“Did he tell you his real name?”
“No. I used _my_ real name at the service for a while, but Doug accused me of trying to recruit customers for myself, so I stopped.”
“What did Joseph Arden look like?”
“Nice looking. Cultured looking. Maybe in his late forties. He looked like he had money.”
“Tall, short, heavy, slender?”
“Maybe six feet. I guess you’d say he had a medium build. Blue eyes, I think.
What I guess you’d call medium-brown hair.”
I showed the sketch. “Does this look like him?”
“This man looks too young. The chin sort of reminds me of him, though.”
Side 117
Ellroy – White Jazz
Noise inside–Susan winced. Check her magazines: _Photoplay_, _Bride’s_. “Do you know what mug shots are?”
“Uh-huh, from the TV. Pictures of criminals.”
Soft: “Would you–?”
“No” shakes–emphatic. “Mister, this man was no criminal. I could look at your pictures until this new baby of mine has her sweet sixteen and never see his face.”
“Did he mention a son named Richie?”
“We didn’t talk much, but on like our second date he said his wife just tried to kill herself. At first I didn’t believe it, ’cause lots of men tell you sad things about their wives so you’ll feel sorry for them and pretend you like it more.”
“You said at first you didn’t believe him. What convinced you?”
“He told me he and his wife had this fight a few weeks back, and she just started screaming and picked up a can of Drano and started drinking it. He said he stopped her and fetched this doctor neighbor of his so he wouldn’t have to take her to the hospital. Believe me, that story was so awful that I knew he didn’t make it up.”
“Did he say that she went to a hospital for follow-up treatment?”
“No. He said the neighbor doctor took care of all of it. He said he was glad,
’cause that way nobody knew how crazy his wife was.”
One dead lead. “Did he tell you his wife’s name?”
“No.”
“Did he mention the names of any other family members?”
“No, he sure didn’t.”
“Did he mention any other girls who worked for Doug Ancelet?”
Nods–eager. “Some girl with one of those foreign-type I-A-N names. It seemed to me he had–”
“Lacey Kartoonian?”
“Riiight.”
“What did he say about her?”
“That she loved it. That’s a big thing with call-service customers. They think they’re the only ones who can make you love it.”
“Be more specific.”
“He said, ‘Do it like Lacey does.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said, ‘Love it.’
That’s all he said about her, I’m sure.”
“He didn’t mention her as the one who gave him a dose?”
“Uh-uh, that’s all he said. And I never met that girl myself, and nobody else ever brought her up to me. And if she didn’t have such a funny call name I wouldn’t have remembered her at all.”
Chrono links:
Christmas ’57: peeper’s mother with the suicide blues _again_. Susan Side 118
Ellroy – White Jazz
Glynn/Joseph Arden–trick dates 9/56. Mrs. Arden, Drano drinker– private treatment. Police agencies sealed suicide files. Arden, wealthy–_if_ his wife killed herself, he’d buy _extra_ legal closure.
Linkage:
Letters, peeper tapes, Ancelet.
Quotes:
Joseph Arden to Lucille: “that dose you gave me.”
Mom to Champ/peeper: “Your father gave me what that prostitute gave him.”
Conclusive:
The peeper peeped his own father fucking Lucille.
Susan: “Penny for your thoughts.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Ask me one.”
Try her: “When you worked for the service, did you know a girl named Gloria Benson? Her real name’s Glenda Bledsoe.”
Smiling, pleased: “I remember her. She quit Doug’s to become a movie star. When I read she was under contract to Howard Hughes it made me so happy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Wilshire Station–wait, work.
I dusted the Mom-peeper envelopes–two prints surfaced. I checked Jack Woods’
Vice sheet–match-up-Jack pawed the goods.
No post-Christmas letters box-stashed–why?
I buzzed Sid Riegle: check white female attempted suicides/suicides Christmas
’57 up. Assume Coroner’s file closure; inquire station squad to squad–City/County. Look for: middle-aged/affluent/husband/son/ daughters. Sid said I’ll help you part time–_you_ never show up–_I’m_ running Ad Vice by default.