Angel in black

13

Aggie Underwood and I both ordered the corned beef hash, one of the Brown Derby’s specialties. We shared a booth in the bustling restaurant, complete with framed movie-star caricatures and signature derby lampshade throwing soft yellow light. It took connections to land a booth here at the height of lunch hour; but my diminutive red-haired companion-schoolteacherly as ever in a white-dotted blue dress-was feared and respected in Hollywood.

We were in the Brown Derby #2, the non-hat-shaped one on Vine Street, and Aggie had already pointed out the irony that two of the four caricatures sharing our booth were Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, stars of The Blue Dahlia.

“I would have sworn Bevo Means cooked that ‘Black Dahlia’ moniker up,” she said, between bites of hash, “really too good to be true-but it keeps turning up.”

“Yeah, we heard it from the French girl down in San Diego,” I said, just poking at my food.

“Tell me why I should have accepted this invitation,” she said, eyes hard and glittering behind jeweled, dark-framed glasses, tiny mouth with tiny teeth smiling like a small predator, “when you’re working for the competition.”

I shrugged, sipped my Coke-no rum this time. “The Examiner, the Herald-Express… it’s all in Mr. Hearst’s family.”

She laughed humorlessly, spoke through a mouthful of hash. “Have you guys interviewed the father yet?”

“Elizabeth Short’s father? No. Have you?”

She nodded. “This afternoon’s edition-guy’s a fourteen-carat crackpot. Was an entrepreneur of sorts, back in the late twenties, building miniature golf courses; then when the depression hit, he went bust, like everybody else. So guess what Cleo Short does when times get hard?”

“That’s his name? A man named Cleo?”

“Yeah, Cleo.” Jaw jutting, she pointed her fork at me. “Guess what he does? Fakes his own suicide, and disappears!”

“Jesus-how’d he manage faking his death?”

“Left his car running on a bridge, with a suicide note, next to those icy waters. Years later, he writes his family and says, ‘Surprise, I’m not dead,’ and invites his daughters to come visit him.”

“Did they?”

“Over time. The mother was less than charmed, never spoke to the son of a bitch again.”

“How about Beth?”

“His daughter Elizabeth came to see him, in ’43, when he was working in the shipyard at Mare Island, and she stayed with him for a while… Deal was, she would keep house for him, and he’d help her look for work. In a few weeks, he threw her out.”

“Why?”

The little reporter waved her fork like a wand. “If I can remember his quote from my article, something like, ‘She was a lazy, greedy, boy-crazy little tramp.’ ”

“Seems pretty broken up about losing his daughter.”

“Says he hadn’t seen her since he tossed her out on her behind in ’43, and had no desire to ever see her again. ‘She went her way, I went mine!’ Even refused to identify the body. Officially Beth Short’s still a Jane Doe.”

I shook my head, pushed my half-eaten plate of hash aside. “The mother can do the unenviable deed-she’s arriving this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I heard-Jim Richardson’s flying her out.” She smiled like a pixie, eyes narrow and twinkling behind the jeweled frames. “You know where the father turned up, Nate?”

“No, Aggie-where did the father turn up?”

“In an apartment house on South Kingsley Drive, near Leimert Park.”

If I’d opened my eyes any wider, they’d have fallen out. “What?”

She was smiling smugly. “Fifteen minutes from that vacant lot.”

“Christ, he’s sounding like a suspect.”

Aggie shrugged. “Harry the Hat’s treating him that way. I don’t buy it, though. Cleo’s a pipsqueak, a mousy little bastard.”

“Yeah, well, still waters run wacky… and as screwed-up as Elizabeth Short was, Aggie, how surprised would you be to have incest show up in her family history?”

“Not very.” She pushed her plate-cleaned-to one side, lighted up a cigarette. “But it’s one thing for a loving papa to sex up his baby girl, and quite another for him to carve her up… You having dessert?”

We ate cheesecake and Aggie asked the obvious.

“So why take me out on a date, Nate, when I look like a munchkin in a Harpo Marx wig, and you’re in a townful of beautiful dames, one of whom you’re newly married to?”

“Well, in the first place, I think you’re a beautiful dame.”

“Right answer.”

“And in the second-Hell, Aggie, you know why. I need the kind of information only the best crime reporter in town might have.”

She grinned, flicking ash onto her cleaned cheesecake plate. “That’s a lovely compliment, you lying son of a bitch, but you could talk to Sid Hughes or half a dozen others at the Examiner, and get what you need, and not come to a rival reporter.”

“Hell, I’m not a reporter-I’m doing some investigative work for the Examiner, yes, but I’m going down some private roads.”

