Angel in black

10

Maybe Red Manley was new at cheating on his wife. Or maybe he needed a receipt, to make a claim against an expense account. Or maybe he was just a goddamn idiot.

Whatever the reason, Robert Manley had broken the first rule of philandering: on the evening of January eighth, at the Pacific Beach Motor Camp, he had signed his own name on the motel register; and so, incredibly enough, had his companion for the night, Elizabeth Short. Manley’s address was listed-8010 Mountain View Avenue, Huntington Park-as was his automobile license number.

Elizabeth Short had given only “Chicago” as her address. The lack of anything further-say, the St. Clair Hotel, or the A-1 Detective Agency-was small consolation.

“Chicago again,” Fowley said, as we looked at the register at the motel check-in counter. He grinned at me wolfishly. “Sure this ‘Dahlia’ dame ain’t some old girl friend of yours?”

“You never know,” I said, and grinned back at him, back of my neck prickling.

Huntington Park was five miles south of downtown Los Angeles, in the midst of an industrial district, and while Mountain View Avenue may not have lived up to the scenic promise of its name, the quiet residential street was a sizable step up from the tract housing of Bayview Terrace. At dusk, bathed in the dying sunlight Hollywood moviemakers called “magic hour,” the little Manley home seemed California idyllic: a modest green-tile-roofed pale yellow stucco in the Spanish-Colonial style with a well-tended lawn, a cobblestone walk bordered by brightly flowering bushes, and thorny shrubs that hugged the house like prickly bodyguards.

Fowley rang the bell, and-almost supernaturally fast-the door opened and a lovely young woman was standing there, raising a “shush” finger, the fingernail painted the same candy-apple red as the lipstick glistening on her full red lips. She was a honey-blonde with a heart-shaped face, big blue eyes, upturned nose, peaches-and-cream complexion and a trim, shapely figure wrapped up in a red-striped white seersucker sundress that left her smooth shoulders bare.

“Please be quiet,” she said, her voice hushed. “My baby’s sleeping.” I glanced at Fowley and he glanced at me-we each knew what the other was thinking: what kind of lunatic runs around on a dish like this?

“Sorry, ma’am,” Fowley said, almost whispering. He held up a badge-an honorary deputy’s badge the L.A. County Sheriff issued to certain reporters, which those reporters often used to imply they were law enforcement officers. “Are you Mrs. Robert Manley?”

After barely glancing at the badge, the big blue eyes blinked at us. She must have been about twenty-two, a kid herself-her pretty face still had a pleasing baby-fat plumpness.

“Yes, I am,” she said, alarm swimming in those big blue eyes.

I said, “Is your husband home, Mrs. Manley?”

“No, he isn’t. He’s in San Francisco on business-he’s a traveling salesman. In hardware.”

There was a joke in there somewhere, and it wouldn’t have taken much looking to find it, but I didn’t bother.

“Could we ask you a few questions, ma’am?” Fowley asked. “Would it be possible for us to step inside?”

Her eyebrows tightened and a vertical line formed between them, a single crease in an otherwise perfectly smooth face. “This is about that girl Robert picked up, isn’t it?”

Again, Fowley and I glanced at each other.

Nodding, I said, “Her name was Elizabeth Short.”

“I know,” Mrs. Manley said wearily. “I read the papers… Why don’t we sit in the kitchen? I have some coffee made. Just please be quiet-Robert, Jr., is sleeping, and believe me, you don’t want to wake him.”

She led the way through the sparsely but nicely appointed bungalow, venetian blinds throwing slashes of shadow across gleaming hardwood floors. A playpen scattered with stuffed toys sat amid a wine-colored angora mohair living room suite, and vaguely Spanish, mahogany-veneer furnishings-everything looked new, suggesting a young couple buying on the installment plan.

The kitchen was a compact, streamlined affair of white and two tones of blue; a scattering of the latest appliances lined the countertops, as did baby bottles. Another baby bottle warmed in a pan on the gas range, and a red telephone on the wall was like a splash of blood against the white tile. We sat at a white-trimmed blue plastic-and-chrome dinette set and sipped the coffee she provided.

“My name is Fowley,” the reporter said, his notepad out, “and this is Mr. Heller.”

