The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy

  The Elizabeth Short case has baffled authorities since the morning of January 15, when Miss Short’s nude, mutilated body, cut in half at the waist, was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. Deputy DA Loew would not reveal the details of Corporal Dulange’s confession, but he did say that Dulange was a known intimate of Miss Short. “Details will be forthcoming,” he said. “The important thing is that this fiend is in custody, where he will not kill again.”

  I laughed. “What did you really tell Loew?”

  “Nothing. When I talked to Captain Jack the first time, I told him Dulange was a strong possible. He bawled me out for not reporting before we left, and that was it. The second time I called I told him Dulange was starting to look like another crazy. He got very upset, and now I know why.”

  I stood up and stretched. “Let’s just hope he really killed her.”

  Russ shook his head. “SID said there’s no bloodstains in the hotel room, and no running water to drain the body. And Carroll had a tri-state bulletin out on Dulange’s whereabouts January tenth through the seventeenth—drunk tanks, hospitals, the works. We just got a kickback: Frenchy was in the jail ward of St. Patrick’s Hospital in Brooklyn January fourteenth to the seventeenth. Severe DTs. He was released that morning and picked up in Penn Station two hours later. The man is clean.”

  I didn’t know who to be mad at. Loew and company wanted to clear the slate any way possible, Millard wanted justice, I was going home to headlines that made me look like a fool.

  “What about Dulange? You want to brace him again?”

  “And hear about more singing cockroaches? No. Carroll confronted him with the kickback. He said he made up the killing story to get publicity. He wants to reconcile with his first wife, and he thought the attention would get him some sympathy. I talked to him again, and it was nothing but DT stuff. There’s nothing more he can tell us.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “The savior indeed. Joe’s getting a quickie discharge and we’re getting a flight back to LA in forty-five minutes. So get dressed, partner.”

  I put on my stale clothes, then Russ and I walked out to the sallyport to wait for the jeep that would take us to the airstrip. In the distance, I could see a tall uniformed figure approaching. I shivered against the cold; the tall man got closer. I saw that it was none other than Corporal Joseph Dulange.

  Reaching the sallyport, he held out a morning tabloid and poked at his picture on the front page. “I got the whole hog, you’re small print where Krauts belong.”

  I smelled Johnnie Red on his breath and sucker-punched him square in the chops. Dulange went down like a ton of bricks; my right hand throbbed. Russ Millard’s look reminded me of Jesus getting ready to rebuke the heathens. I said, “Don’t be so goddamn proper. Don’t be such a fucking saint.”

  Twenty-one

  Ellis Loew said, “I called this little meeting for several reasons, Bucky. One is to apologize for jumping the gun on Dulange. I was precipitious in talking to my newspaper people, and you got hurt. I apologize for that.”

  I looked at Loew, and at Fritz Vogel sitting beside him. The “little meeting” was in the living room of Fritzie’s house; the two days of Dulange headlines portrayed me as no worse than an overeager cop on a wild goose chase. “What do you want, Mr. Loew?”

  Fritzie laughed; Loew said, “Call me Ellis.”

  The setup hit a new bottom in the sublety department—way below the highballs and bowl of pretzels Fritzie’s hausfrau had served as amenities. I was supposed to meet Madeleine in an hour—and off-duty fraternizing with my boss was the last thing in the world I wanted. “Okay, Ellis.”

  Loew bristled at my tone. “Bucky, we’ve clashed a number of times in the past. Maybe we’re even clashing now. But I think we agree on a few things. We’d both like to see the Short case closed out and get back to normal business. You want to go back to Warrants, and as much as I would like to prosecute the killer, my part in the investigation has gotten out of hand, and it’s time that I returned to the old cases on my docket.”

  I felt like a bush league cardsharp holding a royal flush. “What do you want, Ellis?”

  “I want to return you to Warrants tomorrow, and I want to give the Short case a last go before I return to my old caseload. We’re both comers, Bucky. Fritzie wants you for his partner when he gets his lieutenancy, and—”

  “Russ Millard wants me when Harry Sears retires.”

  Fritzie took a belt of his highball. “You’re too raw for him, boyo. He’s told people you can’t control your temper. Old Russ is a sob sister, and I’m much more your type.”

