Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 (36 page)

“No. Sorry for the rough stuff. No offense meant—I’m working against the clock here.”

He glanced at me. “None taken. I been there.”

I looked at him hard. “I don’t have to sleep with one eye open tonight, do I?”

Abe shook his head. “Not on my account. I’ll tell my brother we spoke.”

I shoulder-holstered the nine-millimeter, and exited behind Ringgold, relieving Barney of his duties.

“I guess you have gone Hollywood,” Barney said, as we walked back to the table, and the jeweler headed toward his.

“How’s that?”

My old friend slipped an arm around my shoulder. “Wanting time alone with some guy in the john.”

20

The next morning I accompanied Eliot to Central Homicide at City Hall. We took separate cars, because he would be linking up with Harry the Hat, while I would need to drive over to the
Examiner
building afterward, and check in with Bill Fowley and his boss Richardson; I planned to keep that headline-hungry pair at bay by giving them just enough information from my Florentine Gardens conversations to satisfy them.

After that I would again have to shake loose from Fowley, as I had looming before me the unenviable task of investigating the mob aspect of this murder. Fred Rubinski had confirmed that Jack Dragna held court at Lucey’s at lunch each day—including Saturday, which this was—and it was my intention to beard the Sicilian lion in his den.

Right now, however, on this perfect, smog-free, sunny, blue-skied Los Angeles morning, I was showing an astounded Eliot Ness the entrance to Central Homicide: a ground-floor window you stepped through, going down a three-tier stairway consisting of piled-up cardboard evidence boxes.

Homicide had outgrown the antiquated facilities at Central Station, and moved its offices to the northwest main floor of City Hall. The side window had become an impromptu entrance, as the City Hall front entry was too far out of the way for the lazy
dicks. Besides, Robbery and Burglary had transferred their offices here as well, with temporary offices set up in the hallway itself, which was no fun to wade through.

I had been here before, back when I was working the Peete case, and knew the way to where Detective Harry Hansen and his partner Finis Brown (the latter nowhere to be seen this morning) had two desks butted against each other, in a far corner—providing as much privacy as possible in the crowded bullpen.

As we approached, Hansen—seated at the desk with his pearl-gray fedora on, wearing a snappy three-piece gray suit (every other plainclothes copper in the bullpen had his suit jacket slung over the back of a chair)—was sifting through a stack of typewritten reports.

The big tall sleepy-eyed Dane rose endlessly from the desk, towering over both of us as I made introductions. The Hat gave Eliot a rare toothy grin—as opposed to one of those trademark pucker smiles—and pumped the Untouchable’s hand.

A singular occasion, seeing the Hat impressed with another detective.

“A real honor, Mr. Ness,” the Hat said, “meeting the man who put Capone away—not to mention cleaning up Cleveland.”

“I had help in both instances,” Eliot said.

“Let’s go where we can talk privately,” the Hat said, and led us through the bullpen out into the hallway, guiding us through the litter of desks and dicks. Our footsteps echoed off the marble floor. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you coming out here to lend us a hand.”

“How much help I’ll be remains to be seen,” Eliot said.

Soon we were in an interrogation room, little larger than a booth really, sitting at a small cigarette-burn-scarred wooden table, the walls lined with crumbling pale yellow soundproofed tile.

“Where’s your partner?” I asked, wondering if the Hat was at all wise to the confrontation yesterday between Fat Ass and me.

“Well on his way to Chicago by now, I should think,” Hansen said.

A spasm knifed through my belly. “Chicago?”

“Yes, he took a plane first thing this morning out of
Burbank—we know the Short girl was in Chicago for a few weeks in the fall. Brownie will do his best to trace her movements, there.”

“Good idea,” Eliot said, sitting back in a hardwood chair, arms folded, his expression blandly benign, not betraying his shared knowledge with me of just what lousy news this was.

“Poor bastard took a nasty spill, yesterday,” the Hat said, shaking his head, working up half a smile. “Broke his stupid nose.”

“How did he manage that?” I asked, studying the Hat’s sleepy countenance for any sign he was playing with me.

