The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy

  Twenty

  “The following Central Division and Detective Bureau officers temporarily assigned to the E. Short investigation are to return to their normal assignments, effective tomorrow, 2/6/47:

  Sgt. T. Anders - ret. to Central Bunco.

  Det. J. Arcola - ret. to Central Burglary.

  Sgt. R. Cavanaugh - ret. to Central Robbery.

  Det. G. Ellison - ret. to Central Detectives.

  Det. A. Grimes - ret. to Central Detectives.

  Det. C. Ligget - ret. to Central Juvenile.

  Det. R. Navarette - ret. to Central Bunco.

  Sgt. J. Pratt - ret. to Central Homicide. (See Lt. Ruley for assignment.)

  Det. J. Smith - ret. to Central Homicide. (See Lt. Ruley.)

  Det. W. Smith - ret. to Central Detectives.

  Chief Horrall and Deputy Chief Green wish me to thank you for your help on this investigation, most especially the many overtime hours logged in. Commendation letters will be sent to all of you.

  My thanks also—

  Capt. J.V. Tierney, Commander, Central Detectives.

  The distance between the bulletin board and Millard’s office was about ten yards; I covered it in about a tenth of a second. Russ looked up from his desk. “Hi, Bucky. How’s tricks?”

  “Why wasn’t I on that transfer list?”

  “I asked Jack to keep you on the Short case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re getting to be a damn good detective, and Harry’s retiring in ‘50. Want more?”

  I was wondering what to say when the phone rang. Russ picked it up and said, “Central Homicide, Millard,” then listened for a few moments and pointed to the extension on the desk across from him. I grabbed the receiver, catching a deep male voice in mid-sentence:

  “… attached to the CID unit here at Fort Dix. I know you’ve had a lot of confessions peter out on you, but this one sounds good to me.”

  Russ said, “Go on, Major.”

  “The soldier’s name is Joseph Dulange. He’s an MP, attached to the headquarters company at Dix. He made the confession to his CO, coming off a bender. His buddies say he carries a knife, and he flew to Los Angeles on furlough on January eighth. On top of that, we found bloodstains on a pair of his trousers—too small an amount to type. Personally, I think he’s a bad apple. He got in a lot of brawls overseas, and his CO says he’s a wife beater.”

  “Major, is Dulange near you right now?”

  “Yes. He’s in a cell across the hall.”

  “Do this for me, please. Ask him to describe Elizabeth Short’s birthmarks to you. If he does it accurately, my partner and I will be on the next transport flight out of Camp MacArthur.”

  The major said, “Yes, sir”; the Fort Dix half of the conversation broke off. Russ said, “Harry’s got the flu. Feel like a trip to New Jersey, bright penny?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “If that soldier comes up with the moles on Elizabeth’s rear end, I am.”

  “Ask him about the slash marks, the stuff that didn’t make the papers.”

  Russ shook his head. “No. It might excite him too much. If this is legit, we’re flying out on the QT and reporting in from Jersey. If Jack or Ellis get hold of this they’ll send Fritzie, and he’ll have that soldier in the electric chair by morning, guilty or otherwise.”

  The Fritzie crack irked me. “He’s not that bad. And I think Loew’s given up on the frame idea.”

  “You’re an impressionable penny, then. Fritzie’s as bad as they get, and Ellis—”

  The major came back on the line: “Sir, Dulange said the girl had three little dark moles on the left cheek of her, uh … derriere.”

  “You could have said ass, Major. And we’re on our way.”

  Corporal Joseph Dulange was a tall, hard-muscled man of twenty-nine, dark-haired, horse-faced, with a pencil-thin mustache. Dressed in olive drab fatigues, he sat across a table from us in the Fort Dix provost marshal’s office, looking incorrigibly mean. A judge advocate captain sat beside him, probably to make sure Russ and I didn’t try the civilian third degree. The eight-hour plane ride had been bumpy; at 4:00 A.M. I was still on LA time, exhausted but keyed-up. On the ride over from the airstrip, the CID major we’d talked to on the phone had briefed us on Dulange. He was a twice-married combat vet, a boozehound, a feared brawler. His statement was incomplete, but buttressed by two hard facts: he flew to LA on January eighth, and was arrested for Plain Drunk in New York City’s Pennsylvania Station on January seventeenth.

