Los Angeles Noir 2

by Denise Hamilton

  It was raining, a little.

  R.F. Winfield stretched one long leg out and planted his foot on a nearby leather chair. The blonde woman got up and walked unsteadily to the phonograph. This latter looked like a grandfather clock, had cost well into four figures, would probably have collapsed at the appellation “phonograph”—but it was.

  The blonde woman snapped the little tin brake; she lifted the record, stared empty-eyed at the other side.

  She said: “’s Minnie th’ Moocher. Wanna hear it?”

  Mr. Winfield said: “Uh-huh.” He tilted an ice and amber filled glass to his mouth, drained it. He stood up and gathered his very blue dressing-gown about his lean shanks. He lifted his head and walked through a short corridor to the bathroom, opened the door, entered.

  Water splashed noisily in the big blue porcelain tub. He braced himself with one hand on the shower-tap, turned off the water, slipped out of the dressing-gown and into the tub.

  The blonde woman’s voice clanged like cold metal through the partially open door.

  “Took ’er down to Chinatown; showed ’er how to kick the gong aroun’.”

  Mr. Winfield reached up into the pocket of the dressing-gown, fished out a cigarette, matches. He lighted the cigarette, leaned back in the water, sighed. His face was a long tan oblong of contentment. He flexed his jaw, then mechanically put up one hand and removed an upper plate, put the little semi-circle of shining teeth on the basin beside the tub, ran his tongue over thick, sharply etched lips, sighed again. The warm water was soft, caressing; he was very comfortable.

  He heard the buzzer and he heard the blonde woman stagger along the corridor past the bathroom to the outer door of the apartment. He listened but could hear no word of anything said there; only the sound of the door opening and closing, and silence broken faintly by the phonograph’s “Hi-de-ho-oh, Minnie.”

  Then the bathroom door swung slowly open and a man stood outlined against the darkness of the corridor. He was bareheaded and the electric light was reflected in a thin line across his hair, shone dully on the moist pallor of his skin. He wore a tightly belted raincoat and his hands were thrust deep into his pockets.

  Winfield sat up straight in the tub, spoke tentatively “Hello!” He said “hello” with an incredulous rising inflection, blinked incredulously upward. The cigarette dangled loosely from one corner of his mouth.

  The man leaned against the frame of the door and took a short thick automatic out of his coat pocket and held it steadily, waist high.

  Winfield put his hands on the sides of the tub and started to get up.

  The automatic barked twice.

  Winfield half stood, with one hand and one leg braced against the side of the tub for perhaps five seconds. His eyes were wide, blank. Then he sank down slowly, his head fell back against the smooth blue porcelain, slid slowly under the water. The cigarette still hung in the corner of his clenched mouth and as his head went under the water it hissed briefly, was gone.

  The man in the doorway turned, disappeared.

  The water reddened. Faintly, the phonograph lisped: “Hi-deho….”

  Doolin grinned up at the waiter. “An’ see the eggs are four minutes, an’ don’t put any cream in my coffee.”

  The waiter bobbed his head sullenly and disappeared through swinging doors.

  Doolin unfolded his paper and turned to the comic page. He read it carefully, chuckling audibly, from top to bottom. Then he spread pages two and three across the counter and began at the top of page two. Halfway across he read the headline: Winfield, Motion Picture Executive, Slain by Sweetheart: Story continued from page one.

  He turned to the front page and stared at a two-column cut of Winfield, read the accompanying account, turned back to page two and finished it. There was another cut of Winfield, and a woman. The caption under the woman’s picture read: Elma O’Shea Darmond, well-known screen actress and friend of Winfield, who was found unconscious in his apartment with the automatic in her hand.

  Doolin yawned and shoved the paper aside to make room for the eggs and toast and coffee that the sour-faced waiter carried. He devoured the eggs and had half finished his coffee before he saw something that interested him on page three. He put his cup down, leaned over the paper, read:

  Man shot in Glendale Mystery. H.J. (Jake) Coleman, alleged gambler, was shot and killed as he came out of the Lyric Billiards Parlor in Glendale yesterday evening. The shots were fired from a mysterious black roadster which the police are attempting to trace.

  Doolin read the rest of the story, finished his coffee. He sat several minutes staring expressionlessly at his reflection in the mirror behind the counter, got up, paid his check and went out into the bright morning.

  He walked briskly down Hill Street to First, over First, to the Los Angeles Bulletin Building. He was whistling as the elevator carried him up.

  In the back files of the Bulletin he found what he was looking for, a front-page spread in the Home Edition of December 10th:

  MASACRE IN NIGHTCLUB

  Screen-Stars Duck for Cover as

  Machine-Guns Belch Death

  Early this morning The Hotspot, famous cabaret near Culver City, was the scene of the bloodiest battle the local gang war has afforded to date. Two men who police believe to be Frank Riccio and Edward (Whitey) Conroy of the Purple Gang in Detroit were instantly killed when a private room in the club was invaded by four men with sub-machine guns. A third man, a companion of Riccio and Conroy, was seriously wounded and is not expected to live.

  Doolin skimmed down the column, read:

  R.F. Winfield, prominent motion-picture executive, who was one of the party in the private room, said that he could not identify any of the killers. He said it all happened too quickly to be sure of any of them, and explained his presence in the company of the notorious gangsters as the result of his desire for first-hand information about the underworld in connection with a picture of that type which he is supervising. The names of others in the party are being withheld….

  Under a sub-head Doolin read:

  H.J. Coleman and his companion, Miss Mazie Decker, were in the corridor leading to the private room when the killers entered. Miss Decker said she could positively identify two of them. Coleman, who is nearsighted, was equally positive that he could not….

  An hour and a half later, Doolin left the Bulletin Building. He had gone carefully through the December file, and up to the middle of January. He had called into service the City Directory, Telephone Book, Dun & Bradstreet, and the telephone, and he had wheedled all the inside dope he could out of a police-reporter whom he knew casually.

  He stood on the wide stone steps and looked at the sheet of paper on which he had scrawled notes. It read:

  People in private room and corridor who might be able to identify killers of Riccio and Conroy:

  Winfield. Dead.

  Coleman. Dead.

  Martha Grainger. Actress. In show, in N.Y.

  Betty Crane. Hustler. Died of pneumonia January 4th.

  Isabel Dolly. Hustler and extra-girl. Was paralyzed drunk during shooting; probably not important. Can’t locate.

  Mazie Decker. Taxi-dancer. Works at Dreamland on Sixth and Hill. Failed to identify killers from rogues-gallery photographs.

  Nelson Halloran. Man-about-town. Money. Friend of Winfield’s. Lives at Fontenoy, same apartment-house as Winfield.

  Doolin folded and creased the sheet of paper. He wound it abstractedly around his forefinger and walked down the steps, across the sidewalk to a cab. He got into the cab and sat down and leaned back.

  The driver slid the glass, asked: “Where to?”

  Doolin stared at him blankly, then laughed. He said: “Wait a minute,” spread the sheet of paper across his knee. He took a stub of pencil out of his pocket and slowly, thoughtfully, drew a line through the first five names; that left Mazie Decker and Nelson Halloran.

  Doolin leaned forward and spoke to the driver: “Is that Dreamland joint at Sixt
h an’ Hill open in the afternoon?”

  The driver thought a moment, shook his head.

  Doolin said: “All right, then—Fontenoy Apartment—on Whitley in Hollywood.”

  Nelson Halloran looked like Death. His white face was extremely long, narrow; his sharp chin tapered upward in unbroken lines to high sharp cheekbones, great deep-sunken eyes; continued to a high, almost degenerately narrow forehead. His mouth was wide, thin, dark against the whiteness of his skin. His hair was the color of water. He was six-feet-three inches tall, weighed a hundred and eighty.

  He half lay in a deeply upholstered chair in the living room of his apartment and watched a round spot of sunlight move across the wall. The shades were drawn and the apartment was in semidarkness. It was a chaos of modern furniture, books, magazines, papers, bottles; there were several good but badly hung reproductions on the pale walls.

  Halloran occasionally lifted one long white hand languidly to his mouth, inhaled smoke deeply and blew it upward into the ray of sunlight.

  When the phone buzzed he shuddered involuntarily, leaned sidewise and took it up from a low table.

  He listened a moment, said: “Send him up.” His voice was very low. There was softness in it; and there was coldness and something very far-away.