  It was a good wild card; I thought of the disgusted look Russ gave me after I coldcocked Joe Dulange. “What do you want, Ellis?”

  “Very well, Dwight, I’ll tell you. There are four confessors still being held at City Jail. They’ve got no alibis for Betty Short’s missing days, they weren’t coherent when they were first questioned, and they are all violent, frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics. I want them reinterrogated, with what you might call ‘appropriate props.’ It’s a muscle job, and Fritzie wanted Bill Koenig for it, but he’s a bit too enamored of violence, so I picked you. So, Dwight, yes or no. Back to Warrants or Homicide shitwork until Russ Millard gets tired of you? Millard is a patient, forbearing man, Dwight. That might be a long time.”

  My royal flush collapsed. “Yes.”

  Loew beamed. “Go to the city jail now. The night jailer has released waivers for the four men. There’s a drunk wagon in the nightwatch lot, keys under the mat. Drive the suspects to 1701 South Alameda, meet Fritzie. Welcome back to Warrants, Dwight.”

  I stood up. Loew took a pretzel from the bowl and nibbled it daintily; Fritzie drained his glass, his hands shaking.

  The loonies were waiting for me in a holding tank, wearing jail denims, chained together and manacled at the ankles. The waivers the jailer had given me came with mug shots and rap sheets carbons attached; when the cell door was racked electronically, I matched pictures to faces.

  Paul David Orchard was short and burly, with a flat nose spread across half his face and long, pomade-lacquered blond hair; Cecil Thomas Durkin was a fiftyish mulatto, bald, freckled, close to six and a half feet tall. Charles Michael Issler had enormous sunken brown eyes, and Loren (NMI) Bidwell was a frail old man, shaking from palsy, liver spots covering his skin. He looked so pathetic that I double-checked his sheet to make sure I had the right man; child molesting beefs running back to 1911 told me I did. “Out in the catwalk,” I said. “Roll it up now.”

  The four shuffled out, scissor-walking sideways, their chains dragging the floor. I pointed them to a side exit adjoining the catwalk; the jailer opened the door from outside. The loony conga line scissored into the parking lot; the jailer held a bead on them while I found the drunk wagon and backed it up.

  The jailer opened the wagon’s back door; I checked the rear-view mirror and watched my cargo climb aboard. They were whispering among themselves, taking gulps of the crisp night air as they stumbled up and in. The jailer locked the door behind them and signaled me with his gun barrel; I took off.

  1701 South Alameda was in the East LA Industrial District, about a mile and a half from the city jail. Five minutes later, I found it—a giant warehouse smack in the middle of a block of giant warehouses, the only one with its street facade illuminated: KOUNTY KING LUNCH MEAT—SERVING LOS ANGELES COUNTY WITH INSTITUTIONAL FOOD SINCE 1923. I tapped the horn as I parked; a door beneath the sign opened up, the light went off, Fritzie Vogel was standing there with his thumbs hooked in his belt.

  I got out and unlocked the back door. The loonies stumbled into the street; Fritzie called, “This way, gentlemen.” The four scissor-walked in the direction of the voice; a light went on in back of Fritzie. I secured the van and walked over.

  Fritzie ushered the last loony in and greeted me in the doorway. “County kickbacks, boyo. The man who owns this place owes Sheriff Biscailuz, and he’s got a plainclothes lieutenant who’s
got a doctor brother who owes me. You’ll see what I’m talking about in a while.”

  I shut the door and bolted it; Fritzie led me past the scissor-walkers and down a hall reeking of meat. At the end, it opened into a huge room—sawdust-covered cement floors, row after row of rusted meathooks hanging from the ceiling. Sides of beef dangled from over half of them, in the open at room temperature while horseflies feasted. My stomach looped; then, at the rear, I saw four chairs stationed directly beneath four unused hooks and got the picture for real.

  Fritzie was unlocking the loonies’ manacles and cuffing their hands in front of them. I stood by and gauged reactions. Old Man Bidwell’s palsy was going into overdrive, Durkin was humming to himself, Orchard sneered, his head cocked to one side, like his butch-waxed pompadour was weighing it down. Only Charles Issler looked lucid enough to be concerned—he was fretting his hands and looking from Fritzie to me, his eyes constantly darting.

