Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 Page 32

  I grinned at her, my smoke mingling with hers. “I didn’t say you admitted it—just that you realized it. Funny, isn’t it?”

  The big brown eyes in the oval face regarded me coldly. “What is?”

  I shrugged. “How a person can be right and wrong at the same time. I think I can make this whole sorry affair go away, if you just answer a few questions.”

  Now the eyes narrowed. “Who are you, Mr. Heller?”

  “The best thing that’s happened to you in a long time.”

  She thought about that. Then she exhaled smoke, lowering her gaze, and said, “Ask your questions.”

  “How long has ‘Floyd’ worked for you?”

  Still not looking at me, she said, “Not long. Late November, I believe.”

  “How did you come to hire him?”

  “He had good references, at least in terms of our extralegal trade.”

  “He’d worked in other abortion mills, you mean.”

  A tiny sneer formed on the thin lips. “That’s an ugly term.”

  “For a lovely business. Where had he worked?”

  “San Diego. San Francisco. Here in L.A. He’s very knowledgeable, medically speaking; he has skilled hands.”

  “As of now, better make that ‘hand.’ ” That got a sharp look out of her, and when her eyes met mine, I said, “Tell me about Elizabeth Short.”

  The smooth brow tried not to wrinkle, and did not succeed. “What about her?”

  “She came here to your clinic—why?”

  A sigh of smoke. “Dr. Dailey was from the same part of New England where the Short woman grew up. She needed an operation.”

  “She had vaginal atresia.”

  That got her attention. “How did you know that?”

  “The way this works,” I said, giving her as nasty a smile as I could muster, “is I ask the questions. Was it the kind of operation Dr. Dailey could still handle?”

  “I . . . I thought he could.”

  “What was Dailey doing here today, Dr. Winter? He wasn’t assisting you.”

  She was smoking more nervously, now. “I . . . I keep my eye on him, now.”

  “You mean, since he killed Elizabeth Short.”

  The words hit her like a physical blow, but she did her best not to show it. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Really it is—you just don’t know it. Ever hear of a guy named Arnold Wilson?”

  “Common name . . . but I don’t think so.”

  “He’s six-four, badly pockmarked, pronounced limp.”

  Now the thin lips worked up a patronizing smirk. “What—no eyepatch? No parrot?”

  “I’ll do the jokes, lady. Do you know him?”

  “No.”

  Actually, that figured. I had an idea Arnold Wilson had kept his relationship to, and with, Lloyd Watterson strictly between the boys.

  “Tell me about Dr. Dailey. Tell me about how badly he’s been slipping, lately.”

  She plucked tobacco off the tip of her tongue. “He’s . . . I told you before. He suffers from cerebral arteriosclerosis . . . resulting in senile dementia.”

  “So when his patient, Elizabeth Short, turned up dead in that vacant lot, a block from where the doctor lives . . . or used to live, before heeding your siren call . . . you figured he’d tried to do that operation by himself, and botched it, and halved that girl for easy transport, and then absentmindedly dumped her close to home. Something like that?”

  She folded her arms over the shelf of her breasts—the genie was pissed off again. “You must be insane.”

  “I must be—everybody seems to think so, today. Or maybe you figured the doc was trying, in his demented way, to get back at his wife.”

  Something close to tenderness crept into her hard-edged voice. “Dr. Dailey is a gentle soul . . . He’d never do such a thing. . . .”

  “In his right mind, you mean?”

  She said nothing.

  “Listen, Maria—he wouldn’t do it in his wrong mind, either. You’ve been scammed.”

  Now she looked at me—startled. “What?”

  “Lloyd . . . I mean, ‘Floyd’ . . . convinced you that he came in here, one night, and discovered what Dr. Dailey had done, right?”

  “How. . .what. . .?”

  “Work with me on this. I’m here to help. Tell me, Doctor. Maria—tell me.”

  She shook her head, heaved a big sigh of smoke. “He . . . Floyd said he came in on the . . . grisly aftermath. He said he helped Wallace cart the body out . . . even admitted helping to cut her in half. Said he’d tried to make it look like a . . . sex crime . . . to help throw off the police. But Floyd was too new in the office to know that where Wallace suggested the body be disposed of was near his own home.”