  Russ kicked it off. “Corporal, my name is Millard, and this is Detective Bleichert. We’re from the Los Angeles Police Department, and if you convince us you killed Elizabeth Short, we’ll arrest you and take you back with us.”

  Dulange shifted in his chair and said, “I sliced her,” his voice high and nasal.

  Russ sighed. “A lot of other people have told us that.”

  “I fucked her, too.”

  “Really? You cheat on your wife?”

  “I’m a Frenchman.”

  I moved into my bad guy role. “I’m a German, so who gives a shit? What’s that have to do with you cheating on your wife?”

  Dulange flicked his tongue like a reptile. “I give it the French way. My wife don’t like it like that.”

  Russ elbowed me. “Corporal, why did you take your furlough in Los Angeles? What were you interested in?”

  “Cunt. Johnnie Red Label. Excitement.”

  “You could have found that across the river in Manhattan.”

  “Sunshine. Movie stars. Palm trees.”

  Russ laughed. “LA’s got all of that. It sounds like your wife gives you a long leash, Joe. You know, furlough all by yourself.”

  “She knows I’m a Frenchman. I give it to her good when I’m home. Missionary style, ten inches. She got no complaints.”

  “What if she did complain, Joe? What would you do to her?”

  Deadpan, Dulange said, “One complaint, I use my fists. Two complaints, I slice her in half.”

  I broke in: “Are you telling me you flew three thousand miles to eat some pussy?”

  “I’m a Frenchman.”

  “You look like a homo to me. Gash divers are all repressed fruits, it’s been proven. You got an answer for that, shitbird?”

  The soldier-lawyer got up and whispered in Russ’s ear; Russ nudged me under the table. Dulange cracked his deadpan into a big grin. “I got my answer hangin’ ten hard, flatfoot.”

  Russ said, “You’ll have to excuse Detective Bleichert, Joe. He’s got a short fuse.”

  “He’s got a short pecker. All Krauts do. I’m a Frenchman, I know.”

  Russ laughed uproariously, like he’d just heard a real knee-slapper at the Elks Club. “Joe, you’re a pisser.”

  Dulange waggled his tongue. “I’m a Frenchman.”

  “Joe, you’re a hot sketch, and Major Carroll told me you’re a wife beater. Is that true?”

  “Can niggers dance?”

  “They certainly can. Do you enjoy hitting women, Joe?”

  “When they ask for it.”

  “How often does your wife ask for it?”

  “She asks for the big tensky every night.”

  “No. Asks to get hit, I mean.”

  “Every time I’m pallin’ with Johnnie Red and she cracks wise, then she’s askin’ for it.”

  “You and Johnnie go back a ways?”

  “Johnnie Red’s my best friend.”

  “Did Johnnie go with you to LA?”

  “In my pocket.”

  Sparring with a psycho drunk was wearing me down; I thought of Fritzie and the direct approach. “Are you having the DTs, shitbird? You want a little rap in the cabeza to clear things up for you?”

  “Bleichert, enough!”

  I shut up. The JA man glared at me; Russ straightened the knot in his necktie—the signal for me to keep it zipped. Dulange cracked the knuckles on his left hand one by one. Russ tossed a pack of cigarettes on the table,
the oldest “I’m your pal” ploy in the book.

  The Frenchman said, “Johnnie Red don’t like me to smoke ’cept in his company. You bring Johnnie in, I’ll smoke. I confess better in Johnnie’s company, too. Ask the Catholic chaplain at North Post. He told me he always smells Johnnie when I go to confession.”

  I started smelling Corporal Joseph Dulange as an attention-seeking drool case. Russ said, “Booze confessions aren’t valid in court, Joe. But I’ll tell you what. You convince me you killed Betty Short, and I’ll make sure Johnnie comes back to LA with us. A nice eight-hour flight would give you plenty of time to renew your acquaintance with him. What do you say?”

  “I say I chopped the Dahlia.”

  “I say you didn’t. I say you and Johnnie are going to stay parted for a while.”

  “I chopped her.”

  “How?”

  “On her titties, ear to ear and in half. Chop. Chop. Chop.”

  Russ sighed. “Let’s backtrack, Joe. You flew out of Dix on Wednesday, January eighth, you landed at Camp MacArthur that night. You and Johnnie are in LA, anxious to sow some wild oats. Where did you go first? Hollywood Boulevard? Sunset Strip? The beach? Where?”

