Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 Read online

  “That’s the news you want me to break? Her daughter’s death?”

  He strode back to the head of the table, nodding. “Unlikely she’s heard yet, unless the cops got right on it . . . and I don’t think Hansen even gets in till nine or nine-thirty.”

  I sighed. “All right. It’s gotta be done.”

  “Yeah . . . but gracefully . . . you know, let her down easy. First, tell her that Elizabeth won a beauty contest.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged elaborately, held his palms up. “If you just flat-out tell the poor woman that her little girl’s dead, she’s gonna go to pieces on you, Heller—you know that. We need to get all the background, before you inform her of, you know, the tragic event.”

  “You are one sorry son of a bitch.”

  “True, but if you don’t make this call for me, Heller, you won’t be working for this sorry son of a bitch any longer. You and Fred Rubinski will be on the outside of this case, as well as this newspaper, and you can pony up some real dough for a real press agent, which you will sorely need, considering the bad ink we will drown you in.”

  “How do you sleep at night?”

  “Like a dead baby. Anyway, you got the skills for this, Nate. You can do it. I know you can.”

  “That show of confidence just sends me soaring. Why don’t you have Fowley here do your dirty work? He oughta be used to it by now.”

  Fowley leaned back in the chair, raised his eyebrows, and his hands, like he’d just touched both burners of a hot stove.

  Richardson, his left eye floating, said kindly, “He’s going to be taking notes while you work your magic.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “By ‘fuck you,’ I take that to mean, yes, you’ll do it.”

  “Yes, fuck you. Yes, I’ll do it.”

  Soon two phones on long wires had been plugged into the wall, one each in front of Fowley and me. The switchboard connected us, so that Fowley could listen in.

  It took a while to track the woman down. No Medford telephone was listed for the Shorts, but by sweet-talking an operator, I was able to find my way to the next-door neighbor, who told me the Shorts rented out a flat upstairs in their house and that the flat did indeed have a phone. I got ahold of the tenant, and, before long, Mrs. Phoebe Short was on the line. I identified myself as a reporter with the Examiner.

  “Why yes, I have a daughter named Elizabeth.” The voice was medium pitched and touched with a New England accent, and its pleasantness indicated that news of her daughter’s death had surely not reached her yet.

  “Is your daughter by any chance in California?” I asked.

  “Yes, she is. She’s been out there some while, off and on, trying to break into the moving pictures.”

  Richardson was seated next to Fowley, listening in as the reporter jotted down notes; the editor’s eyes—including the slow one—lighted up like a candle in a jack-o-lantern. The Werewolf’s victim was a starlet! What more could a sleazebag editor ask?

  “Mrs. Short,” I said, “your daughter has won a beauty contest out here—Miss Santa Monica.”

  “Oh! How wonderful . . . I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s such a pretty girl—she’s won these sort of contests before, you know, starting with right here in Medford. And when she worked in the PX at Camp Cooke, during the war? She was selected ‘Cutie of the Week.’ ”

  Fowley was scribbling and Richardson was grinning.

  “She’s such a wholesome young woman,” the excited mother was saying. “She doesn’t smoke, or drink. . . .”

  She was just arrested for underage drinking, and had a tattoo on her left thigh.

  “How long has Elizabeth been in Hollywood, Mrs. Short?”

  Now a little embarrassment seemed to creep into the proud parent’s tone. “Well, you have to understand, everyone back here was always telling Elizabeth how beautiful she was, that she was born to be a movie star.”

  “Is that right?”

  “She dropped out of Medford High in her junior year. Of course, pursuing her acting dreams is only part of why she left school. Hard to imagine, healthy as she looks, but she’s always suffered from asthma, and other lung conditions. So that sunny weather is good for her. She’s spent some time in Florida, too.”

  I didn’t want to get into Elizabeth Short’s travel habits—since they included “sunny” Chicago—so I moved the mother back to Hollywood.

  “Has your daughter appeared in any movies since she’s been out here?”

  “She’s had some small parts—what do they call it, when you’re in the background of a scene?”

  “An extra?”