  I laughed, and she flinched.

  I said, “I figured you’d been led to believe some line of horse hockey like that. It’s not true, Dr. Winter. Floyd is Lloyd, by the way, Lloyd Watterson . . . Lloyd butchered that girl . . . Your gifted assistant abortionist is a former mental patient known to have committed at least thirteen torso murders back in Ohio.”

  “You must be joking. . . .”

  “Yeah, I’m joking. This has been a lighthearted afternoon all the way ’round.”

  She was weaving in the chair. “My God . . . can it . . . is it . . . true?”

  “It can, it is—true.” I gestured toward the door with cigarette in hand. “My friend out there is a former Ohio police official who is helping Lloyd’s well-connected family see that he’s returned to a mental institution, and committed for life.”

  Hope leapt into the dark eyes. “And if that happened . . .”

  “That’s right, Maria—then the LAPD would not be involved, nor would the papers. You and Dr. Dailey would be untouched by this scandal.”

  Now her eyes no longer avoided mine—rather, searched them. “What do you need from me?”

  “I need you to get that fingerless son of a bitch ready to travel by train.”

  “When?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  Her eyes tightened. She stabbed her cigarette out in a jade-green tray. “Done,” she said, rising.

  In the hallway, I found Eliot standing outside the operating room, just as Dr. Winter was heading in. I caught a glimpse of Lloyd seated on the abortion table, looking pale, in shock or sedated or both, his right hand bundled in gauze and adhesive, with four side-by-side spots of blood leaching through where his fingers used to be.

  “Looks like Lloyd’ll never play the piano again,” I said to Eliot.

  “They’ve got him pretty well patched up,” he said. “Since when do you smoke?”

  “Only when I get nostalgic for Jap bayonets. Look, Dr. Winter’s going to cooperate with us—Lloyd’ll be ready to travel.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. Very soon.”

  “Today?”

  “Now. I’ll help you haul him to the train station, but I have loose ends to attend, so you’ll have to make the trip alone. Shouldn’t be a problem—Lloyd’ll be pumped so full of morphine, he should be nice and cooperative. . . . I’ll see you in a few weeks—at the wedding.”

  Eliot smiled, shook his head, as if he were amazed, for some reason. “Thank you, Nate.”

  “For what? Not killing that bastard?”

  “Yes. And if they ever let Lloyd out of that asylum?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When we take him out into the desert,” Eliot said, a hand on my shoulder, “I will bring the shovel.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell my friend Eliot Ness that the real reason I hadn’t killed Watterson was that Lloyd’s friend Arnold Wilson had wanted me to.

  23

  The bright lights of Hollywood Boulevard took on a shimmering radiance, neon burning in the coolness of dusk, the hard, unpleasant edges of an ugly one-industry town blurred into blemish-free beauty. Like an aging screen queen with a great makeup artist, a gauze-draped key light, and a Vaseline-smeared camera lens, Hollywood didn�
�t look half bad.

  The little neighborhood around the corner from Grauman’s Chinese also benefited from twilight’s gentle touch, seeming even more idyllic, with its pastel stucco bungalows, nicely trimmed lawns, and scattering of palms and pepper trees, with flower gardens whose blossoms glowed vividly in the gathering darkness, lights struggling not to go out.

  I parked in the driveway, purposely blocking it, and trotted up the winding walk to the two-story red-tile-roof pink stucco two-flat. I pressed the button and, on the third try, its little electric-chair buzz summoned an answer.

  Framed there in the doorway, Patsy Savarino—her red hair tumbling to her shoulders, her mouth lushly lipsticked, the huge green almond eyes emphasized with matching eyeshadow—was proof positive that a woman eight months gone could still look alluring. The former stripper—though small in stature, she’d been voluptuous even before her pregnancy—wore a yellow-and-green abstract-pattern print maternity top and pedal-pusher denims. She was in her bare feet.

  “If you’re looking for my husband,” she said, guardedly, “he’s not here.”

