THE BLACK DAHLIA by James Ellroy

The man said, “Elizabeth who? She some sort of movie star?”

“She was killed in Los Angeles a few years ago. It’s a famous case. Do you–”

“I bought this place in ’46, and the only employee I got left from the war is Roz. Rozzie, come here! Man wants to talk to you!

The battle-axe waitress of them all materialized–a baby elephant in a thigh-length skirt. The boss said, “This guy’s a reporter. Wants to talk to you about Elizabeth Short. You remember her?”

Rozzie popped her gum at me. “I told the _Globe_ and the _Sentinel_ and the cops the first time around, and I ain’t changing my story. Betsy Short was a dish dropper and a dreamer, and if she didn’t bring in so much Harvard business, she wouldn’t a lasted a day. I heard she put out for the war effort, but I didn’t know none of her boyfriends. End of story. And you ain’t no reporter, you’re a cop.”

I said, “Thank you for that perceptive comment,” and left. My atlas placed Medford twelve miles away, a straight run out Massachusetts Avenue. I got there just as night was falling, smelling it first, then seeing it.

Medford was a factory town, smoke-belching foundry stacks forming its perimeter. I rolled up my window to hold off the sulfur stink; the industrial area dwindled into blocks of narrow red-brick houses crammed together with less than a foot between them. Every block had at least two gin mills, and when I saw Swasey Boulevard–the street the movie theater was on–I opened my wind wing to see if the foundry stench was dissipating. It wasn’t–and the windshield was already bearing a film of greasy soot.

I found the Majestic a few blocks down, a typical Medford red-brick building, the marquee heralding _Criss Cross_ with Burt Lancaster and _Duel in the Sun_–“All Star Cast.” The ticket booth was empty, so I walked straight into the theater and up to the snack stand. The man behind it said, “Anything wrong, officer?” I groaned that the locals had my number–three thousand miles from home.

“No, nothing’s wrong. Are you the manager?”

“The owner. Ted Carmody. You BPD?”

I reluctantly displayed my shield. “Los Angeles Police Department. It’s about Beth Short.”

Ted Carmody crossed himself. “Poor Lizzie. You got some hot leads? That why you’re here?”

I put a nickel on the counter, grabbed a Snickers bar and unwrapped it. “Let’s just say I owe Betty one, and I’ve got a few questions.”

“Ask on.”

“First off, I’ve seen the Boston Police background check file, and your name wasn’t listed on the interview sheet. Didn’t they talk to you?”

Carmody handed me back my nickel. “On the house, and I didn’t talk to the Boston cops because they talked Lizzie up like she was some sort of tramp. I don’t cooperate with badmouthers.”

“That’s admirable, Mr. Carmody. But what would you have told them?”

“Nothing dirty, that’s for damn sure. Lizzie was all aces to me. If the cops had been properly respectful of the dead, I’d have told ’em that.”

The man was exhausting me. “I’m a respectful guy. Pretend that it’s two years ago and tell me.”

Carmody couldn’t quite peg my style, so I chomped the candy bar to ease him into some slack. “I’d have told ’em Lizzie was a bad worker,” he said finally. “And I’d have told ’em I didn’t care. She brought the boys in like a magnet, and if she kept sneaking in to watch the picture, so what? For fifty cents an hour I didn’t expect her to slave for me.”

I said, “What about her boyfriends?”

Carmody slammed the counter; Jujubees and Milk Duds toppled over. “Lizzie wasn’t no roundheels! The only boyfriend I knew she had was this blind guy, and I knew it was just palship. Listen, you want to know what kind of kid Lizzie was? I’ll tell you. I used to let the blind guy in for free, so he could listen to the picture, and Lizzie kept sneaking into tell him what was on the screen. You know, describe it to him. That sound like tramp behavior to you?”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *