of Al Capone in 1920s Chicago.
#1 - The Giant Killer
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/9/1963
April 28, 1932. Chicago. 3,500 fans are at the arena, watching the end of a 7-day bicycle race. But Ed ""Duke"" Monte is there to make a drop-off. Ness and Lee Hobson catch him, with a quarter of a million dollars in counterfeit bills in his leather bag. On May 25, Monte is sentenced to 10-15 years in the State Pen. That same day, at Monte's old headquarters (the Odeon Theatre which specializes in Burlesque), his former lieutenant, Lou Sultan, is having the guy he accuses of being the stoolie, Parrot Krebs, worked over by his thugs. Lou tells Janos Dalker (Monte's bodyguard) to rub the stoolie out. Next day, Ness and Lee Hobson pay Lou Sultan a visit at the theatre; they know he had Parrot knocked off, but can't prove it yet. When they leave, Barbara Sultan, dressed to the nines, talks to her hubby. Lou tells her, ""Don't give me that jealous wife routine,"" and she snaps back that he should stop fooling around with all the strippers. Ed Monte busts out of prison, and as Janos is
#2 - A Fist of Five
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/4/1962
Chicago, 1929. Mike Brannon's been a cop for 15 years, but now he's being suspended for hospitalizing ""one of Tony Lamberto's dope-pushing punks."" Mike thinks Captain Bellows is corrupt for not going to bat for him. There is a tense moment when the Captain asks for Mike's gun-- Mike points it at him. But then, Mike turns the gun over and leaves. The dollar value of the city's wholesale industrial trade is $6-billion; the revenue of organized crime is $200-million. ""Tough Tony"" Lamberto's Market Street Produce Co. is just a legit façade; it takes in a percentage off the top-- from every racket dollar in the Southside of Chicago. Tony Lamberto is often the target of rival gangsters, so he rides around in a steel-plated limo with bulletproof glass; it cost $30,000. (this is a time when most people make $600 to $1,000 a year, and cars cost $500.) Right now Tony has another problem: a visit from Eliot Ness and his men. One of Tony's boys, Max Templar, is eating a honeydew melon; bu
#3 - Elegy
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/20/1962
1929.* Notorious gangster boss Charlie Radick is dying of leukemia; there'll be no mourning for him, the other overlords will be vying for his throne. All Radick wants to do is see his long-lost daughter before he dies. Ness visits Radick; Ness is afraid a gang war might break out, as rival gangs scramble to take over. Ness says, ""Turn over your books to me; names of the people in your organization, distribution points, contacts in City Hall."" Radick says while he was in prison, he left his daughter with a couple; 3 years ago she ran away. Radick tells Ness, ""Find Margaret, and I'll give you everything you ask for."" Ness never makes deals with hoods; but this time the gangster isn't asking for a break, or to plea bargain: he only wants Ness to find his daughter. Ness doesn't promise him anything, but he starts the search. Eliot Ness is getting help from Lt. Agatha Stewart and Frank-- they do some legwork, and find out Margaret Radick is now going by the name Margaret Wilson. T
#4 - The Purple Gang
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 12/1/1960
Detroit, August 1932. The notorious Purple Gang-- long synonymous with terror in beer, booze, labor and prostitution-- gets into a new racket: kidnapping. They specialize in snatching other members of the underworld, since they can't go to the police for help. So far, they've kidnapped 9 hoods (the latest mug is Rocky Garver), for a total of 100 grand. The Purple Gang's leader is Eddie Fletcher, bank robber and murderer, who always wears gloves so he never leaves any fingerprints. Next on their list of gangsters to be kidnapped is Ian Tornek, who owns a novelty shop along with his brother-in-law Eric Vajda, who arrived from Europe 7 months ago. But Eliot Ness and his Untouchables also have their eye on Tornek: he's a Capone henchman, who makes a weekly pickup of narcotics every Thursday at 5:00 p.m. at the Railway Express Agency. So Ness and Lee Hobson and Enrico Rossi fly to Detroit. Fletcher's boys snatch Tornek just before his weekly pickup; they phone his wife Martha and dem
#5 - The Waxey Gordon Story
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/10/1960
