Angel in black

12

Round windows glared through exotic foliage and grillwork grimaced as I approached the off-white two-story Spanish Colonial behind the Florentine Gardens. The big house on San Carlos, a residential street between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset, was a sprawl of towers and intersecting wings and tile-roofed verandahs, protected by palms and column evergreens and pepper trees. Richardson hadn’t been kidding when he described Mark Lansom’s digs as a castle.

I could also see how the near-mansion could serve as a sort of apartment house, and-I discovered when I made my way through an archway back to a walled-in pool-those wiseguy reporter remarks about Lansom’s harem turned out to be the real stuff, as well.

On rattan beach chairs and loungers, on spread-out towels on the brick patio that the shimmering blue of the pool interrupted, half a dozen young women in bathing suits sunned themselves. Three blondes, two brunettes, and one redhead-their straps undone, in pursuit of a more perfect tan-lay stretched out, as perfectly arranged as Elizabeth Short in that vacant lot, and almost as nude.

The Black Dahlia had been one of these girls, not so long ago, alive and lounging here… and in one piece.

My shadow fell across the brown-as-a-berry back of the nearest brunette, and I was just admiring the way tiny beads of sweat were pearling along the tiny wispy hairs of her neck, when she turned to look up at me, her breasts spilling out of the white-with-red-polka-dots bikini top, the whiteness of the pink-tipped flesh against the brown rest of her almost as startling as their swollen perfection.

And me on my honeymoon.

Her eyes were hidden behind white-framed, orange-lensed sunglasses, her hair pinned up in a bun, her lipsticked mouth making a scarlet O. “You’re not Mark,” she said.

“No, I’m not,” I said, taking off my hat.

She was just a little prettier than Susan Hayward.

Casually, with neither indignation nor shame, she returned her breasts to their polka-dot sheath, like a western gunfighter his sixguns to their holsters. She tried to tie the strap behind her, but had trouble.

“Do me,” she said.

That was the best offer I’d had all day.

I did her-that is, I got down and fastened the bikini and then she rolled over and looked up at me, kneeling over her. She was a shapely five foot five (lying down) with just enough plumpness to give her a ripe lush look.

“You have a nice face,” she said.

“Yours wouldn’t stop a clock.”

“You’re not an actor, though.”

“No?”

“You’re not in show business.”

“Not a flashy enough dresser?”

She took off her sunglasses and showed me her mahogany eyes and her well-tweezed ironically arching eyebrows and chewed the earpiece with tiny perfect teeth. “You dress all right. That’s a nice enough sportcoat.”

“Gee thanks.”

“You’re not an actor because you don’t look stupid.”

“Thanks again.”

“And you’re not an agent or a studio exec or anything, because that smile of yours?”

“Yeah?”

“It isn’t aimed at anybody. You’re just smiling ’cause you feel like it.”

I looked at her, then glanced around at the other sunning beauties, none of whom were paying us any heed. “It’s easy to smile here.”

“Easy for you. I’m Ann Thomson.”

“I’ve seen you in something.”

She tugged her bikini top into place, smirked a little. “You saw me in nothing, a minute ago. I’ve been in half a dozen movies… with about as many lines.”

“My name is Nate Heller.” It was warm, the sun really beating down, though not unpleasantly. “Does anybody ever go in for a swim, around here?”

“On rare occasions. Are you a cop?”

“Sort of. Does it show?”

“I thought I was starting to hear it. Why, ‘sort of’?”

“Private. Work with a fella named Fred Rubinski.”

“Ah! Sherry’s restaurant guy, who used to be a cop.”

“That’s right.” I glanced toward the other sunning beauties. “How many girls live here, Ann?”

“Varies. Sometimes as many as a dozen.”

“Do you pay rent?”

“Me in particular, or us girls in general?”

“Let’s start with you.”

“No. But I’m… close to Mark. Some of these girls pay Mark a minimal rent check.”

“Did Elizabeth Short?”

Her only reaction to that bombshell was to tilt her head. “I’ve been wondering when somebody would come around. Why do you want to know, if you’re a private dick?”

I liked the way she said “dick”-the simple pleasures. “I’m working for the Examiner. I was with the reporter who found the body.”

“Shit, sure! I saw your name in the paper. Give me a hand.”

I helped her up and I followed her over to a rattan liquor cart. She was a pleasure to follow, having a lovely well-rounded rear end, with deep dimples that peeked over the bikini bottoms, and legs like Betty Grable.

“What’s your pleasure?” she asked, pouring herself a martini from a pitcher.

“Rum and Coke,” I said, leaving the double entendres to her. She was testing me-not so much flirting, or being seductive, as to see if I was easily distracted… and to see how seriously I was taking her.

We sat on rattan chairs at a round rattan table under a yellow canvas beach umbrella and she sipped her martini and I sipped my rum and Coke.

“I’d rather not be quoted,” she said.

“I’m just doing background research.” I took off my hat, set it on the table. “I’m not a reporter.”

“Can you leave me out of it? By name I mean?”

“Sure. What can you tell me?”

“Not much, even though Beth roomed with me.”

“Roomed with you here, you mean?”