  “Yes, an extra. She’s appeared as an extra.”

  “Has Elizabeth always been interested in acting?”

  “I’m afraid my daughter’s always been kind of movie struck,” the mother bubbled, “and I’m afraid I have to take credit, or maybe blame.”

  “Are you a movie fan, too?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve always loved the movies. From when they were little girls, I always took Betty and her sister Muriel to the picture show, two or three times a week. Everyone says Betty looks like Deanna Durbin, you know.”

  “There is a striking resemblance.”

  “Betty’s sister, Ginnie, is very talented, too, studying opera, and the two girls would just battle over the radio—Ginnie wanting to listen to that long-hair stuff, and Betty just loved the popular songs. Was there a talent competition for Miss Santa Monica? Did she dance? Betty’s a wonderful dancer.”

  “Well, I wasn’t at the competition, Mrs. Short—I’m trying to get in touch with Betty. Would you happen to have her most recent address?”

  “I don’t understand. If she won the beauty contest, why don’t you have—”

  “We got Elizabeth’s name from the Chamber of Commerce,” I said glibly, feeling like the goddamn liar I was, “who sponsored the contest, but they neglected to give us her address, in their press release.”

  “I don’t know if I have her most recent address—she was staying in San Diego, at least until two weeks ago.”

  Richardson was nodding at me, mouthing, “Good, good.”

  “But it doesn’t surprise me she’s back in the Hollywood area,” her mother was saying.

  “Why is that, Mrs. Short?”

  “Well, Elizabeth said she only went down to San Diego because of the movie union strikes—she said everything in the film industry was kind of shut down. But I know she had to get back to Hollywood before too long.”

  “Why is that?”

  The pride in Mrs. Short’s voice was palpable. “Betty had a screen test coming up.”

  “Really? Do you know for what studio?”

  “It wasn’t a studio, I don’t think. She said it was a director, some famous director.”

  “Well, that’s swell. Did she say what director?”

  “No—just that he was very, very famous. It’s someone she met at the Hollywood Canteen.”

  “Oh, she worked at the Canteen?” Actually, I knew that already—Beth had mentioned that, and the “famous director”—but I hadn’t shared the information with anybody.

  “I don’t think she did, officially. But she said she was on the list to be a junior hostess, and got meals there, free, sometimes.”

  “The Hollywood Canteen, that’s a wonderful thing, supporting our servicemen like that.”

  Mrs. Short laughed, lightly. “I don’t mean to speak out of school, but my daughter does have a soft spot for a man in uniform.”

  “Well, a lot of girls do these days, Mrs. Short.”

  “They certainly do. . . .” And now her tone turned somber. “. . . Elizabeth was engaged to a major in the Army Air Corps, oh, for almost three years. But he died in action.”

  “I’m so sorry. Do you, uh, happen to know where she was staying in San Diego?”

  “I told you, I don’t think she’s still staying there. . . .”

  “Have you heard from her since she left San Diego?”
/>
  “Well, no—but maybe the nice people she was staying with would have a forwarding address for Elizabeth . . . Let me see if I can find that letter for you . . . Do you mind hanging on? I mean it is long distance, and this must be terribly expensive for you.”

  “No, please, do see if you can find that letter.”

  “All right.”

  As she put down the phone, I could hear Mrs. Short excitedly telling her tenant the good news about Elizabeth winning a beauty contest in Hollywood.

  “Heller,” Richardson said, “you’re doing great.”

  “Kiss my ass,” I said.

  “I just might, if you land that address.”

  Finally Mrs. Short came back on the line, and said, “I found it! Let me just read through this letter, refresh my memory. . . . She was working part-time at a Naval hospital in San Diego, staying with a girl friend named Dorothy French, at the home of the girl’s mother, Mrs. Elvera French—in Pacific Beach. I believe that’s a suburb of San Diego. Do you have a pencil?”

  “Yes,” I said, and she read off the address.

  I glanced over at Fowley and Richardson. Covering the mouthpiece, I said, “You got your goddamn address.”

  “Now,” Richardson said.

