Richard Diamond -- Butchers Protection

Richard Diamond, Private Detective starred Dick Powell as a wisecracking, song-singing former NYPD cop turned Manhattan private eye. In this episode, originally heard on 8 January 1950, a worried Italian butcher and his fellow independent meat-shop owners come to Diamond for help: a vicious protection racket is squeezing them for payoffs, threatening their families and their shops if they refuse. Diamond goes undercover, trades wisecracks with the muscle, and ends up using both his fists and his .38 before he can hand the gang to Lt. Levinson -- then wraps things up with a song at Helen's piano on Park Avenue.