New Jersey, the night of April 16, 1931. Waxey Gordon, the undisputed beer baron of New York, is muscling in on New Jersey, which is run by Frankie Dunn, ""Bugs"" Donovan and Roger Weiden. Waxey is waging a gang war to eliminate rival gangsters for control of the Jersey beer market. Waxey and his boys smash into a brewery owned and run by Frankie Dunn; they blast with their choppers until the large beer vats, Frankie and his workers are filled with holes. Next day, John Carvell, U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, sends for Ness and his men. Ness and Lee Hobson drop in at Waxey's live theatre, where beautiful showgirl Flo Ingalls is doing her act in a sequined one-piece swimsuit. Later, Ness and Hobson go to Waxey's office to arrest him, but Flo (still in costume) provides his alibi, saying she was with Waxey all last night. April 18, in a private office at the swank Nest nightclub, there is a council of war: ""Bugs"" Donovan is convinced the N.Y. Syndicate is behind
#6 - Augie 'The Banker' Ciamino
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/9/1961
Summer 1931, Chicago. Eliot Ness and his Untouchables had smashed most of the big breweries owned by the mobsters. But racketeers, taking advantage of the poverty and desperation of many immigrants, forced them to make a gallon of whiskey a day in small stills in their homes-- makeshift stills which could be put together for less than $3. The absolute boss of Little Italy is Augie ""The Banker"" Ciamino, and with whiskey pouring out of 1,000 tenement stills, he was cancelling the gains that Ness had made. August 16, 1931. That night, at a street festival, Giovanni gets a hold of some bad whiskey at Raineri's bakery, and is sped to a hospital in an ambulance. Ciamino wants to find out who is responsible; he says to Raineri, ""You tell me where Giovanni got the bad stuff, I buy all your sfogliatelle.""* Uncooperative Raineri says, ""I don't make sfogliatelle."" (even though we see a sign in his bakery: Special Today: Sfogliatelle.) When Ciamino finds out it was Stefano-- and twice he'd
#7 - City Without a Name
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/14/1961
1933. Violence and corruption were at an all-time high in Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City-- virtually every city in the U.S. The lone exception is an Eastern seaboard metropolis, referred to as City Without a Name, in which the voters had used the ballot box to vote corruption out of public office. And Federal agent Arnold Wainwright had kept organized crime out-- but on October 22, he is blasted by machine-guns while in a coffee shop. Eliot Ness and his men are called to the case. Ness goes to the hospital and talks to Wainwright's assistant, Gilbert Burke, who was injured in the attack; Gilbert tells Ness the hit was the work of Lou Mungo. Chicago. At the Montmartre club, Nitti is having a meet. Nitti decides that since Lou Mungo's done the groundwork, it's time for him to take over half of Mungo's action. Nitti sends for Sebastian, who specializes in such acquisitions without using muscle. Sebastian wins a high stakes poker game by bluffing. Nitti tells
#8 - The Death Tree
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/15/1962
Early November 1931. On West Madison Street, there is a wonderfully diverse neighborhood made up of gypsies of Romanian, Hungarian and Czech descent. The area is flooded with Capone's rotgut, being distributed by Janos Colescu. There are many colorful characters, including the chestnut vendor with his singsong voice: ""Get your red-hot che-e-estnuts, the wind is cold."" When the rotgut leads to a drunken knife-fight that leaves a gypsy dead, the 8-member gypsy Senate, headed by Victor Bartok, with his brother Fedor Bartok, convenes. Eliot Ness shows up to offer his help to end the bootleg booze; they decline his help, saying they will handle matters themselves. At night, they set one of Colescu's booze trucks on fire, and give the warning to his boys Alex and Benno. Colescu decides to retaliate. November 12, late at night. There is an old, almost dead poplar tree on the street, it is called the Death Tree; the chestnut vendor, under orders from Colescu, puts a sheet of paper with
#9 - The Otto Frick Story
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/22/1960
