by James Ellroy
“Let’s have the name of the place again, son.”
“It was called the Cornucopia Motor Lodge.”
“And Betty CT’d you again that night?”
“She … she said she had her period.”
“And you fell for that old chestnut?”
“Yes.”
“Did it make you mad?”
“Goddamn it, I didn’t kill her!”
“Sssh. You slept in the chair and Betty slept on the bed, right?”
“Right.”
“And in the morning?”
“In the morning we drove up to LA. Betty went with me on my rounds and tried to float me for a five-spot, but I turned her down. Then she handed me a cock-and-bull story about meeting her sister in front of the Biltmore Hotel. I wanted to get rid of her, so I dropped her in front of the Biltmore that night, right around five o’clock. And I never saw her again, except for all that Dahlia stuff in the papers.”
Millard said, “That was five o’clock, Friday, January tenth when you last saw her?”
Manley nodded. Millard looked straight at the glass, adjusted the knot of his necktie, then stepped outside. In the corridor, officers swarmed him, hurling questions. Harry Sears slipped into the room; next to me a familiar voice rose above the commotion. “Now you’ll see why Russ keeps Harry around.”
It was Lee, grinning a shit-eating grin, looking like a million tax-free dollars. I cuffed him around the neck. “Welcome back to earth.”
Lee cuffed me back. “It’s your fault I look this good. Right after you left, Kay slipped me a Mickey Finn, some stuff she got at the drugstore. I slept seventeen hours, got up and ate like a horse.”
“Your own goddamn fault for bankrolling her chemistry classes. What do you think of Red?”
“A pussy hound at worst, a divorced pussy hound by the end of the week. You agree?”
“In spades.”
“You get anything yesterday?”
Seeing my best friend looking like a new man made it easy to twist the truth. “You read my FI report?”
“Yeah, at University. Good work on the juvie warrant. You get anything else?”
I lied flat-out, a trim sharkskin figure dancing in the back of my head. “No. You?”
Staring through the one-way, Lee said, “No, but what I said about getting the bastard still goes. Jesus, look at Harry.”
I did. The mild-mannered stutterer was circling the interrogation room table, twirling a metal-studded sap, whacking it hard into the tabletop each time he circuited. “Ka-thack’s” filled the speaker; Red Manley, arms wrapped around his chest, quivered as each blow reverberated.
Lee nudged me. “Russ has got one rule—no actual hitting. But watch how—”
I shrugged off Lee’s hand and stared through the one-way. Sears was tapping the sap on the table a few inches in front of Manley, his stutterless voice dripping cold rage. “You wanted some fresh gash, and you thought Betty was easy. You came on strong, and that didn’t work, so you begged. That didn’t work, so you offered her money. She told you she was on the rag, and that was the final straw. You wanted to make her bleed for real. Tell me how you sliced her titties. Tell me—”
Manley screamed, “No!” Sears smashed the sap into the ashtray, the glass cracked, butts flew off the table. Red bit his lip; blood spurted out, then dribbled down his chin. Sears sapped the pile of broken glass; shards exploded all over the room. Manley whimpered, “No no no no no” Sears hissed, “You knew what you wanted to do. You’re an old cunt chaser, and you knew lots of places to take girls. You plied Betty with a few drinks, got her to talk about her old boyfriends and came on like a pal, like the nice little corporal willing to leave Betty to the real men, the men who saw combat, who deserved to get laid with a fine cooze like her—”
“No!”
Sears hit the table, ka-thack! “Yes, Reddy-poo, yes. I think you took her to a toolshed, maybe one of those abandoned warehouses out by the old Ford plant in Pico-Rivera. There was some twine and lots of cutting tools lying around, and you got a hard-on. Then you shot your load in your pants before you could stick it in Betty. You were mad before, but now you were really mad. You started thinking about all the girls who laughed at that tiny little dick of yours and all the times your wife said, ‘Not tonight, Reddy-poo, I’ve got a headache.’ So you hit her and tied her down and beat her and cut her! Admit it, you fucking degenerate!”
“No!”
Ka-thack!