  Dulange cracked his knuckles. “Nathan’s Tattoo Parlor, 463 North Alvarado.”

  “What did you do there?”

  Crazy Joe rolled up his right sleeve, revealing a forked snake’s tongue with “Frenchy” emblazoned below it. Flexing his bicep, the tattoo stretched. Dulange said, “I’m a Frenchman.”

  Millard pulled his patented reversal. “I’m a cop, and I’m getting bored. When I get bored, Detective Bleichert takes over. Detective Bleichert was once the tenth-ranked light heavyweight in the world, and he is not a nice man. Right, partner?”

  I balled my fists. “I’m a German.”

  Dulange laughed. “No tickee, no washee. No Johnnie, no story.”

  I almost leaped across the table at him. Russ grabbed my elbow and held it, viselike, while he bargained. “Joe, I’ll make you a deal. First you convince us you knew Betty Short. Give us some facts. Names, dates, descriptions. You do that, and when we take our first break, you and Johnnie can go back to your cell and get reacquainted. What do you say?”

  “Johnnie pint?”

  “No, his big brother Johnnie fifth.”

  The Frenchman grabbed the pack of butts and shook one loose; Russ had his lighter out and extended. Dulange took a monumental drag, exhaling a rush of words along with the smoke:

  “After the tattoo joint, me and Johnnie got a cab downtown and got a room. Havana Hotel, Ninth and Olive, deucesky a night, big cockroaches. They started makin’ a ruckus, so I put out mousetraps. That killed ’em. Me and Johnnie slept it off, then the next day we went cunt chasin’. No luck. Next day I get me this Filipino cunt at the bus depot. She says she needs bus fare to Frisco, so I offer her a fivesky to take on me and Johnnie. She says tensky minumum for two guys. I say Johnnie’s hung like Jesus, she should pay me. We go back to the hotel, all the cockroaches got loose from the traps. I introduce her to Johnnie, tell her he goes first. She gets scared, says, ‘You think you’re Fatty Arbuckle?’ I tell her I’m a Frenchman, who does she think she is, thinks she can high-hat Johnnie Red?

  “Cockroaches start howlin’ like niggers. The Filipino says Johnnie’s got sharp teeth, no sir. She runs like sixty, me and Johnnie hole up till late Saturday. We want cunt bad. We go by this army-navy on Broadway, and I get me some ribbons for my Ike jacket. DSC with oak leaf, silver star, bronze star, ribbons for all the Jap campaigns. I look like George S. Patton, only hung bigger. Me and Johnnie go to this bar called the Night Owl. Dahlia sashays in, Johnnie says, ‘Yes sir, that’s my baby, no sir, don’t mean maybe, yes sir, that’s my baby now.’”

  Dulange stubbed out his cigarette and reached for the pack. Russ jotted notes; I figured time and location, remembering the Night Owl from my days working Central Patrol. It was on 6th and Hill—two blocks from the Biltmore Hotel, where Red Manley dropped Betty Short on Friday, January tenth. The Frenchman, DT recollections notwithstanding, had gained another notch of credibility.

  Russ said, “Joe, this was Saturday the eleventh into Sunday the twelfth you’re talking about?”

  Dulange fired up another cigarette. “I’m a Frenchman, not a calendar. Sunday follows Saturday, you figure it out.”

  “Go on.”

  “Anyhow, Dahlia, me and Johnnie have a little chat, and I invite her over to the hotel. We get there and the cockroaches are loose, singin’ and bitin’ at the woodwork. Dahlia says she won’t spreadsky ‘less I kill ’em. I grab Johnnie and start boppin’ ’em with him, Johnnie told me it don’t hurt. But the Dahlia cunt won’t spreadsky till the roaches are disposed of scientific style. I go down the street and get this doctor. He gives the roaches poison injections for a fivesky. Me and Dahlia fuck like bunnies, Johnnie Red watches. He’s mad, ‘cause Dahlia’s so good I don’t want to give him none.”

  I threw in a cut-the-shit question: “Describe her body. Do a good job, or you won’t see Johnnie Red until you get out of the stockade.”

  Dulange’s face went soft; he looked like a little kid threatened with the loss of his teddy bear. Russ said, “Answer the man’s question, Joe.”