“I’m Harriet Manley,” she said, sipping her coffee, her eyes wide and rather glazed-and, I noticed, slightly bloodshot. She had a lovely speaking voice, a warm alto, but-right now at least-her inflections were negligible, emotionless. “Bob is due home tonight. He and his boss, Mr. Palmer, are on their way back right now, from San Francisco… Did I say that already? I’m sorry.”

“Mrs. Manley,” Fowley asked, “what do you know about your husband and Elizabeth Short?”

“Bob phoned me from San Francisco this morning,” she said, in that same near-monotone. “He saw the story in the papers up there, and said he recognized the girl’s picture. Of course, I’d read about the, uh… read about it myself-it’s all over the front page.”

Fowley gave me a look that indicated he would take the notes, and I should ask the questions.

So I asked one: “What did Bob say about this girl?”

She was staring into her coffee. “He had given her a ride back from San Diego-just as a favor, he said. Nothing between them.”

“I see. And what did you say to this?”

“I’m… I’m ashamed to tell you.”

“Please.”

“… I asked him if he’d done it.”

“Done it?”

“If he’d killed that girl.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said, ‘Of course not, honey. Whatever made you think I did?’ ”

I searched for sarcasm in her tone but couldn’t find any. “And what did you say to that?”

She looked at me; it was like staring into the glass eyes of a doll. “Do I have to answer?”

“Of course not.”

Now her gaze returned to her coffee; her lips were trembling, just a little. “I said… because of your nervous trouble.”

“What nervous trouble was that?”

“Bob… Bob was discharged from the Army. What you call a ‘Section Eight.’ ”

I knew what that was, all right.

“Was he in combat?” Fowley asked, looking up from his notepad. “Did he have battlefield trauma-”

She was shaking her head. “No, not exactly. He was near combat, when he was overseas, on USO tours.”

Frowning, I asked, “USO tours?”

“Bob’s a musician-he was in the Army Air Corps band. Saxophone.”

“Really. Does he still work as a musician?”

“Sometimes. He’s in the union. He gets a call for a weekend job now and then: bars and nightclubs.”

So this guy was a traveling salesman and a weekend musician who played in bars. That a guy in those twin trades might pick up a little poontang here and there might come as no shock-unless you were, as I was, seated across from the striking beauty he was married to.

I asked, “What did your husband say when he called you from San Francisco?”

The full lips twitched in a nonsmile. “He said he figured the police would be around, sooner or later, and he didn’t want me hearing about this from anybody but him. I suggested he go talk to the authorities himself. I figured that would… look better.”

“You’re right,” I said. “What did your husband say to that?”

“He said he didn’t want to go looking for trouble. He had accounts to call on, and he was with his boss, and it would just be too embarrassing… He represents a pipe and clamp company, you know.”

Another easy joke to be found, had I been in the mood.

I asked, “How long have you and Bob been married?”

“Fifteen months. Robert, Jr., is four months old.”

Robert, Sr., was a hell of a guy.

“The day your husband drove back from San Diego with his passenger,” I said, tactfully, “that was last Thursday, just a week ago. Would you happen to remember what time he got home that night?”

She was already nodding. “He made it home for supper-probably six-thirty. We had some friends over, for bridge that evening-neighbors. I can give your their names.”

“Please,” Fowley said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Don Holmes,” she said, rather formally, and gave the particulars as the reporter scribbled.

Then I asked, “What about the next several days?”

“Bob was at home every day, working, calling buyers on the phone, until he left for San Francisco with Mr. Palmer-that was on Monday.”

If that were true, Manley had been out of town when the murder was most likely committed.

The phone’s shrill ring jolted all three of us. Harriet Manley was up like a shot, probably to make sure the thing didn’t jangle again and wake her baby.

“Hello,” she said.

Then her eyes tightened, and immediately softened.

“Hello, baby,” she said.

Fowley and I looked at each other: her other baby.

Covering the mouthpiece, eyes huge, the pretty housewife whispered, “It’s Bob… Do you want to talk to him?”

Shaking his head, Fowley patted the air, whispered back, “Better not tell him we’re here.”

Though her voice remained calm, her eyes danced; she obviously was torn, wondering whether to warn him.

“No, I’m fine… I love you, too… I believe you… I believe you… I believe you… I know you do… I know you do… I do, too… I miss you too… ’Bye.”