The table jumped off the floor from the force of the blow. Manley almost jumped out of his chair; only Sears’ hand on the back slats kept him from toppling over.
“Yes, Reddy-poo. Yes. You thought of every girl who said ‘I don’t suck,’ every time your mommy spanked you, every evil eye you got from real soldiers when you played your trombone in the army band. Goldbrick, needle-dick, pussy-whipped, that’s what you were thinking. That’s what Betty had to pay for. Right?”
Manley dribbled blood and spittle into his lap and gurgled.
“No. Please, as God is my witness, no” Sears said, “God hates liars,” and sapped the table three times—Ka-thack! Ka-thack! Ka-thack! Manley lowered his head and began to dry sob; Sears knelt by his chair. “Tell me how Betty screamed and begged, Red. Tell me, then tell God.”
“No. No. I didn’t hurt Betty.”
“Did you get another hard-on? Did you come and come and come the more you cut her?”
“No. Oh God, oh God.”
“That’s right, Red. Talk to God. Tell God all about it. He’ll forgive you.”
“No, please God.”
“Say it, Red. Tell God how you beat and tortured and ripped up Betty Short for three fucking days, then cut her in two.”
Sears smashed the table once, twice, three times, then hurled it over onto its side. Red fumbled himself out of his chair and onto his knees. He clasped his hands and mumbled, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” then started weeping. Sears looked straight at the one-way, self-loathing etched into every plane of his flabby juicehound face. He gave the thumbs-down sign, then walked out of the room.
Russ Millard met him just outside the door and led him away from the general crowd of officers, in my direction. Eavesdropping on their whispered conversation, I picked up the gist of it: they both thought Manley was clean, but wanted to shoot him with Pentothal and give him a polygraph test to make sure. Looking back through the one-way, I saw Lee and another plainsclothesman handcuffing Red, easing him out of the interrogation room. Lee was giving the man the kid gloves treatment he usually reserved for children, talking softly to him, one hand on his shoulder. The crowd broke up when the three of them disappeared into the holding tank. Harry Sears went back into the cubicle and began cleaning up his mess; Millard turned to me. “Good report yesterday, Bleichert.”
I said, “Thanks,” knowing I was being sized up. We locked eyes. I asked, “What’s next?”
“You tell me.”
“First you send me back to Warrants, right?”
“Wrong, but keep going.”
“Okay, then we canvass around the Biltmore and try to reconstruct Betty Short’s movements from the tenth, when Red dropped her off, to the twelfth or thirteenth, when she got snatched. We blanket the area and collate the FIs and hope to hell the legit leads don’t get lost with all phonies this publicity is getting us.”
“Keep going.”
“We know Betty was movie-struck and promiscuous, and that she bragged about being in a movie last November, so my bet is that she wouldn’t turn down a roll on the casting couch. I think we should query producers and casting directors, see what we get.”
Millard smiled. “I called Buzz Meeks this morning. He’s an ex-cop, works as head of security at Hughes Aircraft. He’s the Department’s unofficial liaison to the studios, and he’ll be asking around. You’re doing well, Bucky. Run with the ball.”
I wavered—wanting to impress a senior officer; wanting to roust the rich lezzie myself. Millard’s p
ump job came on as condescending, bones of praise to keep a young cop from balking at his unwanted assignment. Madeleine Cathcart Sprague framed in my mind, I said, “All I know is that you should keep an eye on Loew and his boys. I didn’t put it in my report, but Betty Short sold it outright when she needed money bad enough, and Loew’s been trying to keep it kiboshed. I think he’ll sit on anything that makes her look like an outright tramp. The more sympathy the public has for the girl, the more juice he gets as prosecuting attorney if this mess ever gets to court.”
Millard laughed. “Bright penny, are you calling your own boss an evidence suppressor?”
I thought of myself as the same thing. “Yeah, and a shit-brained, grandstanding son of bitch.”
Millard said, “Touché,” and handed me a piece of paper. “Betty sightings—restaurants and bars in Wilshire Division. You can work it single or with Blanchard, I don’t care.”
“I’d rather canvass around the Biltmore.”
