The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy

“You mean early Sunday morning?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No.”

  “Did she mention any men’s names? Boyfriends? Men she was going to see?”

  “Uh … some flyboy she was married to.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see her again?”

  “No.”

  “Did your father know Liz at all?”

  “No.”

  “Did he force the house detective to change the name on the registration book after Liz’s body was found?”

  “Uh … yes.”

  “Do you know who killed Liz Short?”

  “No! No!”

  Johnny was starting to sweat. I was too—anxious for facts to nail him with now that it looked like he and the Dahlia were just a one-night stand. I said, “You told your father about Liz when she made the papers, is that right?”

  “Uh … yes.”

  “And he told you about a guy named Charlie Issler? A guy who used to pimp Liz Short?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he told you Issler was in custody as a confessor?”

  “Uh … yes.”

  “Now you tell me what he said he was going to do about that, shitbird. You tell me damn good and slow.”

  Fat Boy’s cut-rate heart rose to the challenge. “Daddy tried to get Ellis Jewboy to cut Issler loose, but he wouldn’t. Daddy knew this morgue attendant who owed him, and he got this DOA cooze and talked Jewboy into this idea. Daddy wanted Uncle Bill for it, but Jewboy said no, take you. Daddy said you’d do it ‘cause without Blanchard to tell you what to do you were jelly. Daddy said you were a sob sister, weak sister, buck tooth…”

  Johnny started laughing hysterically, shaking his head, spraying sweat, rattling his cuffed wrist like a zoo animal with a new plaything. Russ stepped in front of me. “I’ll make him sign a statement. You take a half hour or so to calm down. I’ll feed him coffee, then when you get back we’ll figure out what’s next.”

  I walked out to the fire escape, sat down and dangled my legs over the edge. I watched cars head up Wilcox to Hollywood and got it all down, the cost to myself, the whole enchilada. Then I played license plate blackjack, southbound versus northbound, out-of-state cars as wild cards. Southbound was me, the house; northbound was Lee and Kay. Southbound stood on a chickenshit seventeen; northbound got an ace and a queen for pure blackjack. Dedicating the enchilada to the three of us, I went back to the room.

  Johnny Vogel was signing Russ’s statement, flushed and sweaty, with a bad case of the shakes. I read the confession over his shoulder: it laid out the Biltmore, Betty, and Fritzie’s beating of Sally Stinson succinctly, to the tune of four misdemeanors and two felonies.

  Russ said, “I want to sit on this for now, and I want to talk to a legal officer.”

  I said, “No, padre,” and turned to Johnny.

  “You’re under arrest for suborning prostitution, withholding evidence, obstruction of justice and accesory to first-degree assault and battery.”

  Johnny blurted, “Daddy” and looked at Russ. Russ looked at me—and held out the statement. I put it in my pocket and cuffed Junior’s wrists behind his back while he sobbed quietly.

  The padre sighed. “It’s the shithouse until you retire.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll never get back to the Bureau.”

  “I’ve already got a taste for shit, padre. I don’t think it’ll be so bad.”

  I led Johnny down to my car and drove him the four blocks to Hollywood Station. Reporters and camera jockeys were lounging on the front steps; they went nuts when they saw the plainclothesman with the uniformed cop in bracelets. Flashbulbs popped, newshounds recognized me and shouted my name, I yelled back, “No comment.” Inside, bluesuits goggle-eyed the sight. I shoved Johnny to the front desk and whispered in his ear: “Tell your daddy I know about his extortion deal with the fed reports, and about the syph and the whorehouse in Watts. Tell him I’m going to the papers with it tomorrow.”

  Johnny went back to his quiet sobbing. A uniformed lieutenant came over and blurted, “What on God’s earth is this here?”

  A flashbulb went off in my eyes; there was Bevo Means with his notepad at the ready. I said, “I’m Officer Dwight Bleichert and this is Officer John Charles Vogel.” Handing the statement to the lieutenant, I winked. “Book him.”

  I dawdled over a big steak lunch, then drove downtown to Central Station and my regular tour of duty. Heading into the locker room, I heard the intercom bark: “Officer Bleichert, go to the watch commander’s office immediately.”

  I reversed directions and knocked on Lieutenant Jastrow’s door. He called out, “It’s open.” I walked in and saluted like an idealistic rookie. Jastrow stood up, ignored the salute and adjusted his horn-rims like he was seeing me for the first time.

  “You’re on two weeks vacation leave as of now, Bleichert. When you return to duty, report to Chief Green. He’ll assign you to another division.”

