Russ said, “Joe, this was Saturday the eleventh into Sunday the twelfth you’re talking about?”
Dulange fired up another cigarette. “I’m a Frenchman, not a calendar. Sunday follows Saturday, you figure it out.”
“Go on.”
“Anyhow, Dahlia, me and Johnnie have a little chat, and I invite her over to the hotel. We get there and the cockroaches are loose, singin’ and bitin’ at the woodwork. Dahlia says she won’t spreadsky ‘less I kill ’em. I grab Johnnie and start boppin’ ’em with him, Johnnie told me it don’t hurt. But the Dahlia cunt won’t spreadsky till the roaches are disposed of scientific style. I go down the street and get this doctor. He gives the roaches poison injections for a fivesky. Me and Dahlia fuck like bunnies, Johnnie Red watches. He’s mad, ’cause Dahlia’s so good I don’t want to give him none.”
I threw in a cut-the-shit question: “Describe her body. Do a good job, or you won’t see Johnnie Red until you get out of the stockade.”
Dulange’s face went soft; he looked like a little kid threatened with the loss of his teddy bear. Russ said, “Answer the man’s question, Joe.”
Dulange grinned. “Till I cut ’em off, she had perky little titties with pink nipples. Kinda thick legs, nice bush. She had them moles I told Major Carroll about, and she had these scratches on her back, real fresh, like she’d just took a whippin.”
I tingled, remembering the “soft lash marks” the coroner mentioned at the autopsy. Russ said, “Go on, Joe.”
Dulange ghoul grinned. “Then Dahlia starts actin’ nutso, sayin’, ‘How come you’re only a corporal if you won all them medals?’ She starts callin’ me Matt and Gordon and keeps talkin’ about our baby, even though we just did it once, and I wore a safe. Johnnie gets spooked, and him and the cockroaches start singin’, ‘No sir, that ain’t my baby.’ I want more cuntsky, so I take Dahlia down the street to see the roach doctor. I slip him a tensky, and he gives her a fake examination and tells her, ‘The baby will be healthy and arrive in six months.'”
More confirmation, smack in the middle of a DT haze–the Matt and Gordon were obviously Matt Gordon and Joseph Gordon Fickling, two of Betty Short’s fantasy husbands. I thought 50-50, let’s close it out for Big Lee Blanchard; Russ said, “Then what, Joe?”
Dulange looked genuinely puzzled–past bravado, boozebrain memories and a desire to be reunited with Johnnie Red. “Then I sliced her.”
“Where?”
“In half.”
“No, Joe. Where did you perform the murder?”
“Oh. At the hotel.”
“What room number?”
“116.”
“How’d you get the body to 39th and Norton?”
“I stole a car.”
“What kind of car?”
“A Chevy.”
“Make and model?”
“’43 sedan.”
“American cars weren’t manufactured during the war, Joe. Try again.”
“’47 sedan.”
“Somebody left the keys in a nice new car like that? In downtown LA?”
“I hot-wired it.”
“How do you hot-wire a car, Joe?”
“What?”
“Explain the procedure to me.”
“I forgot how I did it. I was drunk.”
I cut in: “Where’s 39th and Norton?”
Dulange toyed with the cigarette pack. “It’s near Crenshaw Boulevard and Coliseum Street.”
“Tell me something that wasn’t in the papers.”
“I cut her to ear to ear.”
“Everybody knows that.”
“Me and Johnnie raped her.”
“She wasn’t raped, and Johnnie would have left marks. There weren’t any. Why’d you kill her?”
“She was a bad fuck.”
“Bullshit. You said Betty fucked like a rabbit.”
“A bad rabbit.”
“All cats are gray in the dark, shitbird. Why’d you kill her?”
“She wouldn’t go French.”
“That’s no reason. You can get French at any five-dollar whorehouse. A Frenchman like you should know that.”
“She gave bad French.”
“There’s no such thing, shitbird.”
“I chopped her!”
I slammed the tabletop a la Harry Sears. “You’re a lying frog son of a bitch!”
The JA man got to his feet; Dulange bawled, “I want my Johnnie.”
Russ told the captain, “Have him back here in six hours,” and smiled at me–the softest smile I’d ever seen him give.
o o o
So we left it at 50-50 moving toward 75-25 against. Russ left to call in his report and dispatch an SID team over to Room 116 of the Havana Hotel to check for bloodstains; I went to sleep in the BOQ room Major Carroll assigned us. I dreamed of Betty Short and Fatty Arbuckle in black and white; when the alarm went off I reached for Madeleine.