“I remember.”
“It occurred to me that perhaps the name ‘Arnold Wilson’ had turned up in that file. So I called Merlo at home, long distance, just a few minutes ago.”
Detective Martin Merlo-who had lived and breathed the Butcher case since he was first assigned in the mid-’30s…
“I knew,” Eliot was saying, “that Merlo would know that file inside out, virtually have the damn thing memorized. I asked him if the name Arnold Wilson meant anything to him.”
“And it did?”
“Remember I mentioned that in the original Butcher investigation we had explored the theory that Watterson had had an accomplice of sorts? That some of the murders, the dismemberments, would seem to have required a second pair of hands?”
“You had a suspect… some fag butcher…”
“A young homosexual, yes, who worked on St. Clair Avenue. Like Watterson, he liked to prowl the skid row sections of town, preying on society’s dregs. And his name, as you’ve guessed, was Arnold Wilson.”
But could he be the same Arnold Wilson-the McCadden Cafe short order cook who had been so helpful to me? That skeletal, gimpy war veteran Wilson? And was he one of those cooks who butchered his own meat? I wondered.
“It’s still a common name,” I said, not knowing whether I wanted this to be true or not.
“Yes, but the description of the St. Clair Avenue butcher-shop boy was not common: he was a very pockmarked kid, very thin, very tall, Merlo said… perhaps as much as six four.”
Just last night, Arnold Wilson had been sitting on this same couch next to Peggy-had been alone with her.
“This description perfectly fits, incidentally,” Eliot said, “that of the eyewitness accounts of the one Mocambo robber who went unapprehended.”
“Which,” I said, “is no coincidence.”
“I think it’s time we had another talk with Lloyd Watterson,” Eliot said, sitting very straight. “Nate, I think we had the Dahlia’s killer in our hands-perhaps not the person who had her killed, and who provided this particular victim to Lloyd, for his perverse pleasures-but definitely the fiend who did the butchering itself.”
The phone rang and we both jumped.
“Hello,” I said numbly.
“Nate, thank God.”
It was Fred.
“What is it, Fred?”
“I’m at the Bradbury.”
“What? Working?”
“Yes-for you. I’m taking a turn at watching Watterson. He and Dailey and the Winter dame arrived here about half an hour ago-they’re in Dailey’s office. Listen, I don’t know what this means, but you may want to get over here right away.”
“Why, what…?”
“I just saw your wife go in there.”
22
On Saturdays, the Bradbury Building was locked up by one p.m.-about half the offices staying open until noon, the others dispensing with weekend hours-so Eliot and I again parked in the alley and I used my tenant’s key in the rear door, near the service entrance.
I had an idea I knew what was going on, and I had explained my theory to Eliot, chattering like a demented tour guide running stoplights and stop signs and wildly passing other cars in the fifteen or so frantic minutes from Beverly Hills to downtown L.A. He said little, just taking it in-but if a detective as astute as Eliot Ness did not contradict me, I knew I had to be on to something.
We flew up the five flights of stairs, golden sun streaming down through the skylight, filtering through the ornate ironwork, casting delicate filigree shadows; our footsteps echoed off the iron steps like small-arms fire in the vast hollow cavern of the Victorian building. No sign of janitorial staff or other tenants. On the fifth floor, Eliot-as I’d instructed-ducked into the A-1 office, to fetch handcuffs and a gun from Fred Rubinski’s small arsenal…
… while I barreled down the hall to the doctor’s office, nine-millimeter Browning automatic in hand.
Fred Rubinski was already inside-and I could hear his voice, jovial through the frosted glass. I had directed Fred to bluff his way in and keep anything from happening till I got there. Since Fred was a referral service for this high-class abortion mill, he would be humored by Dr. Winter and her senile mentor.
I burst into the waiting room, where only one chair was taken-by Barney’s wife, Cathy, sitting reading a Ladies’ Home Journal.
“Nate!” Cathy said. Casually beautiful in white blouse and black slacks, her dark hair up, the former showgirl looked at me with the wide, horrified eyes of someone who’d seen a ghost.
“Hello, Cathy,” I said. “You just sit there, all right?”
Everything in the coldly modern reception area looked aboveboard, nothing suspicious, nothing remotely sinister. Fred Rubinski, typically natty in a brown suit and green-and-yellow-striped tie, stood chatting with Dr. Dailey, in front of the receptionist’s empty window.
Gray-haired, salt-and-pepper-mustached Dr. Dailey-not in his white jacket today, rather a rumpled blue-gray tweed suit-at first smiled, and began to say, “I’m sorry, sir,” possibly to inform me the clinic was closed; then the plumpish, grandfatherly gentleman’s expression froze. Senile or not, he’d noticed the weapon in my fist.
Seeing me, Fred’s cheerful demeanor disappeared and the Edward G. Robinson face turned cop-hard.
Dr. Dailey said, “What’s going on here? I don’t understand…?”
“You rarely do, you old jackass,” Fred snapped, and he took the doctor by the arm and sat him roughly down in one of the waiting room chairs. “Sit there and shut up.”
And now Fred had a gun in his fist, too, a. 38. Cathy was covering her mouth with a red-nailed hand, and looked as though she might cry. Behind his wireframes, the doctor’s rheumy green eyes were open wide, as was his mouth, as if he’d been struck in the belly.
Pointing down the hallway, to the right of the receptionist window, Fred said, “Third door on the left.”
Cathy rushed over, catching me just as I was starting down. She clutched my arm. “Nate, you don’t understand… She just wasn’t ready… Please don’t hurt her.”
I lifted her hand off my arm. “She’s in there with a murderer, Cathy-go sit the hell down.”
Swallowing, a hand splayed to the side of her face, backing up, Cathy stumbled into a chair and collapsed into it, just as Eliot blew into the office. Seeing him-he too had a gun in hand, a big nasty-looking. 45-she looked like she might pass out.
“Back me up,” I said to Eliot.
He nodded, and followed me down the hallway.
Sick inside, trembling with fear, coldly enraged, I opened the third door on the left and the tableau within was one I would never forget.
Stretched out before me like an Aztec sacrifice, in a white hospital gown that had been lifted up and gathered about her waist, lay my wife-her private parts exposed, the unfolded flower of her in the centerstage spotlight of a ceiling-mounted flood-on crinkling white butcher paper on a shiny steel table with her feet in metal stirrups. Just beyond where she lay on the table was the sink, the faucet of which had been fitted with a hollow metal-and-rubber cylinder connecting to a coil of rubber hose attached to a hollow metal tube with a small slit on the end.
She looked so small, like a child, my petite bride; and quite astoundingly pretty despite the conditions and the locale-no makeup, her dark hair pinned up, her creamy pale skin lovely even under the harsh light, her big violet eyes startled, horrified, at the sight of me-and her mouth open but no sound coming out, as she stared at the intruder who was her husband, an intruder with a gun.
The smell of strong disinfectant made my nostrils twitch. The small operating room was as blindingly white and antiseptic looking as a House of the Future kitchen-cabinets and counters and sink and ceiling, chrome and Formica and tile and plastic-and I had not been in a room so blizzard-white since I awoke tied into a chair in Lloyd Watterson’s basement.