  “What?”

  “Tell her now.”

  “What a sweet bastard you are. . . .” Into the phone, I said, “Mrs. Short, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you. Are you sitting down, ma’am?”

  “Why, yes, I am—what is it? Is something wrong?”

  “Forgive me for the pretense. I had to make sure I was speaking to the right person . . . that you were in fact Elizabeth Short’s mother, the right Elizabeth Short. . . .”

  “Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?”

  “Forgive me—yes. A young woman was killed, probably Tuesday night.”

  “Oh God . . . oh dear God . . .”

  “Her body was found Wednesday morning.”

  “Do you mean . . . murdered? My Betty was murdered?”

  “This young woman, who we believe to be your daughter, was murdered, yes.”

  “Are you . . . are you sure it’s Betty?”

  “This girl had black hair, weighed about 115 pounds, was five feet five, a lovely girl with blue-green eyes and a fair complexion.”

  “That could be a lot of girls in Hollywood, couldn’t it? Did this girl have a scar on her back? Elizabeth had a scar on her back from a lung operation—she was sick with pleurisy, when she was small, and had to have a rib removed. If this girl didn’t have that, then—”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Short. She did have such a scar.”

  “Oh dear . . . oh dear . . .”

  She was weeping.

  “Mrs. Short, I know there’s nothing I can say except that I’m sorry, and I apologize for the deception.”

  Suddenly Richardson was behind me—I hadn’t noticed him move from Fowley’s side: it was startling, like a jump cut in a movie.

  Clamping his hand over the mouthpiece, Richardson leaned in and whispered harshly into my ear, machine-gunning the words, “Commiserate with the woman—cry along with her—tell her the Examiner feels for her, tell her we’ll pay for the funeral, we’ll bring her and her daughters out here, all expenses paid. . . .”

  “You tell her.” I yanked the phone free from him. “Mrs. Short, once again, my sincere apologies—the city editor of the Examiner would like to speak with you.”

  And I handed him the phone, got out of the chair, and gestured for him to sit.

  He sat, not missing a beat as he smoothly spoke. “Mrs. Short, this is James Richardson of the Los Angeles Examiner—if you will stay on the line, we want to help you in your time of grief . . . please stay on the line. . . . Thank you.” Richardson covered the receiver. “Heller, you and Fowley get your asses down to San Diego, toot sweet.” To Fowley, who was already getting up, notepad in hand, Richardson said, “Leave your notes with a rewrite man—just take the address. . . . That a good enough lead for the first string, Bill?”

  “Not bad,” Fowley said, and I followed him out of the editorial chamber as Richardson, in a voice that would have melted butter, soothed and consoled and manipulated Elizabeth Short’s mother.

  As we walked through the bustling city room, Fowley said, “If Richardson can convince that dame to let him fly her out here, we can keep her away from the cops long enough to wring Christ knows how many leads out of her. The boss is something, isn’t he?”

  “One of a kind,” I said.

  Then I excused myself and went into the bathroom and puked up my breakfast.

  The outskirts of Los Angeles blended into the bleakness of derrick-flung oil fields, which quickly gave way to vegetable farms and citrus groves. Soon Highway 101 slipped down to the ocean, whose shimmering blue beauty contrasted nicely with the brush-dotted hills of a barren coastline occasionally broken by farming and resort communities.

  The morning was sunny yet cool, and the surf-level ride to San Diego—with Fowley behind the wheel of the blue ’47 Ford—was pleasant enough, considering the company.

  “Some way to spend your honeymoon, huh, Heller?” Fowley said, hat pushed back, cigarette dangling, windows down, wind rushing by.

  “Peg knew I was going to do a little work out here,” I said.

  “Beautiful girl, you lucky bastard. Seems like a nice gal, too. Understanding, is she? About the screwy nature of what you do for a living, I mean?”

  “She understands,” I said.

  She’d even forgiven me, in the middle of the night, when I cuddled in next to her. And I’d forgiven her. We’d even made love again, passionately, desperately, bawling like babies when we climaxed, as might be expected from a pair of newlyweds trying to make up for the wife wanting to abort their child and a husband who’d threatened to kill her.

