By noon, Lee still hadn’t put in an appearance. I called the house, University squadroom and the El Nido Hotel, with no success. Wanting to look busy so that no one would put me to work, I prowled the bulletin boards reading summary reports.
Russ Millard had compiled a new update before leaving for San Diego and Tijuana last night. It stated that he and Harry Sears would be checking the R&I and Ad Vice files for convicted and suspected pornographers, and would be searching for the smut movie filming site down in TJ. Vogel and Koenig had been unable to locate Lorna Martilkova’s “Mexican man” in Gardena, and were also going to Tijuana to work on the stag film angle. The coroner’s inquest had been held yesterday; Elizabeth Short’s mother was present, and identified her remains. Marjorie Graham and Sheryl Saddon testified about Betty’s life in Hollywood, Red Manley as to how he drove Betty up from Dago and dropped her off in front of the Biltmore Hotel on January tenth. Intensive canvassing of the area around the Biltmore had thus far yielded no verified sightings, the records of convicted sex loonies and registered sex offenders were still being combed, the four drool case confessors were still being held at City Jail awaiting alibi checks, sanity hearings and further questioning. The circus was continuing, phone tips flooding in, resulting in third-, fourth- and fifth-hand questionings–officers talking to people who knew people who knew people who knew the exalted Dahlia. Needle in a haystack stuff straight down the line.
I was getting goldbrick looks from the men working at their desks, so I went back to my cubicle. Madeleine jumped into my head; I picked up the phone and called her.
She answered on the third ring: “Sprague residence.”
“It’s me. You want to get together?”
“When?”
“Now. I’ll pick you up in forty-five minutes.”
“Don’t come here, Daddy’s having a business soiree. Meet you at the Red Arrow?”
I sighed. “I’ve got an apartment, you know.”
“I only rut in motels. One of my rich girl idiosyncrasies. Room eleven at the Arrow in forty-five?”
I said, “I’ll be there,” and hung up. Ellis Loew tapped the partition. “Go to work, Bleichert. You’ve been skating all morning, and it’s getting on my nerves. And when you see your phantom partner, tell him his little no-show has cost him three days’ pay. Now check out a radio car and roll.”
o o o
I rolled straight to the Red Arrow Motel. Madeleine’s Packard was parked in the alley behind the bungalows; the door to room eleven was unlocked. I walked in, smelled her perfume and squinted into the darkness until I was rewarded with a giggle. Undressing, my eyes got accustomed to the lack of light; I saw Madeleine–a nude beacon on a tattered bedspread.
We joined so strongly that the bedsprings banged the floor. Madeleine kissed her way down to between my legs, made me hard, then did a quick turn onto her back. I went in her thinking of Betty and the snake shaft thing, then blotted it out by concentrating on the ripped wallpaper in front of my eyes. I wanted to go slow, but Madeleine gasped, “Don’t hold back, I’m ready.” I pushed hard, slamming the two of us together, my hands braced on the bed rail. Madeleine locked her legs around my back, grabbed the rail over her head and pushed, pulled and gyrated against me. We came seconds apart, moving in a stretching, slamming counterpoint; when my head hit the pillow, I bit at it to stanch my tremors.
Madeleine slid out from under me. “Sugar, are you all right?”
I was seeing the snake thing. Madeleine tickled me; I twisted around and looked at her to make it go away. “Smile at me. Look soft and sweet.”
Madeleine gave me a Pollyanna grin. Her smeared red lipstick reminded me of the Dahlia’s death smile; I shut my eyes and grabbed her hard. She stroked my back softly, murmuring, “Bucky, what is it?”
I stared at the curtains on the far wall. “We picked up Linda Martin yesterday. She had a print of a stag movie in her purse, her and Betty Short playing lez. They filmed it down in TJ, and there was all this spooky stuff in it. It spooked me, and it spooked my partner bad.”