  He moved slightly in the chair so that one hand was near his side, in the folds of his dressing-gown. There was a Luger there in the darkness of the chair. He was facing the door.

  With the whirl of the buzzer he called: “Come in.”

  The door opened and Doolin came a little way into the room, closed the door behind him.

  Halloran did not speak.

  Doolin stood blinking in the half-light, and Halloran watched him and was silent.

  Doolin was around thirty; of medium height, inclined to thickness through all the upper part of his body. His face was round and on the florid side and his eyes were wide-set, blue. His clothes didn’t fit him very well.

  He stood with his hat in his hand, his face expressionless, until Halloran said coldly: “I didn’t get the name.”

  “Doolin. D—double o-l-i-n.” Doolin spoke without moving his mouth very much. His voice was pleasant; his vowels colored slightly by brogue.

  Halloran waited.

  Doolin said: “I read a couple of things in the paper this morning that gave me an idea. I went over to the Bulletin an’ worked on the idea, an’ it pans out you’re in a very bad spot.”

  Halloran took a drag of his cigarette, stared blankly at Doolin, waited. Doolin waited, too. They were both silent, looking at one another for more than a minute. Doolin’s eyes were bright, pleased.

  Halloran finally said: “This is a little embarrassing.” He hesitated a moment. “Sit down.”

  Doolin sat on the edge of a wide steel and canvas chair against the wall. He dropped his hat on the floor and leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees. The little circle of sunlight moved slowly across the wall above him.

  Halloran mashed his cigarette out, changed his position a little, said: “Go on.”

  “Have you read the papers?” Doolin took a cellophane-wrapped cigar out of his pocket and ripped off the wrapper, clamped the cigar between his teeth.

  Halloran nodded, if moving his head the merest fraction of an inch could be called a nod.

  Doolin spoke around the cigar: “Who rubbed Riccio and Conroy?”

  Halloran laughed.

  Doolin took the cigar out of his mouth. He said very earnestly: “Listen. Last night Winfield was murdered—an’ Coleman. You’re next. I don’t know why the people who did it waited so long—maybe because the trial of a couple of the boys they’ve been holding comes up next week….”

  Halloran’s face was a blank white mask.

  Doolin leaned back and crossed his legs. “Anyway—they got Winfield an’ Coleman. That leaves the Decker broad—the one who was with Coleman—an’ you. The rest of them don’t count—one’s in New York an’ one died of pneumonia an’ one was cockeyed….”

  He paused to chew his cigar, Halloran rubbed his left hand down over one side of his face, slowly.

  Doolin went on: “I used to be a stunt-man in pictures. For the last year all the breaks have been bad. I haven’t worked for five months.” He leaned forward, emphasized his words with the cigar held like a pencil: “I want to work for you.”

  There was thin amusement in Halloran’s voice: “What are your qualifications?”

  “I can shoot straight, an’ fast, an’ I ain’t afraid to take a chance—any kind of a chance! I’d make a hell of a swell bodyguard.”

  Doolin stood up in the excitement of his sales-talk, took two steps towards Halloran.

  Halloran said: “Sit down.” His voice was icy. The Luger glistened in his hand.

  Doolin looked at the gun and smiled a little, stuck the cigar in his mouth and backed up and sat down.

  Halloran said: “How am I supposed to know you’re on the level?”

  Doolin slid his lower lip up over the upper. He scratched his nose with the nail of his thumb and shook his head slowly, grinning.

  “Anyway—it sounds like a pipe dream to me,” Halloran went on. “The paper says Miss Darmond killed Winfield.” He smiled. “And Coleman was a gambler—any one of a half dozen suckers is liable to have shot him.”

  Doolin shrugged elaborately. He leaned forward and picked up his hat and put it on, stood up.

  Halloran laughed again. His laugh was not a particularly pleasing one.

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” he said.

  They were silent a while and then Halloran lighted a cigarette and stood up. He was so tall and spare that Doolin stared involuntarily as he crossed, holding the Luger loosely at his side, patted Doolin’s pockets, felt under his arms with his free hand. Then Halloran went to a table across a corner of the room and dropped the Luger into a drawer.

  He turned and smiled warmly at Doolin, said: “What will you drink?”

