Two crooks pull a hotel robbery and get jewels and a briefcase. Next morning, a syndicate lawyer (Barry Atwater) hires Joe to get the briefcase back as it contains proof that the lawyer's client, mobster Vince Adante, is innocent. Joe goes to a fence, Eddie Richter, thinking the crooks will show up there to fence the jewels. It happens that way and a shootout follows. Richter the fence (Jay Robinson) gets killed. Not the first time Jay has been killed on Mannix. The casual way the two crooks regard the jewels makes Joe think the jewels aren't important and the briefcase is the real issue. Joe gets the lawyer to admit the briefcase contained a million dollars for a witness that can clear the mobster. Joe visits the hotel clerk who assigned the security boxes for the guests as he figured the clerk told the robbers which boxes to hit. The man refuses to talk and, later, shows up at Joe office just in time to die before he talks. Joe gets the police to tell the newspapers that the clerk talked before he died so the bad guys will come to Mannix. Joe gets police protection to help so, of course, Joe dodges them by switching cars with the lawyer. Joe sees the mobster's wife (Barbara Rhoades) and a partner of the mobster Johnny Larkin (James Luisi). They announce they are going to fire the lawyer and hire Mannix themselves. When Joe leaves them, he gets involved in a car chase that ends with his car going over an embankment. Of course the car explodes for no reason whatsoever. Thank God it was the lawyer's car. Joe hides out in the brush as the two bad guys get out of their car and see the burning car and conclude they had done a good job. Joe and Tobias go to the lawyer's house and find him dead. From there, Joe and Tobias go to another body at the pier which turns out to be Johnny Larkin. Next morning at the office, Joe figures out the whole deal. The money is for a breakout at the courthouse. Larkin put it up but staged the hotel robbery to get it back while appearing innocent. He wanted Vince to go down so he could take over. How Joe managed all this in an instance is another classic Mannix hunch. At this point the episode gets a bit too much. Joe and Tobias go to the courthouse as Tobias calls in other cops. These two manage to get taken hostage during the breakout and Joe gets wounded by gunshot. After screwing around with a police roadblock, the bad guys get out on the road but Joe and Tobias overpower them and everyone is captured. Why the bad guys would give up two women hostages for a cop and a PI is beyond me. The story was good up to the courthouse and then it seemed like nobody thought of a good ending so tacked on the escape.
A decent cast with many of them return performers to the Mannix series. Robert Reed's last appearance as Lt Tobias. Barbara is always pretty in her few scenes. Luisi is an intense bad guy. Jay Robinson is suitably slimy. Orlandi did many similar roles as a bad guy chieftain. Barry Atwater did many roles but I will always remember him as the vampire in the original Nightstalker mover.
Joe gets wounded and doesn't get paid. A typical Mannix case.
A decent cast with many of them return performers to the Mannix series. Robert Reed's last appearance as Lt Tobias. Barbara is always pretty in her few scenes. Luisi is an intense bad guy. Jay Robinson is suitably slimy. Orlandi did many similar roles as a bad guy chieftain. Barry Atwater did many roles but I will always remember him as the vampire in the original Nightstalker mover.
Joe gets wounded and doesn't get paid. A typical Mannix case.