  Fritzie took a roll of tape from his pocket and tossed it to me. “Tape the rap sheets to the wall next to the hooks. Alphabetically, straight across.”

  I did it, noticing a sheet-draped table wedged diagonally into a connecting doorway a few feet away. Fritzie led the prisoners over and made them stand on the chairs, then dangle their handcuff chains loosely over the meathooks. I skimmed the rap sheets, hoping for facts that would make me hate the four enough to get me through the night and back to Warrants.

  Loren Bidwell was a three-time Atascadero loser, the falls for aggravated sexual assault on minors. Between prison jolts, he confessed to all the big sex crimes, and was even a major suspect in the Hickman child snuff case back in the ‘20s. Cecil Durkin was a hophead, a knife fighter and a jailhouse rape-o who played jazz drums with some good combos; he took two Quentin jolts for Arson and was caught masturbating at the scene of his last torch—the home of a bandleader who had allegedly stiffed him on payment for a nightclub gig. That fall cost him twelve years in stir; since his release he’d been working as a dishwasher, living at a Salvation Army domicile.

  Charles Issler was a pimp and career confessor specializing in copping to hooker homicides. His three procuring beefs had netted him a year county jail time; his phony confessions two ninety-day observation stints at the Camarillo nut farm. Paul Orchard was a jack roller, a male prostitute, and a former San Bernardino County deputy sheriff. On top of his vice beefs, he had two convictions for grievous aggravated assault.

  A little surge of hate juice entered me. It felt tenuous, like I was about to go into the ring against a guy I wasn’t sure I could take. Fritzie said, “A charming quartet, huh, boyo?”

  “Real choirboys.”

  Fritzie curled a come-hither finger at me; I walked over and faced the four suspects. My hate juice was holding as he said, “You all confessed to killing the Dahlia. We can’t prove you did, so it’s up to you to convince us. Bucky, you ask questions about the girlie’s missing days. I’ll listen in until I hear syphilitic lies.”

  I braced Bidwell first. His palsy spasms had the chair rocking underneath him; I reached up and grabbed the meat hook to hold him steady. “Tell me about Betty Short, pops. Why’d you kill her?”

  The old man beseeched me with his eyes; I looked away. Fritzie, perusing the rap sheets on the wall, picked up on the silence. “Don’t be timid, boyo. That bird made little boys suck his hog.”

  My hand twitched and jerked the hook. “Come clean, pop. Why’d you snuff her?”

  Bidwell answered in a breathless geezer’s voice: “I didn’t kill her, mister. I just wanted a ticket to the honor farm. Three hots and a cot’s all I wanted. Please, mister.”

  The geez didn’t look strong enough to lift a knife, let alone tie a woman down and carry the two halves of her stiff out to a car. I moved to Cecil Durkin.

  “Tell me about it, Cecil.”

  The hepcat mocked me. “Tell you about it? You get that line from Dick Tracy or Gangbusters?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Fritzie watching, measuring me. “One more time, shitbird. Tell me about you and Betty Short.”

  Durkin giggled. “I fucked Betty Short and I fucked your mama! I’m your daddy!”

  I one-two’d him in the solar plexus, hard little shots. Durkin’s legs buckled, but he kept his feet on the chair. He gasped for breath, got a lungful and went back to bravado: “You think you clever, don’t you? You the bad guy, your buddy the nice guy. You gonna hit me, he gonna rescue me. Don’t you clowns know that bit went out with vaudeville?”

  I massaged my right hand, still bone bruised from Lee Blanchard and Joe Dulange. “I’m the nice guy, Cecil. Keep that in mind.”

  It was a good line. Durkin fumbled for a comeback; I turned my attention to Charles Michael Issler.

  He looked down and said, “I didn’t kill Liz. I don’t know why I do these things, and I apologize. So please don’t let that man hurt me.”

  His manner was quietly sincere, but something about him put me off. I said, “Convince me.”

  “I… I can’t. I just didn’t.”

  I thought of Issler as a pimp, Betty as a part-time prostie, and wondered if there was a possible connection between them—then remembered that the hookers in the little black book questionings said she always worked freelance. I said, “Did you know Betty Short?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know of her?”

  “No.”

  “Why’d you confess to her murder?”

