- Tod and Buz, vacationing in Malibu, California, are drawn into the world of a paranoid Progressive Jazz trumpeter and his wife. Told largely in flashback by Buz, beginning innocently enough with Buz having made a connection with lounge songstress Kitty Parker.—dubchi
- In southern California, Buz is in the back of an ambulance that is rushing an injured and unconscious Tod to the hospital. At the hospital in the front seat of a squad car, Buz is telling the full story of what happened to Lieutenant Mangano, with a young woman, Jana Johnson, sitting in the back seat. The story started approximately twenty-four hours earlier, when Tod and Buz, treating themselves to three days of luxury, checked themselves into the beach suite of a Malibu resort. Although Tod is the one who is first attracted to the picture on the poster, Buz, as the jazz music aficionado, is the one who knows he can make the connection with beautiful jazz singer Kitty Parker who is performing in the resort's lounge. As Kitty can see that Buz truly is a jazz buff, she suggests the three of them go see renowned jazz trumpeter Gabe Johnson perform at a nearby club. Later that night, they, by chance, literally run into Gabe's wife - Jana - a poor little rich girl from New York, who became estranged from her wealthy society matron mother when she married Gabe and moved to southern California. Jana and Gabe are having problems in their marriage, Jana feeling isolated and alone without support of nearby family or friends, based largely on what she believes is Gabe's control of her life due to feeling like she will leave him if he doesn't keep her under lock and key. As she has tried to leave him in the past, she believes he is trying to kill her which is why she seems so frantic when the three first run into her. To the outside world, Jana's story sounds like paranoia. Tod, Buz and Kitty get in the middle of the Johnsons' marital problems leading to Tod and Buz's ambulance ride. As Tod goes into surgery, Jana and Gabe will have to play this phrase of their marital song to its final cadence, probably with some police intervention.—Huggo
- This episode starts off in an ambulance, with Todd Stiles (Martin Milner) unconscious and Buzz Murdock (George Maharis) near despair. Todd is so still and pale, he could be dead, or dying.
"How did it happen?" the doctor asks. "Hunting accdent", Buzz replies. "You know," the doctor jibes, "hunting is something of a hobby of mine- perhaps you can tell me what's in season around here now- because I don't know of anything." "Mmmm...us." Buzz replies."Just us."
Todd is whisked into the red brick hospital, and Buzz detained in a police car by a sympathetic detective, Lieutenant Mangano (Harold J. Stone), who asks,"Tell me how it happened...take it from the top." Flashbacks tell Murdock's reply.
Flush with a bank account, Buzz and Todd pull up to a swank oceanside motel. Checking in, they spot several attractive 'California girls' at the outdoor tables and decide this is truly paradise. They take an incline down to their surfside suite, and Buzz is buzzed to see that his favorite of the lunching ladies is, according to a brochure in the room, the local jazz vocalist, Kitty Parker (Barbara Bostock) who'll be appearing at the hotel bar & grill that night.
He makes contact with her at the show, impressing her with his knowledge of jazz, and the three go off - at her suggestion, to hear a (fictional) jazz great, Gabe Johnson (Jack Lord), playing at a local spot called The Malibu. Kitty and Buzz are thrilled at the music, Todd is tremendously bored. So bored, and so gallant in trying to hide it, that Buzz convinces Kitty to leave before the final set, and the three drive off, Kitty in the middle. They witness an accident, the driver of the crashed car is Jana (Anne Francis) who demands that they call the police when they stop to help. Don't you mean a doctor? No, my husband is trying to kill me. He did something to the car."
Her full name, as Kitty knows, is Jana Johnson and her husband is the trumpet player whose performance they've just left. That husband, Gabe Johnson, shows up when they are all down at the squad room, and she refuses to go home with him, near hysterical. Buzz and Todd bring her back to their beach suite.
There she sits and lounges, holding a revolver and delivering a monologue on Gabe's heavenly music and hellish personality. He's a jealous brute who has threatened to kill her rather than let her go. She dials phone call after phone call to New York, but nobody will take her call. Todd recognizes the names, though, right out of the social register.
She sits there all night, in the chair, holding the gun.
That morning, Todd hires a catamaran and Buzz helps him push it from the beach to the open water - refusing his invitation to sail - "After all, we promised the cops that somebody would stay with her, and the way she won't put down that gun - I'm afraid that the world might lose a trumpet."
Kitty breakfasts with Buzz, and makes it clear that Jana's a "couch case', a liar, a "flip", and that far from Gabe being jealous, it's him who wants to dump her; and she won't let him go.
Gabe comes after Jana, and a different reality is apparent. The three, with Jana sharing a bucket seat with Buzz and Todd behind the steering wheel, drive off into the California Hills- likely to the airport, as Jana is going home. It's on that drive - on the open highway, that Todd is shot.
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