Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 Read online

  10

  Maybe Red Manley was new at cheating on his wife. Or maybe he needed a receipt, to make a claim against an expense account. Or maybe he was just a goddamn idiot.

  Whatever the reason, Robert Manley had broken the first rule of philandering: on the evening of January eighth, at the Pacific Beach Motor Camp, he had signed his own name on the motel register; and so, incredibly enough, had his companion for the night, Elizabeth Short. Manley’s address was listed—8010 Mountain View Avenue, Huntington Park—as was his automobile license number.

  Elizabeth Short had given only “Chicago” as her address. The lack of anything further—say, the St. Clair Hotel, or the A-1 Detective Agency—was small consolation.

  “Chicago again,” Fowley said, as we looked at the register at the motel check-in counter. He grinned at me wolfishly. “Sure this ‘Dahlia’ dame ain’t some old girl friend of yours?”

  “You never know,” I said, and grinned back at him, back of my neck prickling.

  Huntington Park was five miles south of downtown Los Angeles, in the midst of an industrial district, and while Mountain View Avenue may not have lived up to the scenic promise of its name, the quiet residential street was a sizable step up from the tract housing of Bayview Terrace. At dusk, bathed in the dying sunlight Hollywood moviemakers called “magic hour,” the little Manley home seemed California idyllic: a modest green-tile-roofed pale yellow stucco in the Spanish-Colonial style with a well-tended lawn, a cobblestone walk bordered by brightly flowering bushes, and thorny shrubs that hugged the house like prickly bodyguards.

  Fowley rang the bell, and—almost supernaturally fast—the door opened and a lovely young woman was standing there, raising a “shush” finger, the fingernail painted the same candy-apple red as the lipstick glistening on her full red lips. She was a honey-blonde with a heart-shaped face, big blue eyes, upturned nose, peaches-and-cream complexion and a trim, shapely figure wrapped up in a red-striped white seersucker sundress that left her smooth shoulders bare.

  “Please be quiet,” she said, her voice hushed. “My baby’s sleeping.” I glanced at Fowley and he glanced at me—we each knew what the other was thinking: what kind of lunatic runs around on a dish like this?

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Fowley said, almost whispering. He held up a badge—an honorary deputy’s badge the L.A. County Sheriff issued to certain reporters, which those reporters often used to imply they were law enforcement officers. “Are you Mrs. Robert Manley?”

  After barely glancing at the badge, the big blue eyes blinked at us. She must have been about twenty-two, a kid herself—her pretty face still had a pleasing baby-fat plumpness.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, alarm swimming in those big blue eyes.

  I said, “Is your husband home, Mrs. Manley?”

  “No, he isn’t. He’s in San Francisco on business—he’s a traveling salesman. In hardware.”

  There was a joke in there somewhere, and it wouldn’t have taken much looking to find it, but I didn’t bother.

  “Could we ask you a few questions, ma’am?” Fowley asked. “Would it be possible for us to step inside?”

  Her eyebrows tightened and a vertical line formed between them, a single crease in an otherwise perfectly smooth face. “This is about that girl Robert picked up, isn’t it?”

  Again, Fowley and I glanced at each other.

  Nodding, I said, “Her name was Elizabeth Short.”

  “I know,” Mrs. Manley said wearily. “I read the papers. . . .Why don’t we sit in the kitchen? I have some coffee made. Just please be quiet—Robert, Jr., is sleeping, and believe me, you don’t want to wake him.”

  She led the way through the sparsely but nicely appointed bungalow, venetian blinds throwing slashes of shadow across gleaming hardwood floors. A playpen scattered with stuffed toys sat amid a wine-colored angora mohair living room suite, and vaguely Spanish, mahogany-veneer furnishings—everything looked new, suggesting a young couple buying on the installment plan.

  The kitchen was a compact, streamlined affair of white and two tones of blue; a scattering of the latest appliances lined the countertops, as did baby bottles. Another baby bottle warmed in a pan on the gas range, and a red telephone on the wall was like a splash of blood against the white tile. We sat at a white-trimmed blue plastic-and-chrome dinette set and sipped the coffee she provided.