Aggie’s eyes narrowed and she began to look at me differently. “Care to be more specific?”

“Not to a real reporter, I don’t. Look, everybody in town is pursuing the sex-crime angle… understandably… but I’m chasing down a few stray rumors that put Beth Short next to some hoodlums. Nobody but me seems to be looking at that girl’s slashed mouth and coming up with ‘informer.’ ”

This time her smile was like a tiny, enigmatic gash in her face, which opened as she asked, “You do understand why, don’t you, Nate?”

“I think so. The papers like the sex-crime angle-it’s a better story that way. And the cops are so thick with the hoods that they’d rather not look under certain rocks.”

“You’re not wrong.” Aggie was nodding. Her firm jaw lifted and, short though she was, she nevertheless seemed to gaze down at me. “You ever hear of the Georgette Bauerdorf murder?”

“No.”

“Socialite killed a couple years ago-pretty, apple-cheeked girl, kind of wild… she was strangled and raped and her body was found facedown in her bathtub.”

I frowned, leaned toward her. “Are you saying there are similarities to the Dahlia murder?”

“A few. It’s widely assumed Beth Short’s body was dismembered in a bathtub… Perhaps the Bauerdorf girl’s killer was planning to do the same thing, but got interrupted.”

Leaning back again, I mused, “Beautiful dead nude girl, strangled… I can see it. But it doesn’t jump out at me.”

Cigarette in her fingers, she gestured emphatically. “How does this grab you? The Bauerdorf girl and Beth Short were pals-they hung out at the Hollywood Canteen together.”

For a few moments I just sat there, trying to absorb the words; this entire conversation-about grisly murders and their aftermath-seemed oddly abstract in the soft-yellow glow of the subdued Derby lighting.

“Aggie,” I said finally, “that’s major-is that in the afternoon edition, too?”

“No. That story got killed deader than the Dahlia.” She flicked ash onto the plate, adding casually, “As a matter of fact, I’m off the Dahlia story.”

I sat forward. “What in hell…?”

“Got my ass yanked right off. The order came from upstairs-way upstairs.”

“No! Old Man Hearst?”

“William Randolph himself. Seems the girl’s father, George Bauerdorf, is a close friend of the Old Man’s, and Bauerdorf doesn’t want his daughter’s death, and her loose ways presumably, splashed all over the papers again, further soiling the good family name. Then there’s the Dagwood situation.”

“Arthur Lake, you mean-Dagwood in the movies. He knew Beth Short. That I’ve heard.”

“That’s right. But have you heard this, cutiepie? Lake knew the Bauerdorf girl, too. Met both murdered girls at the Hollywood Canteen.”

My eyes were about to roll out of my head, again. “Shit, is Dagwood Bumstead the Black Dahlia slayer?”

She laughed, once, pointing at me with the cigarette in hand. “Exactly the headline everybody wants to avoid. Lake has an alibi, and I’ve spoken to him-he’s a harmless, good-natured semilush. But he’s also married to the niece of Marion Davies…”

“Hearst’s mistress.”

“That’s right. Hearst doesn’t want Dagwood’s name dragged through the mud, and he doesn’t want the Bauerdorf family to suffer through any more nasty publicity-their daughter’s tragic death was enough, after all.”

“And so you’re off the Dahlia story?”

She sighed, pretended to smile. “Starting tomorrow, I’m sitting at my desk with my embroidery hoop and needle. Nothing else on my docket… so, Nate, if there’s anything I can help you with, why not? Just don’t bother taking Dagwood and the Bauerdorf murder to Jim Richardson… the one man Jim doesn’t cross is Hearst.”

Aggie had a cocktail-a stinger-and I had another Coke, still with no rum. My head was spinning enough from Aggie’s revelations.

Finally, I got around to what I’d brought her here to ask her: “What do you know about the accused Mocambo robbers?”

“Well,” she said, with a shrug, “four of them have been arrested-first, this Bobby Savarino and that Hassau character. Then a couple days later, Al Green and Marty Abrams. But it’s a bigger group than that-probably another half dozen stellar citizens in that gang.”

“It’s a heist crew?”

“Yeah, they pull down medium-size scores all over town. Operate out of Green’s bar and grill on North McCadden-the McCadden Cafe, it’s called. Green is short for Greenberg, by the way-you oughta ask Mickey Cohen or your pal Ben Siegel about him… He’s an old Murder, Inc., guy from back East.”

“What do you make of Savarino’s yarn about being approached to hit Cohen?”