Hanging up the phone, she said, “He was calling from a pay phone, at a diner. He said he should be home by ten or eleven tonight… He has to stop at his boss’ place first. That’s where he left our car, before he and Mr. Palmer drove up to San Francisco.”

I asked, “Where does Mr. Palmer live?”

She was leaning against the counter, near the baby bottles. “Eagle Rock. I can give you the address, if you’d rather… rather pick him up there. Instead of here.”

“Would you like that, Mrs. Manley?”

“I think so.”

“Did Bob say anything else?”

“Yes. He said he loved me more than any man ever loved a wife.”

Her lip was quivering and I thought she might break down; but she did not. I believe she had made a decision that she would maintain her dignity in front of us.

Rising from the little plastic-and-chrome table, Fowley asked, “Would you happen to have any recent photos of your husband that we could borrow? For identification purposes?”

And publication purposes.

“We just had some taken,” she said, “by a professional photographer… If you’ll wait here…”

She exited the kitchen and returned moments later with a triple frame, from which she removed a grinning photo of her husband, a young, handsome if jug-eared fellow. “Do you want these, as well?” She indicated the other two photos-one of herself and Robert, beaming at each other, and another of the family with Robert, Jr., in his mother’s arms, mom and dad looking adoringly at junior.

Fowley said, “If you don’t mind.”

“Take them.”

I took them from her. Harriet Manley looked radiant in the photos, which were beautifully shot.

“We would appreciate it,” Fowley said, as we headed out through the living room, “if you didn’t talk to anyone else about this, especially if newspaper reporters should start coming around.”

“Oh, I won’t talk to any reporters,” she said.

Fowley, having no shame, stayed at it. “And if your husband calls back-”

“I won’t say anything. I know he has to… face up to this.”

“If he’s innocent-”

“He didn’t kill that girl, Detective Fowley. But he’s not ‘innocent,’ is he?”

“Are you going to stand by him?”

We were at the door, now.

“I’ll have to think about that. We have a son, after all, and I do love my husband very much. Bob has his flaws, his problems, but I never thought he was… stepping out on me. I never imagined-”

I said, “You don’t have to go on.”

Harriet Manley swallowed, her big blue eyes hooded. “Terrible… terrible.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to that poor girl, I mean.”

“Right.”

“She was… very pretty, wasn’t she?”

“Elizabeth Short? Yes. But if you don’t mind my saying so, not compared to you. Not nearly as beautiful.”

She managed a slight smile. “You’re kind, Mr. Heller.”

“Hardly. It’s the truth. Your husband’s a damn fool.”

“I know… I know. But I still love him, anyway.”

On the way down the cobblestone walk, “Detective” Fowley said, “Jesus Christ, she’s gonna forgive the bastard! What a woman… Where do I go to find a dame like that?”

I glanced back-it was after dark now, and the beautiful mother of Robert Manley’s son was watching us go, haloed in the doorway of the precious little bungalow on Mountain View Avenue. Red Manley had everything any man could ever hope for, and-whether a murderer or not-had risked it all for a piece of tail.

Then she disappeared, and I could hear the muffled sound of crying-Robert, Jr.’s. I had a hunch he wouldn’t be crying alone.

With Manley due back in town around ten tonight, we took time to grab burgers at a greasy spoon on Colorado Boulevard.

“Well, even if Red Manley isn’t our murderer,” Fowley said, dragging a french fry through a river of ketchup, “he’s how Elizabeth Short got from San Diego to L.A.”

“ Six days before her body was found,” I reminded the reporter, across from him in a booth.

“Yeah,” he said, chewing the fry, “but once we know where Bob dropped her off, we’ll know where to pick up her trail. And, anyway, who’s to say his alibis are gonna hold up? Maybe the little woman’s covering for him, and after she has time to stew over hubby straying, she’ll change her story.”

I nibbled at my cheeseburger. “If Red and his boss were in San Francisco when the coroner says Elizabeth Short was killed, then Manley’s biggest problem is going to be holding his marriage together.”

Fowley shook his head. “I can’t wait to see this sap. I’d kill the Pope in the May Company window for a night with that wife of his.”

“Not if I got my hands on the wop, first,” I said.