The night of May 3rd, 1934. A traveling carnival is at the Midway, 35 miles outside of Cleveland. There are half a dozen bellydancers on stage, as the barker goes, ""Hurry, hurry, hurry,"" and a sign reads: ""One dime shows you the best hootchy koochy show in the world!"" Hans Eberhardt, twice convicted for armed robbery and dope peddling, spots Ness and his Untouchables and the local police about to pull a raid; he runs to the office trailer of carny Otto Frick. Hans grabs 2 suitcases, then Otto takes a can of gasoline and torches the trailer; they escape in a speeding car before Ness can catch them. It is a minor setback for Ness, who had spent the last 7 months investigating and making raids, and was finally ready to move in on Otto Frick-- whose 37 traveling enterprises were just a cover for his nationwide dope ring. Ness continues with roundups and raids in the following weeks. Suspecting that Frick might be getting his drugs from legitimate manufacturers, Ness and his men go to
#10 - The Genna Brothers
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/2/1961
In the years following WWI, there was a flood of European immigrants into the USA. In the early 1920s, the 6 Genna brothers, place of origin Sicily, were headed to Chicago. The Genna brothers are nothing but a gang of bullies, and in a few short years they are the ruling lords of Little Italy, an Italian neighborhood in Chicago. One night, as the 6 Gennas are beating up a street vendor, Agent Enrico Rossi whales into them. The leader, Mike Genna, asks if he knows who they are; Rossi says, ""Yeah, the Genna brothers-- one rat with 6 heads!"" Mike Genna says that Enrico Rossi is Italian, just like them; Rossi says he's ashamed. There are many illegal immigrants in Little Italy, and over 1,300 of them were smuggled in by the Genna brothers, who force them to make booze in small stills in their homes, to supply Capone-- over 1,300 cookers, each making a gallon a day; 40,000 gallons a month; almost half a million gallons a year for Capone. Many's the time that Eliot Ness and Rossi and L
#11 - The Case Against Eliot Ness
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/10/1962
March 4, 1933. The Windy City is getting ready for the Chicago World's Fair, also known as the ""Century of Progress"" Exposition. The 3 wealthy Endicott brothers, who jointly owned franchises at the upcoming Fair, are all rubbed out in short order. Restaurant owner Gus Dmytryk goes to the Licensing Committee, and it seems he will get the former Endicott franchises: 3 nightclubs at the Midway, and 5 other concessions. It will mean big bucks, since the Chicago World's Fair is expected to draw 50-million visitors. Ness knows that Dmytryk has been on the fringes of the rackets for years, and then District Attorney Beecher Asbury assigns Ness and his men to the case. Meanwhile, when ex-alderman Mitchell Grandin tells the Committee that Dmytryk is a bootlegger; it seems the Committee will give the lucrative franchise to Grandin instead. Later, Grandin gives Dmytryk some payoff money. Ness and Lee Hobson, trying to clean up the town, drop in on one of the hoods who has showed up (and is
#12 - A Seat on the Fence
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/24/1960
Chicago, late Summer 1932. Eliot Ness and his men had stemmed the supply of narcotics coming into the Windy City from Asia and southern Europe. Now the Underworld was using new ways to supply the city's 5,000 dope addicts. The Syndicate was robbing drugstores, doctors' offices, wholesale drug houses-- any place which kept a supply of painkilling drugs.* Ness and his men investigate one such robbery: a clue is a note with a list of items to be stolen (morphine, cocaine, etc.)-- numbered with Roman Numerals, written by an educated man. That man is Victor Bardo, one-time narcotics czar of all eastern Asia; he was imported by the Syndicate in 1931. His headquarters are some offices behind a legit front: an arcade. Crooked Dr. Hallet has just told him about a couple of nursing homes they can knock off. However Dino Patrone (age 46), a contact man for narcotics in Europe, has fallen out of favor with Bardo-- he tells his hitman Willie Dasher to rub Patrone out when he gets back. Ness
#13 - The Nick Acropolis Story
Season 2 - Episode 31 - Aired 6/1/1961
