THE BLACK DAHLIA by James Ellroy

I laughed. “In spades. I’ve been detached to Homicide to work on the Black Dahlia thing. My days off have been cancelled, my partner’s obsessed with it, and the crazies have been coming out of the woodwork. There’s two hundred cops working a single case. It’s absurd.”

Emmett said, “It’s tragic, is what it is. What’s your theory, lad? Who on God’s earth could have done a thing like that to another human being?”

I knew then that the family didn’t know about Madeleine’s tenuous connection to Betty Short, and decided not to press for her alibi. “I think it’s a random job. The Short girl was what you might call easy. She was a compulsive liar with a hundred boyfriends. If we get the killer, it’ll be a fluke.”

Emmett said, “God bless her, I hope you get him and I hope he gets a hot date with that little green room up at San Quentin.”

Running her toes up my leg, Madeleine pouted, “Daddy, you’re monopolizing the conversation and you’re making Bucky sing for his supper.”

“Shall I sing for mine, lassie? Even though I’m the breadwinner?”

Old Man Sprague was angry–I could see it in his rising color and the way he hacked at his corned beef. Curious about the man, I said, “When did you come to the United States?”

Emmett beamed. “I’ll sing for anyone who wants to hear my immigrant success story. What kind of name is Bleichert? Dutch?”

“German,” I said.

Emmett raised his glass. “A great people, the Germans. Hitler was a bit excessive, but mark my words that someday we’ll regret not joining forces with him to fight the Reds. Where in Germany are your people from, lad?”

“Munich.”

“Ah, München! I’m surprised they left. If I’d grown up in Edinburgh or some other civilized place I’d still be wearing kilts. But I came from godawful Aberdeen, so I came to America right after the first war. I killed a lot of your fine German countrymen during that war, lad. But they were trying to kill me, so I felt justified. Did you meet Balto out in the parlor?”

I nodded; Madeleine groaned, Ramona Sprague winced and speared a potato. Emmett said, “My old dreamer friend Georgie Tilden taxidermied him. Scads of odd talents dreamer Georgie had. We were in a Scots regiment together during the war, and I saved Georgie’s life when a bunch of your fine German countrymen got obstreperous and charged us with bayonets. Georgie was enamored of the flickers; he loved a good nickelodeon show. We went back to Aberdeen after the armistice, saw what a dead dog town it was, and Georgie persuaded me to come to California with him–he wanted to work in the silent flicker business. He was never worth a damn unless I was there to lead him around by the snout, so I looked around Aberdeen, saw that it was a third-class destiny and said, ‘Aye, Georgie, California it is. Maybe we’ll strike rich. And if we don’t, we’ll fail where the sun always shines.'”

I thought of my old man, who came to America in 1908 with big dreams–but married the first German emigrant woman he met and settled for wage slavery with Pacific Gas and Electric. “What happened then?”

Emmett Sprague rapped the table with his fork. “Knock wood, it was the right time to arrive. Hollywood was a cow pasture, but the silents were moving into their heyday. Georgie got work as a lighting man, and I found work building damn good houses–damn good and cheap. I lived outdoors and put every damn good dime back into my business, then took out loans from every bank and shylock willing to lend money and bought damn good property–damn good and cheap. Georgie introduced me to Mack Sennett, and I helped him build sets out at his studio in Edendale, then touched him for a loan to buy more property. Old Mack knew a lad on the make when he saw one, being one himself. He gave me the loan on the proviso that I help him with that housing project he was putting up– Hollywoodland–underneath that godawful hundred-foot sign he erected on Mount Lee to ballyhoo it. Old Mack knew how to squeeze a dollar dry, he did. He had extras moonlighting as laborers and vice versa. I’d drive them over to Hollywoodland after ten or twelve hours on a Keystone Kops flicker, and we’d put in another six hours by torchlight. I even got an assistant director’s credit on a couple of movies, old Mack was so grateful for the way I squeezed his slaves.”

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