Wincing, she shook her head. “I don’t know what to make of it… and he clammed up, almost immediately. Are you trying to make some connection to the Dahlia?”

The waiter delivered the check and I took it.

“You’re not on the story anymore, Aggie-remember?”

She reached across the table and patted my hand. “Whatever this is really about, Nate… good luck.”

I didn’t say anything-Aggie Underwood had a nose for news. I was just glad she was my pal-and off the Dahlia case.

Before I left the Derby, I ducked into a phone booth and called Fred Rubinski. I wanted him to get out his black book of celebrity addresses and set up a meet for me.

“Orson Welles?” Rubinski said.

“That’s right-Martians have landed.”

“He’s shooting a picture at Columbia, with his wife, only they’re kinda shut down, ’cause of the strikes. I’ll try to track him down.”

“Today, if possible. This afternoon.”

“And Orson Welles will just drop everything to talk to Nate Heller?”

“You did a job for Welles a year or so ago, didn’t you, Fred?”

He drew in a surprised breath. “Yeah-how did you know that?”

“Who do you think referred that aging Boy Wonder to you?”

“You do get around, Nate. Orson Welles-what do you want from that crazy egomaniac?”

“Not a screen test,” I said.

Spitting distance from the busy business district of North Highland Avenue, on a dead-ending side street just off Yucca, stood a freestanding stucco building with a gravel parking lot in back.

Mine was the only car in the lot, and a sign in the door said CLOSED — OPEN AT FOUR.

But through the front window, between the neon beer signs and the painted letters spelling out M c CADDEN CAFE, I could see-cutting through shadows cast by the blades of ceiling fans-a tall, cadaverous guy in an apron going around the room, cleaning off tables with a rag. He had a cigarette going, and moved with a pronounced limp.

I knocked on the front door, hard enough to rattle it, peering around the CLOSED sign, and the skinny guy saw me, and scowled and shook his head, yelling, “Can’t ya read, buddy?”

But apparently he could, numbers anyway, because when I held up a fivespot to the glass, he limped over-twig-thin but towering-and unlocked the door, poking his pockmarked face out at me.

It was a long, narrow, high-cheekboned Indian-ish face, with brown eyes peeking out of slits, a wide yet pointed nose, and a balled, dimpled chin. His hair was dark brown and widow’s peaked and greased back, and his breath reeked, as if he’d puked last week and hadn’t brushed his teeth since, a notion their yellowish tobacco-stained hue affirmed.

“What do you want for that fivespot?” he asked, his voice as reedy as he was.

I had to look up at him-he weighed about as much as a box of kitchen matches, but the bastard must have been six foot four. “Just want to ask a few questions.”

Somehow those slitted eyes slitted further. “Cop woulda showed me a badge not a fiver. Reporter?”

“My name’s Nate Heller-I’m a private detective, doing backgrounding for the Examiner.”

An Adam’s apple worthy of Ichabod Crane bobbled. “What did you say your name was?”

“Heller. Nate Heller. This fivespot has a brother, if you give me a little time.”

Frowning in thought, and temptation, he said, “I gotta clean up ’fore we open again-lunch hour was a friggin’ zoo. And I got prep to do in the kitchen-I’m the cook, you know. This about that Short girl?”

“Yeah. Was she a customer here?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “You got a double sawbuck in that pocket of yours?”

“I might, if you have something worth that much.”

He swallowed and the Adam’s apple bobbled again. “I don’t want my name in the papers.”

“It won’t be-you’re what they call a ‘confidential source.’ ”

Heaving a sigh, he said, “Okay… come in.”

He locked the door behind us and pointed to one of the booths along the left wall. The McCadden Cafe wasn’t exactly the Brown Derby-the walls were knotty-pine, the bar with stools was at the right, the serving window onto the dinerlike kitchen was straight ahead, tables with no cloths and mismatching chairs were scattered about the central area. Like a fat man in a colorful coat, a jukebox squatted in front of the window. The air was about an even mix of stale beer and tobacco smoke, and the floor was piss-yellow, scuffed, cigarette-butt-burned linoleum.

My instinct: any heist gang operating out of here would be smalltimers. On the other hand, maybe this was just a clever front.

He brought both of us beers and sat across from me in the knotty-pine booth. The apron was food stained and under it was a threadbare blue-and-white-striped shirt, sleeves rolled up, and faded dungarees.

Then, suddenly, startling me, he thrust out his knobby hand, saying, “Arnold Wilson, Mr. Heller.”

I shook his hand-his grip was surprisingly strong, if slimy.

“Pleased to meet you, Arnold. Ex-serviceman?”