  Dulange grinned. “Till I cut ’em off, she had perky little titties with pink nipples. Kinda thick legs, nice bush. She had them moles I told Major Carroll about, and she had these scratches on her back, real fresh, like she’d just took a whippin’.”

  I tingled, remembering the “soft lash marks” the coroner mentioned at the autopsy. Russ said, “Go on, Joe.”

  Dulange ghoul grinned. “Then Dahlia starts actin’ nutso, sayin’, ‘How come you’re only a corporal if you won all them medals?’ She starts callin’ me Matt and Gordon and keeps talkin’ about our baby, even though we just did it once, and I wore a safe. Johnnie gets spooked, and him and the cockroaches start singin’, ‘No sir, that ain’t my baby.’ I want more cuntsky, so I take Dahlia down the street to see the roach doctor. I slip him a tensky, and he gives her a fake examination and tells her, ‘The baby will be healthy and arrive in six months.”

  More confirmation, smack in the middle of a DT haze—the Matt and Gordon were obviously Matt Gordon and Joseph Gordon Fickling, two of Betty Short’s fantasy husbands. I thought 50-50, let’s close it out for Big Lee Blanchard; Russ said, “Then what, Joe?”

  Dulange looked genuinely puzzled—past bravado, booze-brain memories and a desire to be reunited with Johnnie Red. “Then I sliced her.”

  “Where?”

  “In half.”

  “No, Joe. Where did you perform the murder?”

  “Oh. At the hotel.”

  “What room number?”

  “116.”

  “How’d you get the body to 39th and Norton?”

  “I stole a car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “A Chevy.”

  “Make and model?”

  “’43 sedan.”

  “American cars weren’t manufactured during the war, Joe. Try again.”

  “’47 sedan.”

  “Somebody left the keys in a nice new car like that? In downtown LA?”

  “I hot-wired it.”

  “How do you hot-wire a car, Joe?”

  “What?”

  “Explain the procedure to me.”

  “I forget how I did it. I was drunk.”

  I cut in: “Where’s 39th and Norton?”

  Dulange toyed with the cigarette pack. “It’s near Crenshaw Boulevard and Coliseum Street.”

  “Tell me something that wasn’t in the papers.”

  “I cut her to ear to ear.”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “Me and Johnnie raped her.”

  “She wasn’t raped, and Johnnie would have left marks. There weren’t any. Why’d you kill her?”

  “She was a bad fuck.”

  “Bullshit. You said Betty fucked like a rabbit.”

  “A bad rabbit
.”

  “All cats are gray in the dark, shitbird. Why’d you kill her?”

  “She wouldn’t go French.”

  “That’s no reason. You can get French at any five-dollar whorehouse. A Frenchman like you should know that.”

  “She gave bad French.”

  “There’s no such thing, shitbird.”

  “I chopped her!”

  I slammed the tabletop à la Harry Sears. “You’re a lying frog son of a bitch!”

  The JA man got to his feet; Dulange bawled, “I want my Johnnie.”

  Russ told the captain, “Have him back here in six hours,” and smiled at me—the softest smile I’d ever seen him give.

  So we left it at 50-50 moving toward 75-25 against. Russ left to call in his report and dispatch an SID team over to Room 116 of the Havana Hotel to check for bloodstains; I went to sleep in the BOQ room Major Carroll assigned us. I dreamed of Betty Short and Fatty Arbuckle in black and white; when the alarm went off I reached for Madeleine.

  Opening my eyes, I saw Russ, dressed in a clean suit. He handed me a newspaper and said, “Never underestimate Ellis Loew.”

  It was a Newark tabloid job bearing the headline: “Fort Dix Soldier Culprit in Sinsational Los Angeles Murder!” Below the banner print were side-by-side photos of Frenchman Joe Dulange and Loew, posed theatrically behind his desk. The text read:

  In a scoop to our sister publication the Los Angeles Mirror, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Ellis Loew, Chief Legal Officer on the mystifying “Black Dahlia” murder case, announced a major breakthrough last night. “I have just been informed by two of my closest colleagues, Lieutenant Russell Millard and Officer Dwight Bleichert, that Fort Dix, New Jersey Corporal Joseph Dulange has confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short, and that the confession has been validated by facts that only the killer would know. Corporal Dulange is a known degenerate, and I will be supplying the press with more facts on the confession as soon as my men return Dulange to Los Angeles for arraignment.”