She was shaking her head, the red mane shimmering. “Mr. Heller… how can I thank you?”
I grinned at her. “If your marriage breaks up, and my marriage breaks up, maybe I can think of something. Otherwise, let’s skip it.”
“That another compliment?”
“I never saw anybody with better reverse-tassel action than you, Patsy.”
Her smile surprised me; her laugh was a shock to both of us.
Downstairs, as I was about to go out, she touched my arm and looked up at me. That pretty face-stripper hard but still alluring-softened, suddenly, and I could see the child she’d been. I hoped her child turned out better than she had-like I hoped mine turned out better than me.
The gorgeous pregnant redhead seemed almost embarrassed as she gazed up and said, “I was just… just trying to hold my marriage together.”
“Hey,” I said, tipping my hat, “I know the feeling.”
24
The following Monday I called Richardson and told him I was heading back to Chicago, midweek, and wouldn’t be available to work on the Dahlia story any longer. I did hope to get that puff-piece interview about the A-1, “Hollywood’s detective agency to the stars,” wrapped up before I left.
“Stop by tomorrow morning,” Richardson said on the phone, a twinkle in the eye of his voice. “Something may turn up to change your mind about goin’ home.”
There was nothing ominous about the way he said it, but considering I alone knew that the Dahlia case had been privately solved, and would remain (if I had any say in it) publicly unsolved, the city editor’s words made me uneasy.
I spent much of Sunday and Monday leading the L.A. A-1 staff of operatives (including Fred) in looking for Arnold Wilson, checking out the twilight world of the various skid rows of their city, of which there was no shortage.
The primary skid row was Main Street, with its low-end burlesque houses and stripper bars, and a platoon of B-girls who made Elizabeth Short seem innocent, in joints like the Follies Village, the Waldorf Cellar, and the Gay Way. Fred checked out the taxi-dance halls, Roseland (owned by Mark Lansom, incidentally) and Dreamland; and Teddy Hertel scoured the neighborhood around East 31st, where Lloyd had been living, and of course fine-tooth-combed Lloyd’s shabby flat.
Me, I worked Fifth Street from San Pedro to Main, where winos sold their blood to buy booze and slept it off in all-night movies, and where you could see more soldiers and sailors than on your average military base or aircraft carrier. Finally, late Monday morning, the guy behind the counter at the cigar store at 5th and Gladys-a corner where you could buy anything from a policy slip to a reefer to a chippie-recognized Wilson’s distinctive description (we didn’t have a photo). By Monday afternoon I found the flophouse on Main where Arnold Wilson had been living.
He had cleared out Saturday, around noon-leaving no forwarding address.
On Tuesday morning, I told Fred what I wanted done. We would contact agencies with whom we had reciprocal arrangements and have Wilson looked for in both San Diego and San Francisco, two prior known haunts of his (according to Patsy Savarino). Concentrate on skid rows, I said, and bars catering to sexual deviants. Fred thought that was a good plan-but what did I want done if somebody finds him?
“Sit on the son-of-a-bitch,” I said, “and call me. I’ll fly in from Chicago, immediately.”
Fred had a sick expression. “We’re kinda asking for them to… you know, abduct the bastard.”
“There’s a five-grand bonus for the man that finds him.”
“Five grand?”
“Not out of the business funds, Fred-my personal money.”
“… Okay. But a slimeball like this-knowing somebody’s after him, as he’s gonna gather when he learns about Lloyd-is gonna make every effort to disappear.”
I knew Fred was right. A guy who moved in criminal circles, whose private life was down among the human dregs of big cities, could surely find some sewer to vanish into.
“You heading over to the Examiner?” Fred asked.
“Yeah-gonna see if I can finally shake that p.r. article out of ’em.”
“D’you see the morning paper?”
“No.”
“Better take a look.”
The Examiner ’s front page told quite a story. Seemed Jim Richardson had been working late, Sunday night, when he received a phone call at his desk.
“Is this the city editor?” said a voice that Richardson described as “silky.”
“This is Richardson.”
“Well, Mr. Richardson, congratulations on the excellent coverage the Examiner has given the Black Dahlia case.”
“Thanks.”
“But things seem to be getting a little… bogged down.”
“Beginning to look that way.”
“Maybe I can be of assistance… Tell you what I’ll do. Watch the mail for some of the things the Dahlia had with her when she… disappeared.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things she had in her handbag.”
And the phone had clicked dead.
So Richardson said.
In the conference room at the Examiner, Bill Fowley and several other reporters were standing around an array of material spread out like a banquet before them. At the head of the long table, Richardson-in shirtsleeves and suspenders, his cigarette angling upward-cast his fish-eye on me as I entered. Oddly, a scent of gasoline was in the air, mingling with cigarette smoke.
“Heller! Nate!” Richardson gestured grandly from the head of the table. “Come right in, come right in, and see what the Postal Service brought us.”
Fowley, grinning, gestured at the table. “It’s goddamn Christmas!”
Yes, it was, and the presents (all of them reeking with gasoline) included:
Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate.
Her social security card.
A Greyhound Bus Station claim check for two suitcases and a hatbox.
A newspaper clipping about the marriage of an Army Air Force major named Matt Gordon with the name of the bride scratched out and “Elizabeth Short” written in, in ink.
Several photos of the beautiful black-haired girl with flowers in her hair and this serviceman or that one, on her arm.
A small leather item with the name “Mark Lansom” embossed on the cover-the fabled stolen address book.
Plus the oversize envelope these goodies had arrived in, a three-by-eight white number pasted with odd-sized letters cut from newspapers and magazines to form the following address and message:
To Los Angeles Examiner
Here is Dahlia’s belongings
Letter to follow.
“Do the cops know about this?” I asked Richardson.
My less than gleeful tone seemed to make the gaggle of reporters nervous-a few even had embarrassed expressions. But not Fowley, and certainly not the boss.
“Of course they do,” Richardson said. “Donahoe himself is on the way over, and so is Harry the Hat… This opens up whole new avenues. There’s seventy-five names in that address book.”
“You been handling this stuff?”
“Carefully, with a handkerchief… but there’s no prints.”
“How do you know?”
“The, uh, fiend who sent this apparently was well versed in contemporary police science, and knew soaking that stuff in gasoline would wipe out all traces of fingerprints.”
I nodded, and turned to head toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Fowley asked.
“I’m off this case. I’m tired of pretending I’m a newshound, and I don’t have any desire to get in the thick of it with the cops, either.”
Richardson hustled around the big conference table and cornered me at the door. His right eye stared at me while his left eye dogpaddled into position. “What about that interview?”
“Talk to Fred. You can call me at my office in Chicago. Glad to give you anything you need.”
“This story is heating back up.”
Very softly, I said, “You heated it back up, Jim.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”