From a squadroom phone I called the Screen Actor’s Guild and Central Casting and inquired about Elizabeth Short. A clerk told me that no one by that name or any diminutive of the name Elizabeth was ever listed with them, making it unlikely that she had appeared in a legit Hollywood production. I hung up thinking of the movie as another Betty fairy tale, the viewfinder a fairy-tale prop.
It was late afternoon. Being free of Koenig felt like surviving cancer and the three interviews felt like an overdose of Betty/Beth Short and her low-rent last months on earth. I was tired and hungry, so I drove to the house for a sandwich and a nap– and walked straight into another installment of the Black Dahlia Show.
Kay and Lee were standing around the dining room table, examining crime scene photos shot at 39th and Norton. There was Betty Short’s bashed head; Betty Short’s slashed breasts; Betty Short’s empty bottom half and Betty Short’s wide-open legs–all in glossy black and white. Kay was nervously smoking and shooting little glances at the pictures; Lee was eyeballing them, his face twitching in a half dozen directions, the Benzedrine man from outer space. Neither said a word to me; I just stood there playing straight man to the most celebrated stiff in LA history.
Finally Kay said, “Hi, Dwight,” and Lee stabbed a shaky finger at a close-up of the torso mutilations. “It’s not a random job, I know it. Vern Smith says some guy just picked her up on the street, took her someplace and tortured her, then dumped her in the lot. Horseshit. The guy who did this hated her for a reason and wanted the whole goddamn world to know. Jesus, two fucking days he cut her. Babe, you took pre-med classes, you think this guy had medical training? You know, like some kind of mad doctor type?”
Kay put out her cigarette and said, “Lee, Dwight’s here”; Lee wheeled around.
I said, “Partner–” and Lee tried to wink, smile and speak at the same time.
It came off as one awful grimace; when he got out, “Bucky, listen to Kay, I knew all the college I bought her would do me some good,” I had to look away.
Kay’s voice was soft, patient. “This kind of theorizing is just nonsense, but I’ll give you a theory if you’ll eat something to calm yourself down.”
“Theory on, teach.”
“Well, it’s just a guess, but maybe there were two killers, because the torture cuts are crude, while the bisection and the cut on the abdomen, which are obviously both postmortem, are neat and clean. Maybe there’s just one killer though, and after he killed the girl he calmed down, then bisected her and made the abdominal cut. And anybody could have removed the internal organs with the body in two parts. I think mad doctors are only in the movies. Sweetie, _you_ have to calm down. You have to quit taking those pills and you have to eat. Listen to Dwight, he’ll tell you that.”
I looked at Lee. He said, “I’m too hopped-up to eat,” then stuck out his hand like I’d just walked in. “Hey, partner. You learn anything good about our girl today?”
I thought of telling him I learned she wasn’t worth a hundred full-time cops; I thought of spilling the dyke lead and Betty Short as a sad little floozy-liar to back the claim up. But Lee’s dope-juiced face made me say, “Nothing that’s worth you doing this to yourself. Nothing that’s worth seeing you useless when a bimbo you sent to Quentin is three days away from LA. Think of your little sister seeing you this way. Think of her–”
I stopped when tears started streaming from Lee’s outerspace eyes. Now _he_ just stood there like the straight man to his own blood kin. Kay moved between us, a hand on each of our shoulders. I walked out before Lee began weeping for real.
o o o
University Station was another outpost of Black Dahlia mania.
A wager pool sign-up list was posted in the locker room. It was in the form of a crudely drawn crap table felt, featuring betting spaces labeled “Solved–pay 2 to 1,” “Random sex job–pay 4 to 1,” “Unsolved–even money,” “Boyfriend(s) pay 1 to 4,” and “Red’–no odds unless suspect captured.” The “House $ man” was listed as Sergeant Shiner, and so far the big action was on “boyfriend(s),” with a dozen officers signed up, all plopping down a sawbuck to win two-fifty.