  “Gin.”

  “No gin.”

  Doolin grinned.

  Halloran went on: “Scotch, rye, bourbon, brandy, rum, Kirsch, champagne. No gin.”

  Doolin said: “Rye.”

  Halloran took two bottles from a tall cabinet, poured two drinks. “Why don’t you go to the Decker girl? She’s the one who said she could identify the men who killed Riccio and Conroy. She’s the one who needs a bodyguard.”

  Doolin went over to the table and picked up his drink. “I ain’t had a chance,” he said. “She works at Dreamland downtown, an’ it ain’t open in the afternoon.” They drank.

  Halloran’s mouth was curved to a small smile. He picked up a folded newspaper, pointed to a headline, handed it to Doolin.

  Doolin took the paper, a late edition of the Morning Bulletin, read:

  MURDERED GIRL IDENTIFIED AS TAXI-DANCER

  The body of the girl who was found stabbed to death on the road near Lankershim early this morning has been identified as Mazie Decker of 305 S. Lake Street, an employee of the Dreamland Dancing Studio.

  The identification was made by Peggy Galbraith, the murdered girl’s roommate. Miss Decker did not return home last night, and upon reading an account of the tragedy in the early editions, Miss Galbraith went to the morgue and positively identified Miss Decker. The police are….

  Doolin put the paper down, said: “Well, well…. Like I said….” There was a knock at the door, rather a curious rhythmic tapping of fingernails.

  Halloran called: “Come in.”

  The door opened and a woman came in slowly, closed the door. She went to Halloran and put her arms around him and tilted her head back.

  Halloran kissed her lightly. He smiled at Doolin, said: “This is Mrs. Sare.” He turned his smile to the woman. “Lola, meet Mr. Doolin—my bodyguard.”

  Lola Sare had no single feature, except her hair, that was beautiful; yet she was very beautiful.

  Her hair was red, so dark that it was black in certain lights. Her eyes slanted; were so dark a green they were u
sually black. Her nose was straight but the nostrils flared the least bit too much; her mouth red and full; too wide and curved. Her skin was smooth, very dark. Her figure was good, on the slender side. She was ageless; perhaps twenty-six, perhaps thirty-six.

  She wore a dark green robe of heavy silk, black mules; her hair was gathered in a large roll at the nape of her neck.

  She inclined her head sharply towards Doolin, without expression.

  Doolin said: “Very happy to know you, Mrs. Sare.”

  She went to one of the wide windows and jerked the drape aside a little; a broad flat beam of sunshine yellowed the darkness.

  She said: “Sorry to desecrate the tomb.” Her voice was deep, husky.

  Halloran poured three drinks and went back to his chair and sat down. Mrs. Sare leaned against the table, and Doolin, after a hesitant glance at her, sat down on the chair against the wall.

  Halloran sipped his drink. “The strange part of it all,” he said, “is that I couldn’t identify any of the four men who came in that night if my life depended upon it—and I’m almost sure Winfield couldn’t. We’d been on a bender together for three days—and my memory for faces is bad, at best….”

  He put his glass on the floor beside the chair, lighted a cigarette. “Who else did you mention, besides the Decker girl and Coleman and Winfield and myself, who might …?”

  Doolin took the folded sheet of paper out of his pocket, got up and handed it to Halloran.

  Halloran studied it a while, said: “You missed one.”

  Mrs. Sare picked up the two bottles and went to Doolin, refilled his glass.

  Doolin stared questioningly at Halloran, his eyebrows raised to a wide inverted V.

  “The man who was with Riccio and Conroy,” Halloran went on. “The third man, who was shot….”

  Doolin said: “I didn’t see any more about him in the files—the paper said he wasn’t expected to live….”

  Halloran clicked the nail of his forefinger against his teeth, said: “I wonder.”

  Mrs. Sare had paused to listen. She went to Halloran and refilled his glass and put the bottles on the floor, sat down on the arm of Halloran’s chair.

  “Winfield and I went to The Hotspot alone,” Halloran went on. “We had some business to talk over with a couple girls in the show.” He grinned faintly, crookedly at Mrs. Sare. “Riccio and Conroy and this third man—I think his name was Martini or something dry like that—and the three girls on your list, passed our table on their way to the private room….”