“You know him, loot. Oh . . . Friedrich Vogel. Fritzie for short.”
“Short like in Liz Short?”
“Uh sure . . . like Liz, Betty, Beth, Dahlia . . . lots of monickers.”
“Think about this January, Johnny. Your dad wanted you to lose your cherry, right?”
“Uh . . . yeah.”
“He bought you a woman for two days, right?”
“Not a woman. Not a _real_ one. A hooer. A hoooooer.” The long syllable turned into a laugh; Johnny tried to clap his hands. One hand hit his chest; the other jerked at the end of its cuffed tether. He said, “This ain’t right. I’ll tell Daddy.”
Russ answered him calmly: “It’s only for a little while. You had the prostitute at the Biltmore, right?”
“Right. Daddy got a rate because he knew the house dick.”
“And you met Liz Short at the Biltmore, too. Right?”
Spastic movements hit Johnny’s face–eye tics, lip twitches, veins popping on his forehead. He reminded me of a knocked-down fighter trying to haul himself up off the canvas. “Uh . . . that’s right.”
“Who introduced you?”
“What’s her name . . . The hooer.”
“And what did you and Liz do then, Johnny? Tell me about it.”
“We . . . divvied on ten scoots for three hours and played games. I gave her the Big Schnitz. We played ‘Horse and Rider,’ and I liked Liz, so I just whipped her soft. She was nicer than the blondie hooer. She kept her stockings on, ’cause she said she had this birthmark nobody could look at. She liked the Schnitz, and she let me kiss her without the Listerine like the blondie made me gargle.”
I thought about Betty’s thigh gouge and held my breath. Russ said, “Johnny, did you kill Liz?”
Fat Boy jerked in his chair. “No! No no no no no no! No!”
“Ssssh. Easy, son, easy. When did Liz leave you?”
“I didn’t slice her!”
“We believe you, son. Now when did Liz leave you?”
“Late. Late Saturday. Maybe twelve, maybe one.”
“You mean early Sunday morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No.”
“Did she mention any men’s names? Boyfriends? Men she was going to see?”
“Uh . . . some flyboy she was married to.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see her again?”
“No.”
“Did your father know Liz at all?”
“No.”
“Did he force the house detective to change the name on the registration book after Liz’s body was found?”
“Uh . . . yes.”
“Do you know who killed Liz Short?”
“No! No!”
Johnny was starting to sweat. I was too-anxious for facts to nail him with now that it looked like he and the Dahlia were just a one-night stand. I said, “You told your father about Liz when she made the papers, is that right?”
“Uh . . . yes.”
“And _he_ told _you_ about a guy named Charlie Issler? A guy who used to pimp Liz Short?”
“Yes.”
“And he told you Issler was in custody as a confessor?”
“Uh . . . yes.”
“Now you tell me what he said he was going to do about that, shitbird. You tell me damn good and slow.”
Fat Boy’s cut-rate heart rose to the challenge. “Daddy tried to get Ellis Jewboy to cut Issler loose, but he wouldn’t. Daddy knew this morgue attendant who owed him, and he got this DOA cooze and talked Jewboy into this idea. Daddy wanted Uncle Bill for it, but Jewboy said no, take you. Daddy said you’d do it ’cause without Blanchard to tell you what to do you were jelly. Daddy said you were a sob sister, weak sister, buck tooth . . .”
Johnny started laughing hysterically, shaking his head, spraying sweat, rattling his cuffed wrist like a zoo animal with a new plaything. Russ stepped in front of me. “I’ll make him sign a statement. You take a half hour or so to calm down. I’ll feed him coffee, then when you get back we’ll figure out what’s next.”
I walked out to the fire escape, sat down and dangled my legs over the edge. I watched cars head up Wilcox to Hollywood and got it all down, the cost to myself, the whole enchilada. Then I played license plate blackjack, southbound versus northbound, out-of-state cars as wild cards. Southbound was me, the house; northbound was Lee and Kay. Southbound stood on a chickenshit seventeen; northbound got an ace and a queen for pure blackjack. Dedicating the enchilada to the three of us, I went back to the room.