  “My name is Fowley,” the reporter said, his notepad out, “and this is Mr. Heller.”

  “I’m Harriet Manley,” she said, sipping her coffee, her eyes wide and rather glazed—and, I noticed, slightly bloodshot. She had a lovely speaking voice, a warm alto, but—right now at least—her inflections were negligible, emotionless. “Bob is due home tonight. He and his boss, Mr. Palmer, are on their way back right now, from San Francisco. . . . Did I say that already? I’m sorry.”

  “Mrs. Manley,” Fowley asked, “what do you know about your husband and Elizabeth Short?”

  “Bob phoned me from San Francisco this morning,” she said, in that same near-monotone. “He saw the story in the papers up there, and said he recognized the girl’s picture. Of course, I’d read about the, uh . . . read about it myself—it’s all over the front page.”

  Fowley gave me a look that indicated he would take the notes, and I should ask the questions.

  So I asked one: “What did Bob say about this girl?”

  She was staring into her coffee. “He had given her a ride back from San Diego—just as a favor, he said. Nothing between them.”

  “I see. And what did you say to this?”

  “I’m . . . I’m ashamed to tell you.”

  “Please.”

  “. . . I asked him if he’d done it.”

  “Done it?”

  “If he’d killed that girl.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Of course not, honey. Whatever made you think I did?’ ”

  I searched for sarcasm in her tone but couldn’t find any. “And what did you say to that?”

  She looked at me; it was like staring into the glass eyes of a doll. “Do I have to answer?”

  “Of course not.”

  Now her gaze returned to her coffee; her lips were trembling, just a little. “I said . . . because of your nervous trouble.”

  “What nervous trouble was that?”

  “Bob . . . Bob was discharged from the Army. What you call a ‘Section Eight.’ ”

  I knew what that was, all right.

  “Was he in combat?” Fowley asked, looking up from his notepad. “Did he have battlefield trauma—”

  She was shaking her head. “No, not exactly. He was near combat, when he was overseas, on USO tours.”

  Frowning, I asked, “USO tours?”

  “Bob’s a musician—he was in the Army Air Corps band. Saxophone.”

  “Really. Does he still work as a musician?”

  “Sometimes. He’s in the union. He gets a call for a weekend job now and then: bars and nightclubs.”

  So this guy was a traveling salesman and a weekend musician who played in bars. That a guy in those twin trades might pick up a little poontang here and there might come as no shock—unless you were, as I was, seated across from the striking beauty he was married to.

  I asked, “What did your husband say when he called you from San Francisco?”

  The full lips twitched in a nonsmile. “He said he figured the police would be around, sooner or later, and he didn’t want me hearing about this from anybody but him. I suggested he go talk to the authorities himself. I figured that would . . . look better.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “What did your husband say to that?”

  “He said he didn’t want to go looking for trouble. He had accounts to call on, and he was with his boss, and it would just be too embarrassing. . . . He represents a pipe and clamp company, you know.”

  Another easy joke to be found, had I been in the mood.

  I asked, “How long have you and Bob been married?”r />
  “Fifteen months. Robert, Jr., is four months old.”

  Robert, Sr., was a hell of a guy.

  “The day your husband drove back from San Diego with his passenger,” I said, tactfully, “that was last Thursday, just a week ago. Would you happen to remember what time he got home that night?”

  She was already nodding. “He made it home for supper—probably six-thirty. We had some friends over, for bridge that evening—neighbors. I can give your their names.”

  “Please,” Fowley said.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Don Holmes,” she said, rather formally, and gave the particulars as the reporter scribbled.

  Then I asked, “What about the next several days?”

  “Bob was at home every day, working, calling buyers on the phone, until he left for San Francisco with Mr. Palmer—that was on Monday.”

  If that were true, Manley had been out of town when the murder was most likely committed.

  The phone’s shrill ring jolted all three of us. Harriet Manley was up like a shot, probably to make sure the thing didn’t jangle again and wake her baby.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Then her eyes tightened, and immediately softened.

