"She will give you no trouble," Dominguez said, and then added something Marilyn didn't fully understand. "Ya está domesticada."
He had told Hidalgo she was already housebroken.
CHAPTER 14
"Then what?" Willis asked.
"A happy ending," she said. "I was with Hidalgo for a little more than a year. He called me in one day, handed me my passport, and told me I was free to go whenever I wanted to."
"How come?"
Marilyn shrugged. "Maybe I'd already earned what he'd paid to get me out of prison, I don't know. Or maybe he really was a humanitarian."
"I've never met a humanitarian pimp," Willis said.
"In any case, I went out on my own, stayed in B.A. for another four years, saved every nickel, and came here with a nice bundle."
"Two million bucks, you told me."
"More or less."
"Divide that by four years, that's five hundred thousand a year."
"Lots of big spenders in B.A. I was averaging three hundred a trick. You multiply that by four, five tricks a night, that comes to a lot of money."
Willis nodded. If she'd earned five hundred grand a year, at an average three hundred bucks a trick, then she'd been to bed with close to seventeen hundred men a year. Something like thirty, thirty-five men a week. Say five tricks each and every night of the week. For a full four years.
"Talk about damaged goods, huh?" she said, as if reading his mind.
Willis said nothing.
"Listen, that's what the girl in From Here to Eternity did, isn't it? The book? The girl in Hawaii?"
"I didn't read that book," Willis said.
"Didn't you see the movie?"
"No."
"Well…" She shrugged and lowered her eyes. "That's what she did."
He was thinking seventeen hundred men a year. Times four years is six thousand eight hundred men. Add the year she'd been working for Hidalgo, you could figure maybe eight, nine thousand. Marilyn Hollis had been to bed with what could be considered the entire male population of a fair-sized town, if all of them were men. Had there been a few hundred women in the total? Half a dozen police dogs? An Arabian stallion? Christ!
He shook his head.
"So now you walk," she said.
He didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, "None of them knew this, huh?"
"If you mean…"
"I mean McKennon, Hollander and Riley."
"None of them knew it," she said softly.
"How about Endicott? Did you tell him?"
"You're the only one I've ever told."
"Lucky me," he said.
The room went silent.
She kept looking at him.
"What are you going to tell your partner?" she asked at last.
"Not this, that's for sure."
"I meant… about my handling that bottle."
"I'll tell him what you told me."
"Do you believe what I told you?"
He hesitated for what seemed a long time.
Then he said, "Yes," and took her in his arms.
The handcuffed man sitting with Meyer and Hawes in the Interrogation Room was perhaps fifty years old, a dignified-looking gentleman wearing a brown sports jacket and tan trousers, a cream-colored sports shirt, brown socks and brown loafers. His hair was greying at the temples. His mustache was greying, too. The gun on the desk was a .38 Smith & Wesson.
"I've read you your rights," Meyer said, "and I've informed you that you may have an attorney present if you request one, and I've also informed you that you may refuse entirely to answer any questions, and may at any time during the questioning refuse to answer any further…"
"I don't want an attorney," the man said. "I'll answer any questions you ask me."
"And you know that this is a tape-recorder here on the table, and that whatever you say will be recorded and…"
"Yes, I understand that."
"And are you now willing to answer any questions Detective Hawes or I may put to you?"
"I told you yes."
"You do understand that you're entitled to an attorney if you…"
"I understand. I do not want an attorney."
Meyer looked at Hawes. Hawes nodded.
"May I have your full name, please?" Meyer asked.
"Peter Jannings."
"Would you spell the last name, please?"
"Jannings. J-A-N-N-I-N-G-S."
"Peter Jannings, is that correct? No middle name?"
"No middle name."
"And your address, Mr. Jannings?"
"5318 South Knowlton Drive."
"Any apartment number?"
"3-C."
"How old are you, Mr. Jannings?"
"Fifty-nine."
"You look younger," Meyer said, and smiled.
Jannings nodded. Meyer figured he'd been told this many times before.
"Is this your gun?" Meyer asked. "I'm indicating a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, Model 32, commonly known as a Terrier Double Action."
"It's my gun."
"Do you have a permit for it?"
"I do."
"Carry or Premises?"
"Carry. I'm in the diamond business."
"Were you in possession of this gun… I refer again to the Smith & Wesson, Model 32… were you in possession of this gun when the officers arrested you?"
"I was."
"Was that at three forty-five this afternoon?"
"I didn't look at my watch."
"The time given on the arresting officers' report…"
"If they say it was three forty-five, then I'm sure that's what it was."
"And were you arrested, sir, in a motion-picture theater complex called Twin Plaza…"
"Yes."
"At 3748 Knightsbridge Road?"
"I don't know the address."
"Where there are two theaters, sir. Twin Plaza One, and Twin Plaza Two. Am I correctly identifying the theater complex where you were arrested?"
"Yes."
"And you were in the theater called Twin Plaza One, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"Were you holding this Smith & Wesson, Model 32, in your hand when you were arrested?"
"I was."
"Had you recently fired the pistol?"
"Yes."
"How many times did you fire the pistol?"
"Four."
"Did you fire the pistol at a person?"
"I did."
"At whom did you fire the pistol?"
"A woman."
"Do you know her name?"
"I do not."
"Are you aware, Mr. Jannings, that a woman sitting in the seat directly behind yours… behind the seat you were occupying when the officers arrested you… was shot four times in the chest and head…"
"Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm the one who shot her."
"You shot the woman sitting behind you, is that correct?"
"I did."
"Do you know that the woman died on the way to the hospital?''
"I didn't know that, but I'm glad," Jannings said.
Meyer looked at Hawes again. On the tabletop, the tape kept unreeling relentlessly.
"Mr. Jannings," Hawes said, "can you tell us why you shot her?"
"She was talking," Jannings said.
"Sir?"
"All through the movie."
"Talking?"
"Talking."
"Sir?"
"She was talking behind me all during the movie. Identifying the characters. Oh, look, there's the husband! Oh, look, here comes the boyfriend! Uh-oh, there's a lion! Uh-oh, two of them! Explaining the locale. That's her farm. Now they're in the jungle. That's a doctor's office. He's the doctor. Second-guessing the plot. I'll bet she goes to bed with him. I'll bet the husband finds out. At one point, when the doctor says, 'You have syphilis,' the woman behind me said, 'She has what?' I turned to her and said, 'She has syphilis, madam!' She said, 'Mind your own business, I was talking to my husband.' I went back to watching the movie, trying to watch it. The woman said, 'Whatever it is, I think she caught it from the husband.' I controlled myself all through the movie, all through the incessant chatter behind me. Then, toward the end of the film, I couldn't bear it any longer. There was a long graveside speech, Meryl Streep reads this lovely poem, and then she walks off toward the edge of the cemetery and looks out into the distance and we know everything she's feeling in that moment, and the woman behind me said, 'That girl with the husband is the rich one he married.' I turned around and said, 'Madam, if you want to talk, why don't you stay home and watch television?' She said, 'I thought I told you to mind your own business.' I said, 'This is my business. I paid for this seat.' She said, 'Then sit in it and shut up.' That was when I shot her."