“Yeah.” She pointed to the second floor. “Beth dated a lot of guys, talked a lot about getting in the movies, maybe singing on the radio. I mean, Mark has all the right contacts, and she wanted to be in the floor show at the Gardens, of course… but other than that, I don’t think she tried that hard.”

“To make it in show business, you mean?”

“That’s right. Beth was… she was a loafer… lounging around the house, writing letters, reading movie magazines, painting her nails, futzing with her hair.”

“She didn’t lounge out here?”

“No-she came out for a dip, now and then, but she didn’t sunbathe. She liked to keep that skin of hers nice and pale and creamy.”

“When did she stay here? For how long?”

“A month or two… some time in August, till early October, when she took off for Chicago.”

I didn’t want to explore that any further.

“Who did she date, Ann?”

“Guys-any good-looking guy. A few famous ones.”

“Granny says she and Orson Welles were an item.”

She frowned over the rim of her martini glass. “You talked to Granny already?”

“Yeah, we’re old friends. He sent me up here.”

“Oh! All right, then.”

“So what about her and Welles?”

“Were they an item, you mean? Don’t know if I’d go that far. They were friendly, went out a few times. Did Granny tell you any of the names of the other actors she dated?”

“Yeah-Franchot Tone. Dagwood.” Suddenly I flashed on Elvera French mentioning an actress friend sending Beth Short some money. “You sent her money, didn’t you, Ann, around Christmas? Twenty-five bucks, wasn’t it? When she was staying in San Diego?”

Eyes expanding with surprise, she said, “What crystal ball are you looking in? How’d you know that?”

“Why was she borrowing money?”

“She just needed cash, that’s all.”

“It was for an operation, wasn’t it?”

The girl nodded, not looking at me.

“For an abortion?”

“She didn’t say… but that’s what I gathered.”

Going down this road was dangerous, but I had no choice. “Do you know what doctor she was using?”

“No-she said something about an old family friend, some doctor from where she was from, you know, New England.”

“How desperate was she for money? Was she turning tricks, Ann?”

“No! You’re getting the wrong idea-Beth may have been a little lazy, but she was a good girl-didn’t smoke, and barely drank… and you know, for all the dating she did, I don’t think she put out. I think that’s why Mark allowed Granny to fire her.”

“Granny fired her over her Italian boy friend, right?”

“Yeah. Good-lookin’ hood she had the hots for.”

“What’s his name?”

“ Excuse me,” a mellow yet knife-edged male voice interrupted.

The actress turned quickly toward the sound, alarmed, and I wheeled in my chair, to look at the source of the syrup-thick voice, myself.

He was perhaps five nine, a pear-shaped hundred and eighty pounds tied into a knee-length terrycloth robe with a gold ML monogram. Despite his access to the sun, Mark Lansom had that pasty look endemic to the perennial nightclub denizen, white hair slicked back, half-lidded blue eyes circled dark, a beaky nose, a weak chin and puffy, jowly face. He positioned himself beside Ann and looked witheringly down at her.

“Mark, this is Mr. Heller,” she said, a bit nervously, knowing she’d overstepped playing hostess.

“Nathan Heller,” I said, offering my hand. “I’m Fred Rubinski’s new partner.”

He turned his half-lidded gaze my way, and did not shake my hand. “I know who you are-you’re helping the Examiner.”

“On the Short girl’s murder, yes. I understand she lived with you.”

“Not with me-she rented a room here. I try to help out aspiring actresses… Ann, get me a screwdriver, would you?”

“The orange juice is in the house.”

“Yes-go after it, and Ann… no rush.”

She nodded and went inside.

“This is not the kind of publicity the Gardens needs right now,” Lansom said, taking the chair Ann had vacated.

“Actually, Granny suggested I speak with you. I cut a deal with him-you boys feed me a few leads, and we don’t run anything about the Black Dahlia’s stay at the Florentine Gardens, or at la casa Lansom, for that matter-unless the cops tip to it, of course.”

He smiled faintly, shook his head. “The cops won’t bother us.”

“Yeah? Low friends in high places, Mark?”

A smirk lurked in the puffy face. “Does that offend your sensibilities, Nate? I thought you were from Chicago.”

“Not offended in the least. I figure, if you’re running a call-girl operation out of the Gardens, then you’d need some police pro-”

He interrupted sharply: “The Florentine Gardens is not a brothel.” The indignation in the mellow voice surprised me.

“Well, some people seem to think Elizabeth Short was a hooker.”

He snorted a laugh. “They didn’t know her, then. She was a manipulative little bitch, yes-hooker, no. She’d have to give it up to be a hooker, wouldn’t she?”

“You’re saying she never paid her rent on her back?”

The smirk curled into a sneer. “She was a conniving little prick tease. Oh, she’d put her face in your lap, but that’s as far as it went. She stole money from me, and she stole my address book, too-has that turned up?”

This seemed to worry him.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“If that fucking thing gets in the wrong hands,” Lansom said, eyes darting in thought, “like your boss, Richardson, well…”

“You’d be royally screwed, Mark?”