The Eagle Rock district was high on the foothills between Glendale and Pasadena. Manley’s boss, Mr. Palmer, lived on Mount Royal Drive, another quiet, if more exclusive residential street, in another Spanish-Colonial number, only this was no bungalow. The glow of a streetlamp mingled with the ivory wash of moonlight to illuminate the sprawl of red-tile-roofed, off-white stucco, a patio to one side, a two-car garage under the main floor, the rest of the house spilling up an elaborately landscaped slope with palm trees, century plants, and cacti. Lights were on in the place, a few anyway.

The night was chilly, almost cold. We left the ’47 Ford at the curb, across the street and down a ways, and Fowley peeked in the garage windows while I climbed the curving cobblestone path to the front door.

A heavyset Mexican maid in a pale green uniform answered my knock. I asked her if Mr. Palmer was home, and she said Mr. Palmer was not, but that Mrs. Palmer was. I said my business was with Mr. Palmer, excused myself, and walked back down the path.

“Only car in the garage is Manley’s,” Fowley reported. “Same license number he gave at the motel-a light tan Studebaker, prewar model.”

“Palmer isn’t home yet. His wife is, but I ducked her.”

“Okay, then-we wait.”

We waited, sitting in the Ford with the windows down while Fowley smoked one Camel after another. After a while, I got the old urge and smoked a couple, myself-I think it was right after Fowley said he was going to advise Richardson to call the Herald-American, Hearst’s Chicago paper, and get a crew out there sniffing around after the Short girl.

“Maybe we oughta send you, Heller,” Fowley said.

“What, and interrupt my honeymoon?”

Now and then headlights swept across us, as the occasional car made its way up quiet Mount Royal Drive-little or no through traffic, just neighborhood residents. Just after ten, a pair of powerful highbeams blinded us, as a big automobile swung into the driveway, the headlights flooding the red garage door.

We got out just as the driver-a tall, horse-faced man in a suit but no hat, revealing a balding dome-climbed out of the Lincoln Continental, a dark blue vehicle that blended into the night.

“Freeze!” Fowley called out, flashing the deputy sheriff’s badge.

Fowley gave the driver just enough time to glimpse the badge before he straight-armed the guy in the back, shoving him against the garage door, barking at him to assume the position.

On the rider’s side, Robert “Red” Manley was getting out onto the cement driveway, or rather was sneaking out, trying to slip away as Fowley was occupied with the man I figured was Palmer, Manley’s boss.

Manley-eyes wide and wild, mouth open-was maybe six foot, wearing a snappy brown sportjacket and tan slacks. He had the build of a defensive end, and was taking off like one, too, dashing across the lawn, tie flapping, weaving around exotic plants.

He hadn’t seen me; but I, of course, had seen him.

I cut around a cactus and threw myself at him, bringing him down in a hard tackle, and we both rolled down the slope of the lawn, dropping off the curb into the street. I hit the cement pretty hard, scraping the skin along my right hand, and yelped in pain, letting loose of him reflexively, which allowed him to scramble up and out of my grasp, and then he was running down the street, arms churning, like a Zulu trying to outrun another Zulu’s spear.

I didn’t have a spear and I didn’t have my nine-millimeter, either.

But I didn’t feel like chasing the fucker, so I just took off my shoe and took aim and hurled it.

The heel of the Florsheim caught the heel of the Manley household in the back of the head; the sound, in the quiet night, was like the popping of a champagne cork. It knocked him off balance, and he yiped like a dog getting its tail stepped on, as he tripped over his own feet, tumbling to a stop against a curb.

I walked over and collected my shoe, put it on, and then I walked over and collected Robert Manley.

“First you trip over your dick, Bob,” I said, “and now you trip over your own feet.”

As I hauled him by the arm to those feet, he blurted, “I know what this is about!”

“Swell,” I said, and patted him down for a weapon. Clean.

He put his hands up without being asked. His hair was a tousle of red curls, his face pale except where it was shadowed from not having shaved since morning. “Listen, I knew Beth Short.” His voice was youthful, breathy. “I turned sick inside when I read the paper in San Francisco, this morning.”

“You just hadn’t got around to calling the cops about what you knew.”

“Are you kidding? Think of the publicity! I got a beautiful wife and four-month-old son! What would you have done?”

“Kept my pecker in my pants,” I said, and yanked him back toward the house.