  “Hello, baby,” she said.

  Fowley and I looked at each other: her other baby.

  Covering the mouthpiece, eyes huge, the pretty housewife whispered, “It’s Bob . . . Do you want to talk to him?”

  Shaking his head, Fowley patted the air, whispered back, “Better not tell him we’re here.”

  Though her voice remained calm, her eyes danced; she obviously was torn, wondering whether to warn him.

  “No, I’m fine. . . . I love you, too. . . . I believe you. . . . I believe you. . . . I believe you. . . . I know you do. . . . I know you do. . . . I do, too. . . . I miss you too. . . . ’Bye.”

  Hanging up the phone, she said, “He was calling from a pay phone, at a diner. He said he should be home by ten or eleven tonight. . . . He has to stop at his boss’ place first. That’s where he left our car, before he and Mr. Palmer drove up to San Francisco.”

  I asked, “Where does Mr. Palmer live?”

  She was leaning against the counter, near the baby bottles. “Eagle Rock. I can give you the address, if you’d rather . . . rather pick him up there. Instead of here.”

  “Would you like that, Mrs. Manley?”

  “I think so.”

  “Did Bob say anything else?”

  “Yes. He said he loved me more than any man ever loved a wife.”

  Her lip was quivering and I thought she might break down; but she did not. I believe she had made a decision that she would maintain her dignity in front of us.

  Rising from the little plastic-and-chrome table, Fowley asked, “Would you happen to have any recent photos of your husband that we could borrow? For identification purposes?”

  And publication purposes.

  “We just had some taken,” she said, “by a professional photographer. . . . If you’ll wait here . . .”

  She exited the kitchen and returned moments later with a triple frame, from which she removed a grinning photo of her husband, a young, handsome if jug-eared fellow. “Do you want these, as well?” She indicated the other two photos—one of herself and Robert, beaming at each other, and another of the family with Robert, Jr., in his mother’s arms, mom and dad looking adoringly at junior.

  Fowley said, “If you don’t mind.”

  “Take them.”

  I took them from her. Harriet Manley looked radiant in the photos, which were beautifully shot.

  “We would appreciate it,” Fowley said, as we headed out through the living room, “if you didn’t talk to anyone else about this, especially if newspaper reporters should start coming around.”

  “Oh, I won’t talk to any reporters,” she said.

  Fowley, having no shame, stayed at it. “And if your husband calls back—”

  “I won’t say anything. I know he has to . . . face up to this.”

  “If he’s innocent—”

  “He didn’t kill that girl, Detective Fowley. But he’s not ‘innocent,’ is he?”

  “Are you going to stand by him?”

  We were at the door, now.

  “I’ll have to think about that. We have a son, after all, and I do love my husband very much. Bob has his flaws, his problems, but I never thought he was . . . stepping out on me. I never imagined—”

  I said, “You don’t have to go on.”

  Harriet Manley swallowed, her big blue eyes hooded. “Terrible . . . terrible.”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to that poor girl, I mean.”

  “Right.”

  “She was . . . very pretty, wasn’t she?”

  “Elizabeth Short? Yes. But if you don’t mind my saying so, not compared to you. Not nearly as beautiful.”

  She managed a slight smile. “You’re kind, Mr. Heller.”

  “Hardly. It’s the truth. Your husband’s a damn fool.”

  “I know . . . I know. But I still love him, anyway.”

  On the way down the cobblestone walk, “Detective” Fowley said, “Jesus Christ, she’s gonna forgive the bastard! What a woman. . . . Where do I go to find a dame like that?”

  I glanced back—it was after dark now, and the beautiful mother of Robert Manley’s son was watching us go, haloed in the doorway of the precious little bungalow on Mountain View Avenue. Red Manley had everything any man could ever hope for, and—whether a murderer or not—had risked it all for a piece of tail.

  Then she disappeared, and I could hear the muffled sound of crying—Robert, Jr.’s. I had a hunch he wouldn’t be crying alone.

  With Manley due back in town around ten tonight, we took time to grab burgers at a greasy spoon on Colorado Boulevard.

