“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.
11
The next morning was a big one for the Examiner, with its exclusive coverage of the arrest of Robert “Red” Manley. This made up, some, for getting beat to the punch by the Herald-Express on the Black Dahlia nickname, which their reporter Bevo Means had unearthed in time for yesterday’s afternoon edition, thanks to a Long Beach druggist.
Outside the Palmer home, we had staged some photos for Harry the Hat, showing the cops making the capture; those-and my shots of Red trying to make up with his lovely, hurting bride-made the competing papers’ coverage look sick. At the scene, Fowley had suggested to the Hat that he and Sergeant Brown take Manley over to the Hollenbeck Station, instead of downtown, since a swarm of reporters who’d been monitoring police calls would no doubt be waiting. And that’s what the Hat arranged-lie detector, relay teams from Homicide, and even the police psychiatrist were soon waiting at the neighborhood station. But we weren’t invited to the party.
“You boys have done a nice job,” the Hat said, a tiny kiss of a smile puckering, his eyes gazing sleepily in the shadow of his pearl-gray fedora’s brim. He had one hand on my shoulder, and the other on Fowley’s. “But I think you have all the coverage you need to make the morning edition.”
“Bull fucking shit, Harry,” Fowley said, “I’m going over to Hollenbeck!”
That had been the point, after all, of leaving the rest of the press stranded downtown.
The Hat lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You can come sit in the press room, if you like… and I’ll give you a report or two, as things progress-but that’s all you get.”
Fowley sighed and nodded. That was better than nothing.
The Hat slipped an arm around my shoulder and walked me inside the Palmer garage, where Manley’s tan Studebaker was still parked. He apparently wanted a quiet moment.
“Is there anything you’ve picked up on,” the Hat asked, nodding toward Fowley, out in the drive frowning at us like a kid who didn’t get invited to play ball, “that may have eluded that esteemed member of the fourth estate you’ve been tagging along with?”
I tried to think of a bone I could toss Hansen-and promptly told him he needed to talk to Mrs. Elvera French and her daughter Dorothy down San Diego way. Manley would soon spill those names, anyway, so it didn’t hurt anything.
The Hat jotted that information down, nodding, saying, “You were a good boy, Nate-you didn’t give up that piece of information I gave you.”
He meant that nasty piece of business-that Elizabeth Short had eaten, or been fed, human feces before her murder-which was one of the three pieces of key evidence he was keeping up his sleeve.
“I may be dumb, Harry, but not dumb enough to cross you.”
“Good.”
“So how about another? You could give me one more, you know, and still have one left.”
He puckered up another smile. “Think it would help you in your investigation?”
“Who knows? Sure couldn’t hurt.”
I didn’t expect this request to work, but the Hat surprised me.
“All right, Nate… here’s another evil morsel for you. A piece of skin was carved out of Elizabeth Short’s outer left thigh… it had a tattoo of a rose on it.”
“I guess I knew that already,” I said, scratching my head, “or should have. I noticed at the crime scene some flesh had been cut away from her thigh. And I suppose you learned she had a rose tattoo there, from her Santa Barbara arrest record.”