  “She … she looked so sweet and pretty and I felt so bad when I saw her picture in the paper. I… I always confess to the pretty ones.”

  “Your rap sheet says you only cop to hooker snuffs. Why?”

  “Well, I …”

  “You hit your girls, Charlie? You get them gone on hop? You make them service your pals—”

  I stopped, thinking of Kay and Bobby De Witt. Issler bobbed his head up and down, slowly at first, then harder and harder. Soon he was sobbing, “I do such bad things, nasty, nasty things. Nasty, nasty, nasty.”

  Fritzie walked over and stood beside me, brass knuckles coiled in both fists. He said, “This kid gloves routine is getting us nowhere,” and kicked Issler’s chair out from under him. The confessor-pimp screamed and flopped like an impaled fish; bones snapped as the cuffs caught the brunt of his weight. Fritzie said, “Watch, boyo.”

  Shouting, “Jack Roller!” “Nigger!” “Baby fucker!” he kicked the other three chairs to the floor. Now there were confessors dangling four abreast, shrieking, grabbing at one another with their legs, an octopus in county jail denim. The screams sounded like one voice—until Fritzie zeroed in on Charles Michael Issler.

  He roundhoused the knuckle dusters into his midsection, left-right, left-right, left-right. Issler screamed and gurgled; Fritzie yelled, “Tell me about the Dahlia’s missing days you syphilitic whoremonger!”

  My legs felt like they were about to go. Issler screeched, “I … don’t … know … anything.” Fritzie shot him an uppercut to the crotch.

  “Tell me what you know!”

  “I knew you at Ad Vice!”

  Fritzie winged rabbit punches. “Tell me what you know! Tell me what your girls told you, you syphilitic whoremonger!”

  Issler retched; Fritzie moved in close and worked his body. I heard ribs cracking, then stared off to my left, to a burglar alarm lever on the wall by the connecting doorway. I stared and stared and stared; Fritizie ran into my field of vision and wheeled over the sheet-covered table I’d noticed before.

  The loonies flopped on their hooks, moaning low. Fritzie got right up next to me, cackled in my face, then whipped off the sheet.

  The table held a naked female corpse, cut in half at the waist—a pudgy girl coiffed and made up to look like Elizabeth Short. Fritzie grabbed Charlie Issler by the scruff of the neck, hissing, “For your cutting pleasure, may I present Jane Doe number forty-three. You’re all going to slice her, and the best slicer buys the ticket!”

  Issler shut his eyes and bit through his lower lip. O
ld Man Bidwell went purple, starting to foam at the mouth. I smelled loosed feces on Durkin and saw Orchard’s wrists broken, twisted to right angles, bones and tendons exposed. Fritzie pulled out a pachuco toad stabber and popped the blade. “Show me how you did it, you filths. Show me what didn’t get in the papers. Show me and I’ll be nice to you and make alllll your hurt go away. Bucky, take off their cuffs.”

  My legs went. I stumbled into Fritzie, hurled him to the floor, ran for the alarm and pulled the lever. A code three response siren went off so good, so loud, so hard that it felt like its sound waves were what propelled me out of the warehouse and into the drunk wagon and all the way to Kay’s door with no excuses and words of loyalty for Lee.

  So were Kay Lake and I formally joined.

  Twenty-two

  Tripping that alarm was the costliest act of my life.

  Loew and Vogel succeeded in putting the hush on it. I was booted off Warrants and back into uniform—swingwatch foot patrol out of Central Station, my old home. Lieutenant Jastrow, the watch boss, was thick with the demon DA. I could tell he was checking out my every act—waiting for me to snitch or rabbit or somehow follow up on the big wrong move I had to make.

  I did nothing about it. It was the word of a five-year officer versus a twenty-two-year man and the city’s future District Attorney, backed by their hole card: the radio car officers who responded to the alarm were made the new Central Division Warrants team, a piece of serendipity guaranteed to keep them quiet and happy. Two consolations kept me from going crazy: Fritzie didn’t kill anybody, and when I checked the city jail release records I learned that the four confessors had been treated for “car crash injuries” at Queen of Angels and shipped to different state ding farms for “observation.” And my horror pushed me where I’d been too scared and stupid to go for a long, long time.

  Kay.