Manley’s boss professed to know nothing about Red’s connection to the already notorious “Werewolf” slaying, and generously-if nervously-turned over his kitchen for the questioning of his employee. I got a glimpse into the living room of the Spanish-appointed home, through a dining room archway, where Manley’s balding boss was hurriedly explaining the situation to his wife, a pleasant if distressed-looking fortyish brunette in a house robe, then herding her off, away from the “police” who had taken Robert Manley into their custody.

Like the one in Manley’s home, the Palmer kitchen was streamlined and white and modern-but about three times the size, and touched with two tones of green, not blue. We sat at a green-and-white chrome-and-steel dinette, one of us on either side of Manley, who we allowed to smoke. He had taken off his brown sportjacket, slinging it over the back of his chair, and sat in his shirtsleeves, suspenders, and a green-and-brown tie that, oddly, seemed perfectly coordinated with the kitchen around us.

“I’m just sick to my stomach,” he said, and he did look pale enough to puke. “My poor wife. What have I done to her? Jesus, my wife.”

Again, Fowley took notes and I took the lead, where the questioning was concerned.

“Where and when did you meet Elizabeth Short?”

“It was a late afternoon in December-couple weeks before Christmas. She was just this pretty black-haired dish, standing on the corner near the Western Airlines office. Just standing there, not crossing with the light or anything, kind of… distracted. I went around the block, and she was still there, so I pulled over and offered her a lift. She played hard to get awhile, and I told her I was in town on business, could use a little help getting to know my way around San Diego, and… finally she let me give her a ride home.”

“Home.”

He nodded, breathing smoke out his nostrils. “To Pacific Beach, those people she was staying with, the Frenches. We went out a couple times-nothing happened. Kissed her a few times.”

“Did she know you were married?”

“Yeah. But I told her my wife and me were at a sort of crossroads, that it didn’t look like it was gonna work out. And, anyway, I thought at first Beth was married, too, ’cause she wore what looked like a wedding band. But then later she said her husband, this Matt she talked about all the time, was killed in the war. Officer in the Army Air Corps. I think she liked that I had been in the Air Corps, too.”

“You didn’t tell her you were discharged on a Section Eight.”

He winced, flicked ash into a green Bakelite tray. “You know that? How do you know that?… Anyway, it was an honorable discharge. Lot of guys got out on a Section Eight.”

“I know. Me, too.”

That perked him up; I’d made myself a little more likable. “You, too? You’re a vet?”

“Yeah. Marines. I understand you were in the Army Air Corps band.”

“Yeah, yeah, I was. Loved it-I mean, I couldn’t fit in with the Army ways, you know? All that discipline, regimentation.”

“You’re a free spirit.”

“Well, I’m a musician. Sax man.”

“Still?”

“Weekends and such. It’s pretty hard to do as a profession, music-you’ve got to have something special. I’m good, but… not special, not really.”

“What were you doin’, Red, running around on that pretty little wife of yours?”

“How do you know she’s pretty? She’s pretty, all right, but… how do you know?”

“We spoke with her.”

He hung his head, shook it. “Oh, Christ. Oh, Jesus.” Now he looked up. “Is she all right?”

“She didn’t break down on us or anything.”

“No… no, she wouldn’t.”

“But, Red-do you figure she’s ‘all right’ with her husband chippying on her?”

He sighed smoke, gestured with the cigarette. “Look… I don’t expect you to understand, but… I was just trying to give myself a little test.”

“A test?”

“Yeah-see if I could resist a good-looking dame like Beth Short. See if I still loved my wife.”

“How did you do?”

He twitched a grimace. “I said you wouldn’t understand. We just had a baby. You married?”

“Yes.”

“Any kids?”

“One on the way.”

“You’ll see, you’ll see. Nobody talks about it-nobody ever talks about it… your wife won’t want to have relations, you know, after she has the baby. Not for a while.”

“It’s called recuperation, Red. Giving birth to a kid is no picnic.”

“I know, I know… and then… when your wife does want to have… relations again… you may find you don’t feel the same.”

“The same?”

“She just didn’t seem… like the same person. Harriet was a real sexy baby, when we dated. But now she’s a… she’s a mom

… A kid came out of her, down there. And the baby, crying all the time, up all night, baby made me… nervous. I got nervous trouble anyway, you know-that’s why I got Sectioned Eight. Don’t think I don’t feel guilty about it. You think I don’t feel like a rat?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I do. I talked to doctors over at the veterans hospital, a couple times, and they gave me some pills, for my nerves. I told them that putting my… you know, putting it into my wife, after a baby came out of her, made me feel queasy, and they-Aw, shit. I sound like a fucking creep, don’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, fuck you, Charley. You’ll see. There’s a readjustment period, for a guy, after his wife gives birth. And Beth Short…” He shrugged, drew on the cigarette. “… she was just part of my readjustment.”