  “Any of his pals over here? Your upstairs neighbors, maybe?”

  “The Hassaus moved out.”

  “That was quick.”

  “This morning.” She began to shut the door. “I’m alone here and you’re not coming in.”

  “Sure I am,” I said, pushing my way in, stepping past her, into the vestibule, at the foot of the stairs to the second-floor flat. It took more than an expectant mother to stop this detective.

  Her eyes were wide with indignation—and perhaps a little fear. “Mr. Heller, you’ll have to leave!”

  I shut the door and took out the nine-millimeter, to encourage her cooperation, and her fright. But the lush red lips only sneered at me. “Do you often threaten pregnant women?”

  “I think this may be a first.” I nodded toward the living room with its array of new, mismatched furniture. “How about your friend Arnold Wilson?”

  Her arms were folded over her bosom and her chin was high—for some reason, she reminded me of a barroom bouncer. “Who says he’s my friend?”

  “Is he here?”

  “Of course not.”

  I gestured with the nine-millimeter. “We’re going to have a look around.”

  “Are we?”

  I took her by the arm and dragged her along—“Hey! Lemme go, you bastard!”—checking every room of the eclectically furnished flat, finding no Bobby Savarino or Arnold Wilson or anyone else. The master bedroom closet was bare, nothing but hangers and a couple empty shoeboxes; the dresser was half-emptied. No male clothing at all.

  She stood sullenly in the doorway, leaning back against the jamb, folded arms resting on breasts that had been formidable even before they began revving up for the coming child.

  I turned to her. “You have an upstairs key?”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “I’ll kick the fucking door in.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I have a key.”

  “Can you handle those stairs all right?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  I shrugged. “I can leave you down here tied.”

  She grunted a humorless laugh. “Would that be another first, Mr. Heller?”

  “No, I just did it the other day—Oh, with a pregnant woman? I believe so.”

  Soon, she was dragging her ass up the stairs—albeit a nicely shaped one in the denim slacks, and her legs didn’t look heavy, either; the former No-Pasties-for-Patsy still had pride in her appearance, and hadn’t allowed herself to gain any excess weight, beyond the kid she was carrying.

  She unlocked the door and showed me in, and around, the Hassaus’ apartment. The lights weren’t on but they weren’t needed—what was left of the afternoon sun was finding its way through windows whose drapes had been removed. The entire place was fairly emptied out, only a few larger pieces of furniture remaining, chiefly a Colonial-style maple china cabinet in the dining room and a big walnut-trimmed wine-velour overstuffed sofa in the living room.

  Otherwise, tumbleweed was blowing through the goddamn place.

  “Christ,” I said, and—convinced I was now alone with the knocked-up former stripper—I slipped the nine-millimeter back into the shoulder holster.

  Again, she positioned herself in the doorway, arms folded on her chest, like a harem eunuch on guard, if an improbably pregnant one. “They loaded up a trailer this morning.”

  I went right up to her, leaned a hand against the wall. She smelled like Chypre De Coty perfume. “Your husband go with them?”

  Her expression was blank. “My husband’s out on bail. You know he can’t be leaving town.”

  “Henry Hassau’s out on bail, too. They both skipped, didn’t they?”

  She shrugged—then nodded.

  “Afraid of Dragna?”

  “Afraid of doing time.”

  I could see that: they were facing twenty years, as her husband had pointed out to me.

  I said, “The Ringgolds are going to be out some major scratch.”

  A tiny smile tweaked the full red lips. “Yes, but Bobby and Henry won’t be testifying against them, will they?”

  “That’s why you needed my money, right? Raising a little traveling cash for Bobby?”

  The green eyes were half-lidded now. “Gee. Ain’t you the genius?”

  I leaned in, doing my best to intimidate her, though with a tough little cookie like this, that wasn’t easy. “And, now what? Bobby’s going to get settled somewhere? Mexico maybe, and after you have the baby, you’ll join him?”

  She frowned—then she moved forward, so close her nose was almost touching mine. Her tone was near vicious when she demanded, “You want to talk? Let’s go downstairs where I can take a load off. You think it’s easy being pregnant?”