“I know you would, but I want foot beat men who know the area to work there, and I need smart pennies to eliminate the phonies from the tip list.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
Millard smiled sadly. “Keeping an eye on the evidence suppressor shit-brained son of a bitch and his minions to make sure they don’t try to coerce a confession out of that innocent man in the holding tank.”
I couldn’t find Lee anywhere around the station, so I checked out the tip list as a single-o. The canvassing territory was centered in the Wilshire District, restaurant bars and juke joints on Western, Normandie and 3rd Street. The people I talked to were mostly barflies, daytime juicers eager to suck up to authority or gab with someone other than the usual boon acquaintances they found in gin mills. Pressing for facts, I got sincere fantasy—virtually every person had Betty Short giving them a long spiel taken from the papers and radio when she was really down in Dago with Red Manley or somewhere getting tortured to death. The longer I listened the more they talked about themselves, interweaving their sad tales with the story of the Black Dahlia, who they actually believed to be a glamorous siren headed for Hollywood stardom. It was as if they would have traded their own lives for a juicy front-page death. I included questions on Linda Martin/Lorna Martilkova, Junior Nash and Madeleine Cathcart Sprague and her snow-white Packard, but all it got me was stuporous deadpans. I decided that my FI report would consist of two words: “All bullshit.”
I finished shortly after dark, and drove to the house to grab dinner.
Pulling up, I saw Kay storming out the door and down the steps, hurling an armful of paper onto the lawn, then storming back while Lee stormed beside her, shouting and waving his arms. I walked over and knelt beside the discarded pile; the papers were carbons of LAPD report forms. Sifting through them, I saw FIs, evidence indexes, questioning reports, tip lists and a complete autopsy protocol—all with “E. Short, W.F.D.O.D. 1/15/47” typed at the top. They were obviously bootlegged from University Station—and the very possession of them was enough to guarantee Lee a suspension from duty.
Kay came back with another load, shouting, “After all that’s happened, all that might happen, how can you do this? It’s sick and it’s insane!” She dumped the papers beside the other pile; 39th and Norton glossies glinted up at me. Lee grabbed her by the arms and held her while she squirmed. “Goddamnit, you know what this is to me. You know. Now I’ll rent a room to keep the stuff in, but babe, you stick by me on this. It’s mine, and I need you … and you know.”
They noticed me then. Lee said, “Bucky, you tell her. You reason with her.”
It was the funniest Dahlia circus line I’d heard so far. “Kay’s right. You’ve pulled at least three misdemeanors on this thing, and it’s getting out—” I stopped, thinking of what I’d pulled, and where I was going at midnight. Looking at Kay, I shifted gears. “I promised him a week on it. That means four more days. On Wednesday it’s over.”
Kay sighed, “Dwight, you can be so gutless sometimes,” then walked into the house. Lee opened his mouth to say something funny. I kicked a path through official LAPD paper to my car.
The snow-white Packard was in the same spot as last night. I staked it out from my car, parked directly in back of it. Huddled low in the front seat, I spent angry hours watching foot traffic enter and leave the three bars on the block— daggers, femmes and obvious sheriff’s dicks with that edgy look indigenous to bagmen. Midnight came and went; the foot traffic picked up—mostly lezzies headed for the hot sheet motels across the street. Then she walked out the door of La Verne’s Hideaway alone, a showstopper in a green silk dress.
I slid out the passenger side door just as she stepped off the curb, giving me a sidelong glance. “Slumming, Miss Sprague?”
Madeleine Sprague stopped; I closed the distance between us. She dug in her purse, pulling out car keys and a fat wad of cash. “So Daddy’s spying again. He’s on one of his little Calvinist crusades, and he said you shouldn’t be subtle.” She switched to a deft imitation of a Scotchman’s burr: “Maddy girl, ye should not be congregating in such unsuitable places. It would not do to have ye seen by the wrong people there, lassie.”
My legs were trembling, like they did while I waited for the first-round bell. I said, “I’m a police officer.”
Madeleine Sprague went back to her normal voice. “Oh? Daddy’s buying policemen now?”