  “Well, even if Red Manley isn’t our murderer,” Fowley said, dragging a french fry through a river of ketchup, “he’s how Elizabeth Short got from San Diego to L.A.”

  “Six days before her body was found,” I reminded the reporter, across from him in a booth.

  “Yeah,” he said, chewing the fry, “but once we know where Bob dropped her off, we’ll know where to pick up her trail. And, anyway, who’s to say his alibis are gonna hold up? Maybe the little woman’s covering for him, and after she has time to stew over hubby straying, she’ll change her story.”

  I nibbled at my cheeseburger. “If Red and his boss were in San Francisco when the coroner says Elizabeth Short was killed, then Manley’s biggest problem is going to be holding his marriage together.”

  Fowley shook his head. “I can’t wait to see this sap. I’d kill the Pope in the May Company window for a night with that wife of his.”

  “Not if I got my hands on the wop, first,” I said.

  The Eagle Rock district was high on the foothills between Glendale and Pasadena. Manley’s boss, Mr. Palmer, lived on Mount Royal Drive, another quiet, if more exclusive residential street, in another Spanish-Colonial number, only this was no bungalow. The glow of a streetlamp mingled with the ivory wash of moonlight to illuminate the sprawl of red-tile-roofed, off-white stucco, a patio to one side, a two-car garage under the main floor, the rest of the house spilling up an elaborately landscaped slope with palm trees, century plants, and cacti. Lights were on in the place, a few anyway.

  The night was chilly, almost cold. We left the ’47 Ford at the curb, across the street and down a ways, and Fowley peeked in the garage windows while I climbed the curving cobblestone path to the front door.

  A heavyset Mexican maid in a pale green uniform answered my knock. I asked her if Mr. Palmer was home, and she said Mr. Palmer was not, but that Mrs. Palmer was. I said my business was with Mr. Palmer, excused myself, and walked back down the path.

  “Only car in the garage is Manley’s,” Fowley reported. “Same license number he gave at the motel—a light tan Studebaker, prewar model.”

  “Palmer isn’t home yet. His wife is, but I ducked her.”

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nbsp; “Okay, then—we wait.”

  We waited, sitting in the Ford with the windows down while Fowley smoked one Camel after another. After a while, I got the old urge and smoked a couple, myself—I think it was right after Fowley said he was going to advise Richardson to call the Herald-American, Hearst’s Chicago paper, and get a crew out there sniffing around after the Short girl.

  “Maybe we oughta send you, Heller,” Fowley said.

  “What, and interrupt my honeymoon?”

  Now and then headlights swept across us, as the occasional car made its way up quiet Mount Royal Drive—little or no through traffic, just neighborhood residents. Just after ten, a pair of powerful highbeams blinded us, as a big automobile swung into the driveway, the headlights flooding the red garage door.

  We got out just as the driver—a tall, horse-faced man in a suit but no hat, revealing a balding dome—climbed out of the Lincoln Continental, a dark blue vehicle that blended into the night.

  “Freeze!” Fowley called out, flashing the deputy sheriff’s badge.

  Fowley gave the driver just enough time to glimpse the badge before he straight-armed the guy in the back, shoving him against the garage door, barking at him to assume the position.

  On the rider’s side, Robert “Red” Manley was getting out onto the cement driveway, or rather was sneaking out, trying to slip away as Fowley was occupied with the man I figured was Palmer, Manley’s boss.

  Manley—eyes wide and wild, mouth open—was maybe six foot, wearing a snappy brown sportjacket and tan slacks. He had the build of a defensive end, and was taking off like one, too, dashing across the lawn, tie flapping, weaving around exotic plants.

  He hadn’t seen me; but I, of course, had seen him.

  I cut around a cactus and threw myself at him, bringing him down in a hard tackle, and we both rolled down the slope of the lawn, dropping off the curb into the street. I hit the cement pretty hard, scraping the skin along my right hand, and yelped in pain, letting loose of him reflexively, which allowed him to scramble up and out of my grasp, and then he was running down the street, arms churning, like a Zulu trying to outrun another Zulu’s spear.