  I’d seen Peggy off early this morning, with some flowers I’d bought at the hotel gift shop, wishing her well on day one of her first Hollywood shoot. No makeup on, turbaned, in a boyish cotton T-shirt and gray slacks, she looked goddamn gorgeous.

  “Let’s not hurt each other anymore,” she suggested.

  “It’s a deal.”

  I gave her a big kiss and walked her to the studio-provided limo.

  “So, tell me, Nate,” Fowley was saying, working his voice above the wind and the staticky sound of Frank Sinatra singing, “The Girl That I Marry”—great guy to be giving marital advice.

  “Tell you what, Bill?”

  “What does your partner Rubinski think about the A-1 Detective Agency falling into the biggest crime since Papa Hitler’s rubber broke?”

  I grunted. “Fred thinks we better be in on the solving of this crime, if we want the right kind of publicity.”

  “We’ll solve it. Hell, you don’t think the cops are gonna beat us to it?”

  “No, not the way the Examiner is withholding evidence, and doling it out to the cops like a kid’s allowance.”

  “Ah, you’re overstating.”

  “In future I’ll strive for the subtlety expected of Examiner staffers. Anyway, Harry the Hat knows what he’s doing, at least.”

  “Yeah, the Hat’s smart enough to know to look over our shoulders, you mean. But he’s the exception.” Fowley lighted up a fresh cigarette off the dashboard lighter. “Half the LAPD is in Mickey Cohen’s pocket, the other half’s in Jack Dragna’s. Besides which, these LAPD detectives are the biggest bunch of boobs this side of the Mississippi.”

  “You may have heard, we have our fair share of bent cops in Chicago.”

  “Ah, yes, but not idiot bent cops!” Fowley raised an authoritative finger. “There are more unsolved murders in Los Angeles per capita than any other major American city.”

  “With guys like Finis Brown in the department, I’m not surprised.”

  Fowley grinned over at me. “Ever hear of Thad Brown?”

  “Isn’t he Chief of Detectives?”

  “That’s right—Fat Ass is his brother.”
<
br />   “No! Thad Brown’s supposed to be a good, honest cop!”

  “That’s right, Nate. And his brother is a Mickey Cohen bag man. You figure it. Funny thing is, the uniformed officers in L.A. are pretty fair cops; it’s just the detectives that couldn’t find their ass with two hands.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, take your motorcycle cop for instance. Those cycle jockeys got a rigorous exam to take, tougher than hell. And the department encourages the uniformed boys to take university extension courses, and major in criminal science, really improve their efficiency in police work. That’s the rank-and-file . . . but to become a big-shot detective? There’s no definitive exam—you just get appointed.”

  “Based on what?”

  Fowley shrugged, both hands on the wheel. “Based on your ability to fit in with the Old Boy network of detectives, the ones that have ongoing deals with bailbondsmen and criminal attorneys. It’s the same dicks who are in Cohen’s pocket—him or Dragna.”

  Cohen and Dragna again. Funny Fowley bringing them up. When I’d called my L.A. partner Fred Rubinski at home, last night—to give him the censored version of our agency’s involvement with the Examiner and the “Werewolf Slaying”—Fred had mentioned the same two notorious names.

  “You may be on to something,” Fred had told me, “where the wound to that girl’s face is concerned. These cops and reporters aren’t from Chicago, like us—they don’t know how to read the signs.”

  “Getting slashed ear-to-ear means you’re talking too much. How hard is that to read?”

  “Well read this, Nate: that vacant lot where this girl was found is only a couple blocks from where Jack Dragna lives.”

  “What? No shit?”

  “None. He’s a well-known Leimert Park resident.”

  Jack Dragna was the so-called “Capone of California.” Born Anthony Rozzotti, Dragna had been a typical Prohibition-era mob boss, operating bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution out of L.A.’s Italian ghetto; Nitti had done business with him in the early ’40s, when Willie Bioff and George Browne infiltrated the movie unions.