“She was the test you gave yourself.”

“Yeah. And I didn’t have relations with her, understand? Never! I took her out for dancing and drinks and a few meals, and that was it. Usually this place called the Hacienda Club. This was during about a week when I was in San Diego, seeing my accounts. I’m a hardware salesman-did I tell you that?”

“Palmer’s your boss. You deal in pipe.”

He studied me, trying to find the sarcasm in that; he didn’t look hard enough.

“Anyway,” he said, “I was going back and forth about my marriage-mentally, I mean. Loving my little son, not attracted to my wife anymore. I told the doc at the veterans hospital I thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and he said I was doing fine and gave me some more pills. And also I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl.”

“Beth Short.”

“She was so damn pretty. So different from Harriet… Oh, Harriet’s pretty, real pretty, but Beth was sort of… I don’t know, exotic, with those spooky clear blue eyes and all that black hair and those black clothes and stockings and white flowers in her hair and all. Did you know she was called ‘the Black Dahlia’?”

“I heard that.”

“And Beth seemed so… worldly. So much older than her years. You know, she was in the movies, had all these big friends, like that famous director that was gonna give her a screen test.”

“Did she mention his name? This director?”

“No. She just smiled and laughed and said I’d be amazed, like as if it was gonna turn out to be Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford or something… which is all the movie directors I ever heard of, by the way. So I decided to see her again, when it was time to go back to San Diego, and service my accounts.”

The jokes were just too easy to bother making, with this guy.

“The Frenches don’t have a phone,” he was saying, “so I wired Beth I’d be down. Then when I got there, she said she was wearing her welcome out with the Frenches, and could I drive her back to L.A.?”

“This was on January eighth?”

“I guess. It was last Wednesday, I mean a week ago Wednesday. Was that the eighth?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it was the eighth. I couldn’t take her back that night, ’cause I still had some accounts to see, in San Diego, the next morning. So we went out, again. Funny thing, for all her worldliness and fancy clothes, she was a cheap date. Preferred drive-in joints to posh restaurants.”

“Is that where you took her, that night, a drive-in?”

“To a little burger joint called Sheldon’s, not far from the Frenches. I did take her to the U.S. Grant Hotel-that’s about as fancy as we ever got-’cause they had a hot band playing that night, and I wanted to hear it.”

“But you wound up staying at the Pacific Beach Motor Camp, right?”

“Right. And we did some club-hopping… She drank a little more than usual; she wasn’t really a drinker, got a little sick, a little moody. When we finally landed at the motel, and she got undressed, I noticed something that, you know in retrospect, might be important.”

“Yeah?”

“She had red scratch marks on her arms. Forearms. I asked her about them, and she said she had a jealous boy friend. Which is a disturbing thing to hear a girl undressing in a motel room say.”

“She mention a name?”

“No-just that he was Italian, and ‘cute,’ but ‘not a very nice guy at all.’ ”

“Were these recent scratches?”

“I thought they were, ’cause they were bleeding a little; but she claimed the guy did it, her boy friend, before she came down to San Diego. That she just had a nervous habit of picking at the wounds.”

“And you spent the night?”

“Yeah-but we didn’t sleep together! She was feeling punk, actually. I made a fire-it was a cozy little cabin; it would have been perfect for romance, but it didn’t go that way.”

“What way did it go?”

“She was shivering, like she had the flu or something, coughing. She was sitting in a chair by the fire, bundled up in blankets. I offered her the bed, said I’d sleep in the chair, but she said no.”

“So you took the bed.”

“Yeah, and in the morning when I woke up, she was next to me in bed, or on top of it, pillow propped behind her, wide awake. I asked her if she’d slept at all and she shook her head no. I looked at my watch and saw I was late for my first appointment, and took a powder out of there-advising her to catch a few winks before I got back at noon, which was checkout time.”

“And that’s when you got on the road?”