“At home, slipping on his wife’s freshly waxed floor.” Hansen chortled. “Imagine that, the hazardous life of a homicide cop, and Brownie busts his beezer on the kitchen floor.”

“Imagine that,” I said, manufacturing a chuckle.

“Most accidents happen at home,” Eliot pointed out quietly.

Of course, that one had happened at Mark Lansom’s home, poolside.

“Well, I hope Brownie fares better in Chicago than we have here in the City of Angels,” the Hat said, crossing a leg, ankle on knee, leaning back in his chair. He was seated directly across from Eliot and their postures mirrored each other’s—except that Eliot had placed his hat on the scarred table, and Harry, of course, kept his on.

Eliot asked, “Any leads at all?”

“Nothing
but
leads—they just don’t go anywhere. We have over seven hundred investigators working this case, Mr. Ness—”

“Eliot.”

“Eliot. The sheriff has given us support by way of four hundred deputies, the highway patrol has two hundred and fifty men on the Dahlia. They’ve been searching storm drains, bridge basins, attics, cellars, looking for the killer’s ‘torture chamber,’ as the papers call it. Sound familiar?”

Eliot nodded. “We went down the same road with the Kingsbury Run investigation. If that’s what the sheriff’s deputies and highway patrolmen are up to, what are you LAPD fellas doing?”

“Our lab man Ray Pinker and his boys have fine-tooth-combed that vacant lot a dozen times and they’re still at it. Patrolmen going door-to-door in the Norton area are widening out into
Highland Park and Eagle Rock. We have sixty men scouring saloons in Hollywood and downtown L.A.—no easy task, as there’s an endless supply of these seedy little bars.”

Nodding, Eliot said, “Come up with anything?”

“The Short girl is known in any number of these joints—the Loyal Cafe, the Rhapsody, the Dugout. She was working as a B-girl at some of them.”

I asked, “As a prostitute, or just coming on to patrons to buy drinks?”

“The latter. That’s the fascinating thing about this girl—she seems to have been a professional tease. Nate, I can tell your friend here more, if you agree not to share it with the
Examiner
.”

“Agreed.”

“Not that even Jim Richardson could use it, without inventing a whole new lexicon of euphemisms.”

“Why is that?”

“This girl was fairly promiscuous . . . and yet she seems never to have had, shall we say, conventional sex with a man.” Hansen’s mouth puckered in private amusement. “Take her stay at Camp Cooke, for example—where she was ‘Cutie of the Week,’ known as ‘Miss Look-But-Don’t-Touch’ at the PX. She even lived with a certain sergeant for a while—and yet, if you’ll pardon my French, boys, he never screwed her once.”

Eliot sat forward, frowning with interest. “You’ve heard the same from other men who dated her?”

Hansen nodded. “The movie star, Franchot Tone—real ladies’ man. Solid alibi, by the way. He described her as a ‘siren luring sailors to their death.’ ”

“That’s a little melodramatic,” I said.

The Hat shrugged. “Guy’s an actor. But I gathered Tone also dated but never slept with her. He indicated ‘certain intimacies,’ but as a ‘gentleman’ would say no more. All indications are Miss Short was an expert in the fine art of fellatio.”

“She would go down on a guy,” I translated, “but not fuck him.”

The Hat winced at my crudity, but he affirmed my suspicion with a nod. “Of course another reason the gentlemanly Mr. Tone would not admit as much is that oral sex, which is to say sodomy,
is a felony in this state . . . albeit one rarely enforced. I have taken to speaking to Miss Short’s boy friends, off the record—assuring them no sexual charges will be brought, if they will be frank in their responses.”

“Has this worked?” Eliot asked.

Again the Hat nodded. “A certain Hollywood Boulevard shoe-store manager, for example. He had an affair with Miss Short, last summer—another of these married men, with good-looking wives at home, and children, who nonetheless stray. For six weeks, he provided Miss Short with several purses, numerous pairs of expensive shoes, and, on one occasion, car fare. He did not consider her to be a prostitute, rather his girl friend—and they frequently parked, whereupon she would invariably service him orally.”