Chicago, Summer 1931. Nick Acropolis is the new bookmaker in town, his territory is Illinois and the 6 surrounding states; he covers bets on horse racing, boxing matches, ball games, everything. By August, his operation is $2-million per month. And so Eliot Ness and his Untouchables are on the case; Enrico Rossi has a wiretap on one of Nick's betting parlors, run by Sully Hinds. Nick and his boys pay a visit to their bookkeeper, Louis Manzak, who is Nick's brother-in-law. Louis embezzled 200 grand of Nick's money, to make a side-bet on a boxing match, and lost. Nick roughs him up, and Louis' only excuse is, ""Who would have thought that Locks would lose a decision to Max Baer?""* Nick tells Louis to replace the dough, and fast-- or else! Nick demands the 200 grand in one month, and the usual gangster interest of 25% per month; but Nick wants the 50 grand interest payable in 48 hours. Louis tries to beg and borrow the 50 Gs; his sister Stella offers to come up with half of the 50
#14 - 90-Proof Dame
Season 2 - Episode 32 - Aired 6/8/1961
Chicago, April 1932. The city is ruled by underworld czars, one of the toughest of which is Nate Kester, former henchman for the Capone mob. To put up a pretense of legality, he owns and runs the Odeon Theatre, which specializes in Burlesque, but his real operation is bootleg booze. Kester has his boys drag in Henry Bogar, who has a 5-6 state territory selling imported brandy. Kester tells him that from now on he will carry his stuff-- cheap rotgut with forged ""de Bouverais"" cognac labels. Bogar tastes the stuff, and calls it slop; he says brandy drinkers will never buy it as long as the real stuff is available. So Kester decides to eliminate the competition, he destroys 200 cases of the good 90-proof stuff that Bogar has stashed in an old church. Next day, in retaliation, Bogar phones Ness and is about to blow the whistle on Kester: his booze, houses and dope operations. But Bogar is rubbed out by Kester before he can finish talking; luckily, Lee Hobson managed to have the call
#15 - The Night They Shot Santa Claus
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/25/1962
December 24, 1930. That evening, small-time mug Hap Levinson is playing Santa Claus at the Sackman Orphan Home. Santa brings toys and ice cream to all the waifs. He walks outside, waves good-bye, and is promptly machine-gunned to death by hoods in a speeding car. Quite a shock for all the kiddies. Killing Santa is not a federal crime, but Eliot Ness investigates. Hap was a friend of Ness' for 10 years; they had sort of a truce. If Ness was on official business, they were on opposite sides of the law; unofficially, they were pals. Hap was a frontman for Mike Volney who owns the Criss Cross Club; Volney trusted him, and Hap also kept his books and records for him. It doesn't figure that anyone would rub out a small potatoes guy like Hap, especially since almost everyone liked him. The only motive could be because a month ago, Volney had shot another hood named Augie over some silly bet; there were 4 witnesses counting Hap. 2 of the witnesses had been killed. Now, with Hap rubb
#16 - The Floyd Gibbons Story
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/11/1962
Chicago, October 1932. Within minutes of the time the Globe's top reporter Carlton Edmunds was shot, Eliot Ness and his men are on the scene. Ostensibly it appears a stray bullet in a gunfight hit Edmunds; he was just a passerby in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Lee Hobson picks up 4-5 pieces of cotton batting-- the gunmen were firing blanks: except for the one bullet that hit Edmunds, who was 30 feet away. The ""gunfight"" was staged to fool the sole witness to the shooting: newsman Barney Rusch. Ness tells Barney that earlier, Edmunds had said he was working on a story about scrap metal-- a story that would tear this town wide open. Just then, a cross-country flight, from East coast to West, has a stopover in Chicago; reporter Floyd Gibbons gets out at the terminal to make some phone calls. Globe-trotting reporter Floyd Gibbons is a fast-talking, straight-shooting whirlwind of activity; not even losing his left eye in World War I slowed him down-- for more than the past do
#17 - Search for a Dead Man
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/1/1963
June 1929.* A body is dumped into Lake Michigan; when it's fished out 3-4 weeks later, on July 10, the Bureau of Missing Persons has a John Doe on its hands. And so, Lt. Agatha Stewart and her sidekick Frank Benson are on the case. At the City Morgue, all the coroner can tell about the decomposed body is the approximate age, 50, and that the deceased might have had a bad heart. Outside, Lt. Stewart runs into Eliot Ness, who came down to do an I.D. on a Joe Fuselli. (not the Joe Fuselli from ""The Scarface Mob."") The morgue will keep the body for 10 days. July 20, in Potter's Field, the John Doe is buried in the rain; there are no mourners, only Lt. Stewart and reporter Walter Rimer attend. But then a clue-- a huge wreath is delivered by O'Banion florists; the delivery man doesn't know who ordered it, so Lt. Stewart goes to the flower shop. It had been owned by the notorious gangster Dion O'Banion (1892-1924), until he was rubbed out 5 years ago by Johnny Torrio. Now, the shop is