Lansom’s gaze settled on me like a rash. It took so long for him to speak again, I thought one of us was going to fall asleep first. “I don’t think I have anything else to share with you, Nate… about the Short girl or otherwise.”

“What about her and Orson Welles?”

He shrugged, looked out at the sun glimmering on the surface of the blue water in his white pool.

“What was her Italian boy friend’s name?” I pressed. “The hood she got fired over?”

He shook his head. The interview was over.

“Well, thanks for the refreshment, Mark,” I said, and had one last sip of rum and Coke. Rising, I nodded toward the girls. “Quite a collection you’ve got there. I’m in the wrong business-next life, I’m gonna be a landlord.”

I was walking around the table, heading for the archway between wings of the house, leading out to the street, when I noticed a familiar figure ambling through that same archway-not a shapely one, either.

In a baggy brown suit and a crumpled fedora that would have looked fine on a horse, Sergeant Finis Brown was heading toward the pool area. No sign of his partner, Harry the Hat-just Fat Ass, shambling on over.

“Maybe the police have caught up with you after all,” I said to Lansom, who was frowning as Brown approached.

“What are you doing here, Heller?” Brown growled at me, his round face splotchy.

“Following a lead,” I said.

The chunky detective thumped my chest with three thick fingers. “You stay away from Mr. Lansom.”

Lansom was sighing, shaking his head. “Sergeant Brown, Mr. Heller was just leaving. Let’s not make a scene in front of the girls.”

Ignoring that, Brown thumped my chest again. “You get me, Heller?”

“Oh, I get you, Brownie-this explains why you coppers haven’t traced Beth Short to the Florentine Gardens… Thad Brown’s brother is Mark Lansom’s boy.”

The splotches disappeared in a flush of red, in the midst of which bloodshot brown eyes glowed like coals.

“This ain’t your town, Heller,” he said, his nose almost touching mine. “And it ain’t your case.”

I smiled in his face. “So what’s the story, Brownie? Mark here is running girls, and maybe Mickey Cohen gets a taste, and you’re the bag man?”

Brown grabbed me by the lapels and was lifting me up when I kneed him in the balls.

The girls around the pool were gathering their tops, their towels, their lotion, their things, scurrying inside.

While Fat Ass was rolling around down there on the patio brick, clutching himself, howling in pain, I turned to Lansom and said, “In the weeks before she died, Beth Short was trying to raise money. She stole some from you, Mark-money and an address book.”

“Get outa here, Heller,” Lansom said, not looking at me.

I had to raise my voice to be heard over Brown’s cries of agony. “Beth Short was trying to shake you down, wasn’t she, Mark? She knew you were running hookers out of the Gardens, and she stole an address book filled with your best customers.”

“You’re wrong. Go away.”

I leaned a hand on the table, looking right at Lansom; he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “But was that worth killing her over? You couldn’t have done that yourself, could you, Mark, not that grisly piece of surgery. How about Fat Ass here?”

And as I gestured at Brown, I saw him getting to his feet, recovering faster than I thought he would, or could, and I heard a cry of pain and anger, a deep wounded roar like a gored rhino, and then the chunky cop was charging right at me, tackling me, taking me down onto the brick patio.

I hit hard, on my back, the wind whooshing out of me, and I was helpless for a while, long enough for Brown to try to take his revenge. Instead of just staying on top of me and beating the shit out of me, like any sensible son of a bitch, he clambered to his feet so he could rear back and kick me, kick me in the balls like Ihadhim…

… was the point, but it didn’t take. I had my wind back and rolled to one side and caught Brown’s brown shoe as the kick swished by me, and grasped his ankle and yanked, setting him down, hard, on his ass.

He cried out, “Fuck me!”

Then I jumped on top of him, as if I were accepting his offer, and instead slammed my right fist into his face three times, turning his nose into a sodden red mass, blood streaming out his crushed nostrils. He was barely conscious when I took him by the collar and belt and dragged him to the pool and threw him in.

Well, shoved him in-he was too fat and heavy for anything else, and I was strong, but not strong enough to make that grand a gesture.

Fat Ass flapped around in there-it wasn’t deep-swearing at me, but not coming after me, streaky ribbons of blood from his shattered nose destroying the pool’s perfect blue.

“Do you think that was smart?” Lansom asked, as I collected my hat.

“Tell him the next time he lays a hand on me,” I said, trembling, “I’ll kill him.”

Lansom studied me. His blue eyes were hard in his puffy face. “I believe you would.”

“Mark, you’re a good judge of character.”

I was dusting myself off, breathing hard, moving through the arched passageway toward San Carlos Street when Ann Thomson-still in the polka-dot bikini-bounced out a front door and up to me.

“I saw everything from the kitchen,” she said, eyes wide and flashing, smiling like a happy kid. “You’re really something.”

“You’re not exactly chopped liver yourself, kiddo.”

She touched my arm. “You want to know the name of that Italian boy friend of hers?”

“Is it Savarino?”

She blinked in surprise. “Why, yes! He was involved in that Mocambo robbery. She met him in a cafe just a few blocks from here… If you knew his name, why did you ask?”

“Because until you told me,” I said, nodding goodbye, “it was just a hunch.”