“He didn’t buy me.”
She held out the cash and looked me over. “No, probably not. You’d be dressing better if you worked for him. So let’s try the West Valley Sheriffs. You’re already extorting La Verne, so you thought you’d try extorting her patrons.”
I took the money, counted over a hundred dollars, then handed it back. “Let’s try LAPD Homicide. Let’s try Elizabeth Short and Linda Martin.”
Madeleine Sprague’s brassy act died fast. Her face scrunched up with worry, and I saw that her resemblance to Betty/Beth was more hairdo and makeup than anything else; on the whole her features were less refined than the Dahlia’s, and only superficially similar. I studied that face: panicky hazel eyes caught by streetlight glow; forehead creased, like her brain was working overtime. Her hands were shaking, so I grabbed the car keys and money, stuffed them into her purse and tossed it on the hood of the Packard. Knowing I might have a major lead by the short hairs, I said, “You can talk to me here or downtown, Miss Sprague. Just don’t lie. I know you knew her, so if you jerk me off on that it’s the station and a lot of publicity you don’t want.”
The brass girl finally composed herself. I repeated, “Here or downtown?” She opened the Packard’s passenger door and got in, sliding over behind the wheel. I joined her, flicking on a dashboard light so I could read her face. The smell of leather upholstery and stale perfume hit me; I said, “Tell me how long you knew Betty Short.”
Madeleine Sprague fidgeted under the light. “How did you know I knew her?”
“You rabbited last night when I was questioning the barmaid. What about Linda Martin? Do you know her?”
Madeleine ran long red fingertips over the wheel. “This is all a fluke. I met Betty and Linda at La Verne’s last fall. Betty said it was her first time there. I think I talked to her one time after that. Linda I talked to several times, just cocktail lounge chitchat.”
“When last fall?”
“November, I think.”
“Did you sleep with either of them?”
Madeleine flinched. “No.”
“Why not? That’s what that dive is all about, right?”
“Not entirely.”
I tapped her green silk shoulder, hard. “Are you lez?”
Madeleine went back to her father’s burr. “Ye might say I take it where I can find it, laddie.”
I smiled, then patted the spot I’d jabbed a moment before. “You’re telling me that your sole contact with Linda Martin and Betty Short was a couple of cocktail bar conversations two months ago, right?”
“Yes. That’s exatly what I’m telling yo
u.”
“Then why did you take off so fast last night?”
Madeleine rolled her eyes and rolled “Laddie,” Scotch-voiced; I said, “Cut the shit and tell it straight.” The brass girl spat out: “Mister, my father is Emmett Sprague. The Emmett Sprague. He built half of Hollywood and Long Beach, and what he didn’t build he bought. He does not like publicity, and he would not like to see “Tycoon’s Daughter Questioned in Black Dahlia Case—Played Footsie with Dead Girl at Lesbian Nightclub’ in the papers. Now do you get the picture?”
I said, “In Technicolor,” and patted Madeleine’s shoulder.
She pulled away from me and sighed, “Is my name going into all kinds of police files where all kinds of slimy little policemen and slimy little yellow journalists will see it?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What do I have to do to keep it out?”
“Convince me of a few things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as first you give me your impression of Betty and Linda. You’re a bright kid—give me your play on them.”
Madeleine stroked the wheel, then the gleaming oak dashboard. “Well, they weren’t sisters, they were just using the Hideaway to cadge drinks and dinner.”
“How could you tell?”
“I saw them brush off passes.”
I thought of Marjorie Graham’s mannish older woman. “Any passes stand out? You know, rough stuff? Bull daggers getting persistent?”
Madeleine laughed. “No, the passes I saw were very ladylike.”
“Who made them?”
“Street trade I never saw before.”
“Or since?”
“Yes, or since.”
“What did you talk about with them?”
Madeleine laughed again, harder. “Linda talked about the boy she left behind in Hicktown, Nebraska, or wherever it was she came from and Betty talked about the latest issue of Screen World. On a conversational level, they were right down there with you, only they were better looking.”
I smiled and said, “You’re cute.”
