“Come on, Red. No heavy pass?”
“No.”
“You had a second date with Betty two days before Christmas, right?”
“Right.”
“More dancing at the El Cortez, right?”
“Right.”
“Soft lights, drinks, soft music, then you made your move, right?”
“Goddamn you, quit saying ‘Right’! I tried to kiss Betty and she gave me this song and dance about how she couldn’t sleep with me because the father of her child had to be a war hero and I was only in the army band. She was goddamn nuts on the subject! All she did was talk about these horseshit war heros!”
Millard stood up. “Why do you say ‘horseshit,’ Red?”
“Because I knew they were lies. Betty said she was married to this guy and engaged to that guy, and I knew she was trying to make me look small because I never saw combat.”
“Did she mention any names?”
“No, just ranks. Major this and Captain that, like I should be ashamed of being a corporal.”
“Did you hate her for it?”
“No! Don’t put words in my mouth!”
Millard stretched and sat down. “After that second date, when was the next time you saw Betty?”
Manley sighed and rested his forehead on the table. “I’ve told you the whole story three times.”
“Son, the sooner you tell it again, the sooner you’ll be able to go home.”
Manley shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “After the second date I didn’t hear from Betty until January eighth, when I got this telegram at my office. The telegram said she’d like to see me when I made my next sales run down to Dago. I wired back, saying I had to be in Dago tomorrow afternoon, and I’d pick her up. Then I picked her up, and she begged me to drive her up to LA. I said–”
Millard held up a hand. “Did Betty say why she had to get to LA?”
“No.”
“Did she say she was meeting somebody?”
“No.”
“You agreed to do it because you thought she’d put out for you?”
Manley sighed. “Yes.”
“Go ahead, son.”
“I took Betty with me on my rounds that day. She stayed in the car while I called on customers. I had some calls in Oceanside the next morning, so we spent the night in a motel there, and–”
“Let’s have the name of the place again, son.”
“It was called the Cornucopia Motor Lodge.”
“And Betty CT’d you again that night?”
“She . . . she said she had her period.”
“And you fell for that old chestnut?”
“Yes.”
“Did it make you mad?”
“Goddamn it, I didn’t kill her!”
“Sssh. You slept in the chair and Betty slept on the bed, right?”
“Right.”
“And in the morning?”
“In the morning we drove up to LA. Betty went with me on my rounds and tried to float me for a five-spot, but I turned her down. Then she handed me a cock-and-bull story about meeting her sister in front of the Biltmore Hotel. I wanted to get rid of her, so I dropped her in front of the Biltmore that night, right around five o’clock. And I never saw her again, except for all that Dahlia stuff in the papers.”
Millard said, “That was five o’clock, Friday, January tenth when you last saw her?”
Manley nodded. Millard looked straight at the glass, adjusted the knot of his necktie, then stepped outside. In the corridor, officers swarmed him, hurling questions. Harry Sears slipped into the room; next to me a familiar voice rose above the commotion. “Now you’ll see why Russ keeps Harry around.”
It was Lee, grinning a shit-eating grin, looking like a million tax-free dollars. I cuffed him around the neck. “Welcome back to earth.”
Lee cuffed me back. “It’s your fault I look this good. Right after you left, Kay slipped me a Mickey Finn, some stuff she got at the drugstore. I slept seventeen hours, got up and ate like a horse.”
“Your own goddamn fault for bankrolling her chemistry classes. What do you think of Red?”
“A pussy hound at worst, a divorced pussy hound by the end of the week. You agree?”
“In spades.”