#18 - One Last Killing
Season 4 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/2/1963
February 1, 1933. Late that night, John ""The Cropper"" Cropsie, the Enforcer for Jules Flack (boss of the Westside combine), stood in the back alley behind the Lido Burlesque house, by the stagedoor entrance-- and pumped some slugs into David Alpine, the key booze supplier for the combine (because he was also selling to the competition). On the night of February 2, Eliot Ness is having Cropsie reenact the crime in front of an eyewitness to the shooting: Belle Alpine, David Alpine's widow. Ness asks her if she can identify him as the man who shot her husband. Belle walks up to Cropsie, slaps him across the face, and then blatantly lies to Ness that she never saw him before in her life. Meanwhile, with Repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Jules Flack is getting ready for the big switch, he is going to concentrate on narcotics. Flack wants to convert his assets into a couple of million bucks, so he can throw in with Luciano. Cropsie, who had been Flack's Enforcer for 13 years
#19 - The Maggie Storm Story
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/29/1962
Chicago, after the Repeal of Prohibition; (so this would be around 1934). With booze legal, the racket czars step up their dealings in narcotics. Ness and Lee Hobson are chasing 2 dope-pushers, one of them is Benny Rivas. After the shootout, one hood is dead; Benny moans, ""Get me a priest."" Ness finds heroin on him; wanting to die with a clear conscience, Benny says, ""808"" and dies. That leads Ness to Maggie Storm's 808 Club. Maggie runs the 808 Club, and she's the featured entertainer; Ness had raided her during Prohibition. Maggie-- who bears no grudge against Ness, in fact she likes him-- tells Ness she is running the club for a Mr. Charles Banner; Maggie says soon she will be Mrs. Charles Banner. Ness points out to Lee Hobson that half of the big-time operators in town are in the crowd, and there are a lot of out-of-town bigshots, too. After Ness leaves, the waiters mingle with the customers and read off some interesting items on the menu: 10 kilos of heroin, $110,000 in co
#20 - The Big Train (1)
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/5/1961
Movie: ""The Alcatraz Express"" (Disclaimer shown on screen) ""The events portrayed in this film are fictitious. The Federal Prison guards portrayed do not represent any actual persons, living or dead. ""Nothing herein is intended to reflect unfavorably on the courageous and responsible prison guards who supervised Capone during his internment in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta and during his transfer from Atlanta to Alcatraz."" Chicago, October 17, 1931. The 11-day trial of Al Capone ended, with the judge fining him $56,000 and sentencing him to 11 years in the Federal penitentiaries. On May 3, 1932, Capone is taken from Cook County jail to the Dearborn Station, to take a train to Atlanta. Nitti and his boys are there, as are Ness and his men. There is also a large crowd; to many of them, Al Capone, who had donated a few million dollars (peanuts to him) to support public charities like soup kitchens, he is sort of a hero. One well-wisher yells to Capone (referring to the Atlanta
#21 - The Nero Rankin Story
Season 2 - Episode 28 - Aired 5/11/1961
September 16, 1933. Although Eliot Ness had successfully destroyed The Underground Court (episode # 46), he had not smashed its parent organization, the big Syndicate, in control of over 50% of the nation's crime. With the death of Judge Foley, who was the chairman of the Syndicate, 5 top-ranking members are now assembling at a roadhouse on the outskirts of Chicago-- to vote on whether or not to appoint Nero Rankin as the new chairman; Nero had been designated by Foley to be his successor, in the event of his death. The 5 voting members are: Murray Brigger (boss of the Southwest), Lou Hyndorf (East Coast), Huey Barker (Midwest), Pat Polofski (Detroit), and Cy Brenner (New Orleans). Nero Rankin goes to his office. There is a secret vote. Huey Barker, Murray Brigger and another vote ""No."" Lou Hyndorf votes ""Yes"" and says ""because there's no one else""; one other member votes with him. 2 for, 3 against; Huey says, ""He don't make it."" But then Murray Brigger changes his vote, noting