  “Let’s save a trip—why don’t you go sit on that couch?”

  Holding the small of her back with both hands, wincing in discomfort, she trundled across the empty room and sat. I plopped down next to her, giving her a little space.

  “Did Arnold Wilson happen to go along with the boys on this bail-jump trip?”

  She nodded. “Helen went, too.” Her arms were at her side, now, and she was staring straight ahead at a wall whose wallpaper showed the shadows of absent framed pictures.

  I sat sort of sideways on the couch, nestling in the corner, so I could look right at her, as she avoided my gaze. “Wouldn’t happen to have been Arnold’s idea, would it? Leaving town?”

  She shrugged.

  “Arnold’s an interesting guy. To look at him, he seems like some small-potatoes lowlife—a nobody, a six-foot-four, pock-mark-pussed nebbish. Not a leader, certainly, like your husband. But sometimes you have to watch out for these guys out on the sidelines, hugging the fringes. . . . You’re in show business, Patsy—ever hear of a play called Othello?”

  “No.”

  “It’s by Shakespeare.”

  She shrugged. “Romeo and Juliet.”

  I folded my arms, crossed my legs—comfy here in the big mostly empty room. “Right. Friend of mine is thinking of making a movie out of it—Othello, that is. I’m not much of a reader, and most of the time, when I go to the theater, it’s to a house like your old stamping grounds, the Rialto.”

  Now she looked at me, smiling faintly, crinkles of amusement at the corners of the almond-shaped eyes. “Ever see me?”

  “I saw all of you. Any man who had would certainly understand how you could get in your current condition.”

  “Is that your idea of a compliment?”

  “Maybe you’d prefer me to commend your tassel work. Anyway, in that play, there’s this character off to one side, whispering in the hero’s ear, giving him bad advice. I forget the character’s name, but Arnold Wilson, he reminds me of that guy.”

  “Does he?” Her gaze had returned to the wall of absent pictures. “That’s so very interesting.”

  “For example, right before he brought me around her
e—to hear you and your husband expound on the subject of how Jack Dragna had the Short girl killed—Wilson stopped by the Beverly Hills Hotel. My wife and me, we’re staying in a bungalow there. Kind of a honeymoon.”

  “What a lucky girl.”

  “Arnold’s the kind of guy who knows how to seize an opportunity. That’s what separates the merely selfish, greedy, immoral sons of bitches, like most of us, from the really evil ones. You believe in evil, Patsy?”

  “I guess.”

  “You believe in God? In hell?”

  Now she looked at me—apprehension creeping through her blank mask. “I suppose.”

  I shrugged. “Me, I don’t know what I believe, other than I know that most of us are sinners, but that now and then you run into somebody who’s . . . wrong to the bone. Evil the way the Bible would define it. The psychologists call these people ‘sociopaths.’ ”

  “Do they.” Her eyes tightened. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “Let me finish, Patsy—if you don’t mind. I mean, you don’t have supper to fix, now that your man flew the coop.”

  She granted me a sarcastic smirk. “Since I can’t seem to stop you—and you have a gun—please continue.”

  “Thanks. So, anyway, Arnold waltzes into my bungalow at the hotel when I’m not around, convinces my wife he’s an old buddy of mine, that we were in the war together. Now, my wife has been around and she knows a criminal type when she sees one—and she knows I number criminal types among my acquaintances and even friends. In the course of conversation—he must have been waiting there for me, a good hour—she asks him a question. ‘Suppose I had a friend who was in trouble, and needed help?’ ‘What kind of trouble?’ Arnold asks. Well, to make a long story short, Wilson helped out my wife’s ‘friend’ . . . which is to say, my wife . . . and arranged for her to get an abortion.”

  That got her attention. “I thought you were on your honeymoon. . . .”

  “I know, it disappoints me, a little, too, that my wife wanted to start out our married life by killing our kid. But we’ve worked that out—we’ve decided to have him, or her. The thing is, your husband’s friend Wilson—manipulative weasel that he is—sent my wife to a specific abortionist because a special friend of his worked there—a very sick individual named Lloyd.”