“Chollo and I met her here, and she and I talked for a long while.”
“She offer to ball you?” I said.
“Of course,” del Rio said.
“And you declined,” I said.
“Perhaps that is not your business,” del Rio said.
“Perhaps you called me,” I said.
Del Rio nodded. “She said that I was the only one who could help her. That no one else would help her and that He was going to get her.
”I asked her who He was. She said she didn’t know. I asked her how she knew He was trying to get her. She said He’d called her again, the night she took off.“
”You know when that was?“
”Yes. It made the papers. Especially here,“ del Rio said. ”This is a company town.“ He sipped his scotch, looking at the glass. ”Times when there’s nothing better,“ he said. I nodded and rattled the ice around in my glass a little and took a small sip.
”I asked her what He said to her. She said He said awful things.“
”That’s our Jill,“ I said. ”Full of hard information.
“She said you wouldn’t protect her, that some guy named Hawk wouldn’t protect her, that the studio didn’t give a shit, and that I was all she had left. She said I had to help her.”
“What are you supposed to do?” I said.
“Make Him leave her alone.”
“But she doesn’t know who Him is.”
“This is true,” del Rio said.
“So what do you want me to do?” I said.
“Get her the fuck out of here,” del Rio said. “I don’t want her around.”
“Has she threatened to reveal all?” I said.
“She knows better,” del Rio said. “But she’s such a mess that I’m afraid she may cause trouble without meaning to, and I don’t want to have to dump her to prevent it.”
“What a softie,” I said.
“Don’t make that mistake,” del Rio said. “You want to talk with her?”
“In a minute,” I said. “What do you think?”
“About her?”
“Yeah.”
“I think she needs a shrink.”
I nodded. “How about the mysterious He?”
“I think it’s in her head,” del Rio said.
“Who killed Babe Loftus?” I said.
Del Rio shrugged, turned his palms up. “Hey, I’m a simple Mexican,” he said. “That’s your line of work.”
“And I’m doing it grand,” I said.
“Grand,” del Rio said.
“What about the harassment?” I said. “The hanged doll-that stuff?”
“I think she did it herself,” del Rio said. “She’s trying to get people’s attention.”
“It’s working,” I said.
A dark cloud had drifted up from the basin and some big raindrops splattered occasionally on the picture window. We all sat in silence.
“She drinking?” I said.
“If she cut back, she’d be drinking,” del Rio said. “You want a refill?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s talk with her,” I said.
Del Rio nodded, and Chollo went around the bar and opened the door to the bedroom. He said something I couldn’t hear and, in a moment, Jill came out. You could see that she’d been crying. Her eyes were puffy. The eyeliner was gone, or most of it was. Her nose was red. Her hair was uncombed and looked as if she’d been running her fingers through it. She was soused to the lip line and it showed in the unsteadiness of her walk.
“Well, damn,” she said when she saw me. “The big dick from Boston.” She went to the bar and put her glass out on it. Chollo went around without comment and fixed her a new drink, scotch, water, ice. She stopped his hand after he’d added only a splash of water.
“What you doing out here, Big Dick?”
Behind the bar Chollo had no expression. Del Rio put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair as if to give me my turn, see what I could do.
“Why’d you run off?” I said.
“He called.”
“The night you left?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know who he is?”
“No.”
“What’d he say?” She shook her head.
“Did he threaten you?” She nodded.
“What did he threaten you with?” She shook her head again.
“Why won’t you say?”
She drank most of her drink before she answered. “Don’t be so fucking nosy,” she said.
“How in hell am I going to help you if I don’t know what I’m trying to help you with?”
“Maybe if you’d get off your ass and catch him,” she said, “and put him away where he belongs… that might help, you know?”
She finished her drink, held the glass out, and Chollo replenished it. Del Rio’s dark compassionless eyes watched her carefully.
“Anything else happen that night?” I said. She shrugged.
“Hawk make a pass at you?”
“How’d you know?” she said. She got a crafty look on her face.
“He said there was some talk of, ah, hanky-panky, but it didn’t, if you’ll pardon the expression, come to anything.”
“You bet your ass,” she said. “I’m not fucking some coon.”
“So you turned him down,” I said.
“Sure, limp dick motherfucker. He’s a tighter ass than you.”
“And that’s why you turned him down.”
“You bet your buns. Lotta men give up a year of their life to fuck me. But you goddamned pansies.” She tossed her chin at del Rio. “Him too.”
“Yes,” I said. “I understand you brushed him off tonight too.”
She nodded righteously and drank more scotch. “When He called, the bad guy, the man who threatened you, how did he get through?” I said.
“Huh?”
“How did he reach you?”
“He just called up,” she said. “I answered the phone.”
“This was after Hawk left you,” I said. “After eleven?”
“Sure.”
“Are you telling me that anyone, without even giving a name, could call up the Charles Hotel at, say, eleven-thirty at night and be put right through to your room, no questions asked?”
The crafty look got a little fogged over; her brows furrowed. She wasn’t a deep thinker sober, and she was a long distance past sober. She opened her mouth once, and closed it again. She looked at del Rio. She drank some scotch. I waited.
“Leave me alone,” she said.
“Jill,” I said, “the only way anyone can call your room is to be on a call list, and identify themselves. You know that. I know that. I’m on the list. Otherwise half the city of Boston would call you up every day. You’re a star.”
“You’re goddamned right,I am,” Jill said. “And you better, goddamn it, start treating me like one.”
Her breath seemed short. Her face was reddening “Somebody better,” she said.
She let her head drop and took hold of her drink with both hands and then her shoulders sagged forward.
“Somebody better,” she said again and started to cry. The crying was hysterical and had the promise of duration. I looked at del Rio. He looked at me. Chollo looked at whatever he looked at. We waited. After a while she stopped sobbing long enough to get a cigarette going and sip some scotch.
“Why won’t anyone take care of me,” she said in a gasping voice and started to cry again. Through the picture window I could see that the dark cloud had moved directly over us. The occasional raindrops that had spattered on the window intensified. They came now in a steady rattle.
Del Rio said, “Would you like to see your mother, Jill?” There was no kindness in his voice, but no cruelty either.
“God, no,” Jill said, still crying, her face buried in her hands, the cigarette drifting smoke from her right hand.
“Maybe your father,” I said. “Would you like to talk with your father?”
She sat suddenly upright. “My father’s dead,” she said and continued to cry, sitting up, facing us, occasionally swigging in a gulp of scotch or dragging in a lungful of smoke, between sobs. I turned that over in my mind a little.
“Your father’s not dead, Jill. He’s here in Los Angeles.”
“He’s dead,” she said.