#22 - Death for Sale
Season 2 - Episode 26 - Aired 4/27/1961
Chicago, last week of April 1933. Frank Nitti is offered a huge quantity of Chinese opium. Ever since the government had established the Bureau of Narcotics in 1930, the flow of opium from China to the USA had slowed to a trickle, and by 1932 the flow had almost ceased; now, with the end of Prohibition seeming imminent, the Syndicate is ready to deal in opium again. Late on the night of May 4, Nitti sends one of his top lieutenants, Ed Getty, to pick up some opium from Art Rele and his thug Cliff Anders. But Ness and Lee Hobson show up, too; in the shootout, only Art Rele escapes. On Getty, Ness finds some raw opium wrapped in a sheet of paper in an envelope. Later at Ness' office, the other hood is identified as Cliff Anders, who used to work for Phil Melnick, the one-time ""king of opium."" And so Eliot Ness and his Untouchables head to New York (on a train, not a plane as they usually do). Their only lead is the expensive bond paper that the opium was wrapped in; it was manufac
#23 - The Seventh Vote
Season 2 - Episode 29 - Aired 5/18/1961
Chicago, April 25, 1932. With Capone in prison doing his rap for income tax evasion, his 8 lieutenants are running things; their HQ is the Montmartre Club, in Cicero, 4 miles west of Chicago. Capone's booze trucks are being hijacked, his speaks are tommy-gunned; Capone's breweries are being smashed, and not just by Eliot Ness, but by rival gangs. Right now, the 8 overlords running the Syndicate are deadlocked over how to run things-- on one side are Frank ""The Enforcer"" Nitti, Brenner, Urcel and another lieutenant; on the other are Jake ""Greasy Thumb"" Guzik, Levinsky, Grecko and another lieutenant. A gang war is raging. Nitti's plenty sore. He slams his fist on the table and growls, ""6 breweries in 2 weeks, at 100 grand each!"" Guzik says he's not worried; booze is going out because Prohibition will be repealed soon. Nitti says at $60-million a year, booze is in. Guzik says that they should increase their narcotics racket: no breweries, no warehouses, no trucks-- only small pack
#24 - Nicky
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/3/1960
Chicago. By the middle of 1933, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables had almost checked the manufacture and sale of whiskey in Chicago. But the biggest operator was still in business: Giuseppe Marconi a.k.a. Gus Marco. He was an apparently respectable owner of a garage of taxis by day; but he trafficked in bootleg booze by night, he had a huge distillery underground in which he processed stolen industrial alcohol. Gus Marco is pulling a big job tonight; one of his honest taxi drivers, Mario Bousso (Nicky's father), is going to drive one of the trucks because he needs the money for his 2 kids. Gus' cousin Mike Marconi will be riding with Mario. Gus Marco had schmeared the lone federal guard of a government warehouse; for $2,500 he was assisting in the heist. 2 of Marco's trucks pull into the warehouse. They siphon off thousands of gallons of pure alcohol, worth half a million dollars; they refill the government barrels with water. But Ness and his men raid the place. There is a huge
#25 - The Mark of Cain
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/17/1960
Chicago, late Spring 1932. There is public protest about the increase in drug addiction. Charlie Sebastino has amalgamated all the small distributors into one big empire, setting himself up as emperor. Ness and his Untouchables had virtually shut down dope dealings, by nailing the big operators, but this network is run through small-time pushers. One of Charlie's pushers is a park worker known as Ragpicker; right now he's selling some heroin to 19-year-old Carol Royce. Later, Ness visits Carol in the hospital, where she is dying of an overdose; she identifies the Ragpicker, who works at the Williams Street Park. Carol dies. Ness tells the reporters to print the story. At a nightclub, Sticks is playing the drums. Charlie Sebastino is coming on to the beautiful nightclub singer. Ness and Rico and Lee Hobson barge in; Charlie's boy Puffy Oselle says to his boss, ""Sorry, I couldn't stop him."" Ness has a search warrant to look for the Ragpicker, but he's not there. Frank and Joe