THE BLACK DAHLIA by James Ellroy

Lorna eyed the floor. “I did him and his friends.”

“Can you improve on your description of him, then?”

“He was fat and he had a tiny little pecker! He was ugly and so were his friends!”

Millard pointed Sears to the door; Harry tiptoed quietly out. Russ said, “We’ll try to keep this out of the papers, and we’ll destroy the film. One question before the matron takes you up to your room. If we take you down to Tijuana, do you think you could find the house where the movie was shot?”

Shaking her head, Lorna said, “No. I don’t want to go down to that awful place. I want to go home.”

“So your father can hit you?”

“No. So I can get out again.”

Sears returned with a matron; the woman led hard/soft/pathetic/feisty Linda/Lorna away. Harry, Russ and I looked at one another; I felt the girl’s sadness smothering me. Finally the senior man said, “Comments?”

Harry kicked in first. “She’s hedging on the Mex and the pad in TJ. He probably beat her up and screwed her, and she’s afraid of reprisals. Aside from that, I buy her story.”

Russ smiled. “What about you, bright penny?”

“She’s covering on the Mex angle. I think she might have been screwing him regularly, and now she’s protecting him from a smut rap. I’d also lay odds the guy is white, that the Mex routine is a cover-up to go along with the TJ stuff–which I do buy–because that place is a cesspool, and most of the smuthounds I rousted working Patrol got their stuff there.”

Millard winked a la Lee Blanchard. “Bucky, you are a very bright penny today. Harry, I want you to talk to Lieutenant Waters here. Tell him to hold the girl incommunicado for seventy-two hours. I want a private cell for her, and I want Meg Caulfield detached from Wilshire Clerical to play cellmate. Tell Meg to give her a good pumping and report in every twenty-four hours.

“When you finish that, call R&I and Ad Vice for the rap sheets on white and Mexican males with pornography convictions, then call Vogel and Koenig and send them down to Gardena to check the bars for Lorna’s movie man. Call the Bureau too, and tell Captain Jack we’ve got a little Dahlia film to look at. Then call the _Times_ and give them the smut lead before Ellis Loew sits on it. Give them a Jane Doe for Lorna, have them add an appeal for pornography tips and pack a bag, because we’re going down to Dago and TJ later tonight.”

I said, “Russ, you know this is a long shot.”

“The biggest one since you and Blanchard beat the crap out of each other and became partners. Come on, bright penny. It’s blue movie night at City Hall.”

o o o

A projector and screen had already been set up in the muster room; an all-star cast was awaiting the all-star smut movie. Lee, Ellis Loew, Jack Tierney, Thad Green and Chief of Police C.B. Horrall himself were seated in front of the screen; Millard handed the film can to the clerical stooge manning the projector, muttering, “Where’s the popcorn?”

The big chief walked over and gave me a gladhander’s shake. “A pleasure, sir,” I said.

“A mutual pleasure, Mr. Ice, and my wife sends her belated regards for the pay raise you and Mr. Fire got us.” He pointed to a seat next to Lee. “Lights! Camera! Action!”

I sat down beside my partner. Lee looked drawn, but not dope-juiced. A _Daily News_ was unfolded on his lap; I saw “Boulevard-Citizens Mastermind to be Released Tomorrow– LA Bound After 8 Years in Custody.” Lee checked out my raggedy state and said, “Getting any?”

I was about to respond when the lights went off. A blurred image hit the screen; cigarette smoke wafted into it. A title flashed _Slave Girls From Hell_–then a big, high-ceilinged room with Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls came into view in grainy black and white. Pillars shaped like coiled serpents were stationed throughout the room; the camera zoomed in for a close-up of two inset plaster snakes swallowing each other’s tails. Then the snakes dissolved into Betty Short, wearing only stockings, doing an inept hoochie-koochie dance.

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