The acne-damaged face beamed as he nodded. “Got the gimpy leg in the Pacific. Friggin’ Jap bayonet.”

Obviously his proudest moment.

“I was in the Pacific myself. Marine.”

“Army.” He shook his head, grinning. “Best time of my life. Listen… bein’ as we’re both vets and all… to be honest, I don’t know if I got a double sawbuck’s worth for ya, about Beth Short.”

Interesting that he referred to her as “Beth” and not “Elizabeth,” as the papers were wont to do.

“Let’s start with her being a customer, Arnold. When was that?”

He had a gulp of beer-with that Adam’s apple, it looked like he was swallowing a baseball-and he shrugged. “Well, calling that kid a ‘customer’ is maybe stretching it. I don’t remember her ever spending a dime in here, except maybe on the jukebox-she had a way of finding some guy or other to buy her a Coke or a sandwich or both. She thought I made the best grilled cheese sandwiches anywheres-see, my secret is, I grill a couple slices of tomato right in there with the cheese-”

“When was she frequenting this place?”

“In the fall, though there was this stretch, around October, when she was back East or something. See, she lived right here in the neighborhood.”

“Where in the neighborhood?”

“Two places-around August, September maybe, she was in this hotel over on North Orange; then in November she was at the Chancellor Apartments, over on Cherokee.”

I sipped my beer. Smiled. “Arnold-okay I call you by your first name?”

“Sure, Nate.” He raised his beer glass to me, then had another gulp. “One vet to another, after all.”

“Arnold, was Beth Short a pro?”

“Naw, she wasn’t hooking. Al-the proprietor-he wouldn’t put up with that… Al likes to steer clear of the cops.”

If Al Greenberg and Bobby Savarino were using the cafe as their heist crew’s clubhouse, that made sense.

“But it didn’t hurt,” Wilson was saying, “having a good-looking piece of tail like that sitting on a bar stool. Wasn’t exactly bad for business.”

“One guy was buying most of her drinks, though-right, Arnold?”

The Adam’s apple bobbled again. “You mean Bobby.”

“That’s right-Bobby Savarino.”

Thin lips twitched in the ravaged mask of his face. “I don’t think I should get into that.”

“For that double sawbuck, Arnold, I really think you should.”

A big bony hand pawed the air dismissively. “Bobby was filling her with all that Medal of Honor bullshit-dago bastard, he was never even overseas! But good-looking guy like him, line of bull like that… hell, he gets more ass than Sinatra.”

“I understand he’s a married man.”

Wilson shook his head, disgustedly. “Yeah, with a nice wife, nice- lookin’ wife, kid on the way… I like Bobby, man. I mean, he’s a regular joe, but, shit-that’s friggin’ low.”

“Did Beth Short know Bobby was married?”

“Not at first… and Bobby told her he wanted to marry her, too. Can you believe this, before she found out he was married, they were engaged for a while-he even gave her a ring.”

“A diamond?”

“Yeah. Bobby’s connected to these jewelers-ice is never no problem for the group.”

“The group?”

Wilson paused, his deer-in-the-headlights expression indicating he’d spoken too freely. But he continued, anyway, saying, “Yeah, uh-the McCadden Group. It’s a bunch of guys that hang out here at the cafe.”

Sort of like the Elks or Kiwanis, except for the part where they went out on heists with guns.

“What happened to her diamond ring?”

Wilson shrugged. “I heard she hocked it. She was raising money.”

“Do you know why?”

“I dunno… I think maybe she had Bobby’s bun in her oven.”

“Fertile fucker, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s a fucker, period-but I like the guy, don’t ask me why… Listen, she wasn’t in here since November, first week of December at the latest. I mean, you could ask Henry’s wife, her and Beth were tight… Maybe she could tell you something.”

“Henry’s wife? Mrs. Henry Hassau, right, the guy who was arrested with Bobby?”

Now Wilson knew he’d spoken too freely. “Oh-so you know about that.”

“It was in the papers. It’s no secret, Arnold-or that your boss Al Greenberg is in county lockup, too.”

Too casually, he said, “Yeah, for that Mocambo robbery.”

“How tall are you, Arnold?”

The slitted eyes blinked, several times. “I dunno. Six four maybe.”

“Funny-that’s just how tall the witnesses said one of the thieves was. He had bad acne scars, too.”

Wilson thrust out a big hand, palm up. “Let’s have the double sawbuck-I’m through talkin’.”

I gave him a pleasant smile. “Look, Arnold-I have no interest in turning your skinny ass over to the cops… By the way, how the hell did they miss you, if they’re arresting guys left and right out of this joint?”