“They never had normal sex,” Eliot said.

“No—she always had an excuse. . . . It was her ‘time of the month,’ or she had an upset stomach.”

“You’re still following leads from her letters,” I said, “the boy friends she wrote to. . . .”

“Yes, with no success as yet. Many of her servicemen paramours are out of state, with impeccable alibis. We have ruled out Red Manley, and her oddball father, Cleo, as well. Of course, we’re still swimmin’ in Confessin’ Sams—none of ’em coming close to answering any of my three key questions.”

“At least you can weed them out quickly,” Eliot said.

The Hat sighed heavily. “It’s still a royal pain. I’m going to start arresting these characters on obstructing justice, and see if that doesn’t thin the crackpot crowd, some.”

Casually, I asked, “Have you talked to Arthur Lake, yet?”

He frowned. “No. The actor? Dagwood actor?”

“Yes. He knew Beth Short at the Hollywood Canteen. He also knew the Bauerdorf girl who was slain several years before.”

“Georgette Bauerdorf, bathtub slaying,” the Hat said, nodding, digging out his notepad. “We’re looking into that for possible connections. The Hollywood Canteen is a problem for us, now that it’s been closed down, with the war over.”

“Well, I didn’t give you that lead,” I said. Just trying to keep
the Hat happy. “Lake is an in-law of Marion Davies, so the
Examiner
won’t be going down that road; the only place you’ll see Dagwood is on the comics page.”

“I appreciate this, Nate,” the Hat said, jotting down Lake’s name. “Please do continue keeping your ear to the ground.”

“Oh, I will—and if I hear hoofbeats, you’ll be the first.” I stood. “Now, I know you and Eliot have a lot to talk about, where the Kingsbury Run case is concerned. So I’ll leave you boys to it.”

Eliot said to me, “I’ll catch up with you this afternoon.”

“See you,” I said.

The Hat nodded goodbye, and I exited.

My car was parked down the block, on North Spring Street. I was in something of a daze, wondering if I could crack this thing before my pal Fat Ass put the Short girl and me together, back in Chicago, when I realized someone had fallen in step alongside me.

He was a handsome Italian in a powder-blue suit and a pastel-yellow tie and brown moccasin-style loafers—fairly big guy, muscular, dark curly hair, with a tan so dark it verged on black. Almost too good-looking to be a hood.

Almost.

“Mr. Heller,” he said, in a mellow baritone.

My car was within sight.

“Yeah?”

“My name’s Stompanato. Johnny. We got a mutual friend.”

We were just walking along, amid businessmen and clerks and lawyers and legal secretaries and tourists and other pedestrians, gliding by the Hall of Justice, Hall of Records, and State Building.

“What mutual friend would that be?”

“Mr. Cohen.”

Now we were at the Buick.

“I know Mickey a little,” I allowed.

Johnny Stompanato was smiling, a handsome guy, beautiful features, pleasant. I wondered whether that was a revolver or an automatic bulging under his left arm; the bulge in his trousers would have been of more interest to the females in the crowd.

“Well,” Stompanato said, “Mr. Cohen thinks highly of you, and wondered if you’d had breakfast yet.”

“Actually, I grabbed a doughnut, earlier.”

“Mr. Cohen said to tell you he has fresh-squeezed orange juice and his cook makes a killer omelet.”

That was an interesting choice of adjectives.

“Is this an invitation, or a demand?” I asked. I had my own bulges, after all.

“Simply an invitation.” This guy was smooth. “Your partner Mr. Rubinski suggested to Mr. Cohen that you two might share a conversation, while you was in town.”

“Where are you parked, Johnny? May I call you Johnny?”

“Sure, Nate. Right behind you—the Caddy?”

“Should have known. Can I follow you, or do I have to ride along?”

“Follow me, by all means. I’ll keep the speed down, keep you in my rearview mirror.”

I trailed the dark blue Caddy down Sunset to the exclusive suburb of Brentwood, adjacent to Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean, home to many movie stars and other celebrities, including one Mayer Harris Cohen, AKA Mickey, the pint-size Capone who controlled bookie operations in Los Angeles.