“My morning calls ran late-we didn’t hit the road till twelve-thirty, quarter to one. I made a few calls on the way back to L.A. She had no objection. In fact, she was real friendly on that drive-wanted to know if she could write me letters, offered to make it sound like business so my wife wouldn’t get wise. Still wanted to get to know me-said I was sweet.”

“How many stops did you make?”

“Three business calls. Once for gas, again for food. She said she was planning to hook up with her married sister, who lived in Berkeley and was coming down to L.A., and that she intended to head home to Boston after that.”

“What about her screen test?”

“She said nothing about that. Or how these travel plans would fit in with seeing me, again. You got to understand, with Beth Short, you never knew what was a plan, and what was a daydream… and I’m not sure she knew the difference herself.”

“How was she dressed, that day?”

“Like a page out of a fashion magazine-black tailored cardigan jacket with a skirt that matched, an expensive-looking white blouse with a lacy collar, black suede pumps… light-color coat over her arm. And those black stockings with the seams up the calf?”

“You were kinda taken with her, weren’t you, Red?”

“Hard not to be-that hubba-hubba figure, those clear blue eyes… her perfume, man, she got inside you…”

Even if he hadn’t gotten inside her.

“When you got to L.A.,” I asked, “where did you drop her off?”

“Well, first I took her to the Greyhound Bus Depot, on Seventh Street. Kind of a rough neighborhood, so I went in with her, helped her put her suitcases and hatbox in a locker, there.”

Fowley glanced up from his notepad. Those suitcases should still be there, tucked away in a bus-station locker-what a prize they would make to an industrious reporter.

“Then I took her to the Biltmore Hotel, over on Olive Street…”

Where she had called me, from the lobby, with her unsettling news of a not-so-blessed event.

“… and I parked around the corner, on Fifth, walked her into the lobby. She said she was supposed to meet her sister there, and had me check at the desk for her, but the sister hadn’t checked in and didn’t seem to have a reservation, either. Anyway, it was getting late… almost six-thirty… so I just said goodbye and she smiled-sort of thanking me-and touched my arm, squeezed it a little. It was real… affectionate. Her eyes were so beautiful, bright and shining and so clear and blue, looking right at me, looking right through me… and I gave her a little kiss on the cheek and took off.”

“And that’s the last time you saw her?”

“Well, going out the door, I glanced back at her, just to wave one more time, and she was getting change at the cigar stand. I saw her heading to the telephone.”

Was I the only call she’d made?

I asked, “Can you think of anything else pertinent, Red?”

“No. I have to tell ya, fellas, I’m beat. Beat to hell. I feel like I could sleep forever.”

If he was lying, that would be arranged by the state of California.

I glanced at Fowley, who had closed his notepad. “Why don’t you go find Mr. Palmer and ask to use the phone?”

Fowley’s eyebrows rose. “Time to call Harry the Hat and Fat Ass? Share the wealth?”

“I think so.”

Fowley grinned like a greedy child, and damn near scampered out of the kitchen.

“Got another cigarette?” Manley asked.

“No. My associate’s got the pack-he’ll be back and fix you up, in a minute.”

“You think I’m a jerk, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But most men are.”

“You, too?”

“Sometimes.”

He laughed. “Funny what a guy’ll do for a little head.”

“What did you say?”

“… Nothing.”

I sat up. “You said you didn’t have sexual relations with Beth Short.”

“I didn’t.”

“But she sucked you off, didn’t she, Red?”

He wouldn’t look at me, now. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did. Oh yes, you did.”

From the dining room, Fowley called to me. “Heller!”

I went to the archway between rooms. “What is it?”

“The Hat and Fat Ass are on their way… Go out to the car and grab your camera… Somebody’s here to see our boy.”

Fowley had barely said that when Harriet Manley-blonde hair tucked up under a flowered kerchief, shapely frame tied into a dark topcoat, pretty features delicately made up-rushed in, brushing by him, dashing desperately toward the kitchen.

When I returned with the Speed Graphic, Red and Harriet were in each other’s arms. She was looking up at him, her red-lipstick-glistening lips quivering, her blue eyes moist, touching his face with red-painted fingertips, her expression a mixture of tenderness and hurt. They held hands, they embraced, they kissed, and I caught it all on film.

“He’s gonna get away with it,” Fowley said, shaking his head.

He meant Manley, getting back into the good graces of his lovely wife; but I wondered if the same might apply to whoever had killed the Black Dahlia.