The Adam’s apple jumped again. “I was in San Francisco for a week. Al called me and asked me to come watch the joint while he was in stir. He’ll be out soon-the Ringgolds’ll post bail.”

“The Ringgolds. And who are the Ringgolds?”

The eyes widened and rolled and he shook his head, apparently pissed at himself. “I already said too much… How about that double sawbuck?”

“There’s a Ringgold Jewelry Store in Beverly Hills, isn’t there? Wouldn’t happen to be the jewelry store whose display merchandise at the Mocambo got taken in that robbery?”

A shooing hand waved the air. “You better get on outa here, now-I got work to do ’fore four.”

So the Mocambo heist had been primarily an insurance scam: steal jewelry for its owners who can claim the loss and keep the stones. I wondered how many other jewelry robberies the McCadden Group had pulled for the Ringgolds. This little heist crew was definitely more impressive than these meager surroundings.

“Arnold, a whisper from me in Harry the Hat’s ear would land you in the cell next to your boss.”

Wilson jerked back, almost hitting his head on the wooden booth. “Are you threatening me?”

“I wouldn’t do that, Arnold-you and me, fellow vets and all. But this conversation-this private conversation, which goes no further than just the two of us-ends when I say it ends. Understood?”

He sighed. And nodded.

I swirled the last of the beer in its glass. “I just want to ask you a question-simple question, obvious question, that just happens to be one nobody’s asking…”

I looked right at him-hard.

“Arnold, do you think Beth Short was murdered to send a message to Bobby?”

Wilson didn’t answer right away, and when he did, it was pitiful: “How would I know?”

“Just looking for an informed opinion, Arnold.”

Words tumbled out: “Bobby was blabbing to the cops and the papers about Jack Dragna trying to muscle him into hitting Mickey Cohen. Next day, Bobby’s girl friend turns up dead in a vacant lot in Dragna’s backyard with her mouth slashed, informer style. What the fuck do you think?”

“You think Dragna did it?”

Wilson shrugged one scarecrow shoulder. “Had it done. Who else but Dragna?”

Dragna was the answer I kept coming up with, myself.

“Arnold, I don’t get this. Why would Jack Dragna go to Bobby Savarino to do this?”

Wilson shrugged both shoulders this time. “Maybe ’cause Bobby was friends with the Meatball.”

Benny the Meatball Gamson was a renegade bookie who had been bumped off, not long ago, reportedly at Mickey Cohen’s behest.

“Still,” I said, “why would a savvy mob boss like Dragna try to enlist the help of somebody in Al Greenberg’s gang?”

“Which don’t make sense to you,” Wilson said, nodding, “because Greenberg is an East Coast guy and a crony of Ben Siegel’s, whose boy Cohen is.”

“Yeah!”

“Well, for one thing, Bobby coulda got close to Cohen… Mickey wouldn’ta suspected one of Greenberg’s group. And Al, well him and Siegel were friends, sure, but Al did a stretch in Sing Sing, was one of the handful of them Murder, Inc., guys unlucky enough to do time. Al don’t owe any of those guys nothing.”

“But in the end, Savarino didn’t want anything to do with hitting Cohen.”

Wilson was shaking his head, but it was an affirmative gesture. “Bobby’s no hitman. He’s just a thief, knockin’ over scores.”

I took the last sip of beer, and said, “I’d like to talk to Bobby. You think the Ringgolds’ll post his bail?”

“Maybe. You want me to set up a meet, if they do?”

I reached in my pocket and withdrew the twenty and held it up. “There’ll be another one of these in it for you.”

Wilson took the twenty. I told him where he could find me, and I got out of the booth, thanking him for the beer.

“Arnold, you got a phone I can use?”

“Sure-behind the bar.”

I called Fred.

“You won’t believe this,” he said, “but Welles wants to see you. How do you know this guy?”

“He got his start in Chicago.”

“Well, he’s anxious to meet with you. And it seems he is out at Columbia, strike or no strike. Write down these directions…”

I did.

Moments later, ceiling fans churning the stale air, the cadaverous Arnold Wilson was walking me out, the limp not slowing him down appreciably. Perhaps our conversation had got him excited-or that double sawbuck.

“You know, if Jack Dragna’s the one that had the Black Dahlia butchered,” Arnold said, unlocking the door, “the cops won’t touch it. Nobody’ll do a damn thing about it, a Mafia guy like that responsible.”

“Arnold,” I said, already halfway out the door, reaching back to pat him on his bony shoulder, “don’t count on it.”