  Wanting to milk the moment, I asked, “Why?”

  “Fritz Vogel just blew his brains out. That’s why.”

  My farewell salute was twice as crisp as my first one; Jastrow ignored it again. I walked across the hall thinking of the two blind whores, wondering if they’d find out or care. The muster room was crammed with blues waiting for roll call—a last obstacle before the parking lot and home. I took it slow, standing GI straight, meeting the eyes that sought mine, making them look down. The hisses of “Traitor” and “Bolshevik” all came when my back was turned. I was almost out the door when I heard applause and turned to see Russ Millard and Thad Green clapping good-bye.

  Twenty-four

  Exiled to the shithouse and proud of it; two weeks to kill before I began serving my sentence at some putrid LAPD outpost. The Vogel arrest-suicide whitewashed as interdepartmental offenses and a father’s shame over the ignominy. I closed out my glory days the only way that seemed decent—I chased the gone man.

  I started at the LA end of his vanishing act.

  I got nothing from repeated readings of Lee’s arrest scrapbook; I questioned the lezzies at La Verne’s Hideaway, asking whether Mr. Fire showed up to abuse them a second time—and got no’s and jeers. The padre sneaked me a carbon of the complete Blanchard felony arrest file—it told me nothing. Kay, content in our monogamy, told me I was worse than a fool for what I was doing—and I knew it scared her.

  Dredging up the Issler/Stinson/Vogel connection had convinced me of one thing—that I was a detective. Thinking like one as far as Lee was concerned was another matter, but I forced myself to do it. The ruthlessness I had always seen—and secretly admired—in him came across even deeper, making me care for him even more unequivocally. As did the facts I always came back to:

  Lee disappeared when the Dahlia, Benzedrine and Bobby De Witt’s imminent parole converged on him;

  He was last seen in Tijuana at a time when De Witt was heading there and the Short case was centered on the U.S.–Mexico border;

  De Witt and his dope partner Felix Chasco were murdered then, and even though two Mexican nationals were nailed for the job, it could have been a railroad—the Rurales wiping an unwanted homicide off their books;

  Conclusion: Lee Blanchard could have murdered De Witt and Chasco, his motive a desire to protect himself from revenge attempts and Kay from lounge lizard Bobby’s possible abuse. Conclusion within that conclusion: I didn’t care.

  My next step was to study the transcript of De Witt’s trial. At the Hall of Records, more facts sunk in:

  Lee named the informants who gave him the dope on De Witt as the Boulevard-Citizens “brains,” then said that they left town to avoid reprisals from Lizard’s friends. My follow-up call to R&I was unsettling—the snitches had no records at all. De Witt asserted a police frame because of his prior dope arrests, and the prosecution based its case on the marked money from the robbery found at De Witt’s h
ouse and the fact that he had no alibi for the time of the heist. Of the four-man gang, two were killed at the scene of the crime, De Witt was captured and the fourth man remained at large. De Witt claimed not to know who he was—even though stooling might have gotten him a sentence reduction.

  Conclusion: maybe it was an LAPD frame, maybe Lee was in on it, maybe he initiated it to curry favor with Benny Siegel, whose money was clouted by the real heisters, and who Lee was terrified of for good reason—he had stiffed the Bug Man on his fight contract. Lee then met Kay at De Witt’s trial, fell in love with her in his chaste-guilty way and learned to hate Bobby for real. Conclusion within that conclusion: Kay couldn’t have known. De Witt was scum who got what he deserved.

  And the final conclusion: I had to hear the man confirm or deny himself.

  Four days into my “vacation,” I took off for Mexico. In Tijuana, I passed out pesos and American dimes and showed snapshots of Lee, holding quarters back to barter for “información importante.” I acquired an entourage, no leads and the certainty that I would be trampled if I kept showing coin. From then on, I stuck to the traditional gringo cop-Mex cop one-dollar handout confidential exchange.

  The TJ cops were black-shirted vultures who spoke only broken English—but they understood the international language very well. I stopped a score of individual “patrolmen” on the street, flashed my shield and pictures, pressed dollar bills into their hands and asked questions in the best English-Spanish I could muster. The singles quickly snapped up, I got headshakes, bilingual bullshit broadsides and a strange series of tales that rang true.

  One had “el blanco explosivo” weeping at a stag film smoker held at the Chicago Club in late January; another featured a big blond guy beating the shit out of three jack rollers, then buying off the cops with double-saws peeled from a large roll. The capper was Lee donating 200 scoots to a leper ministry priest he met in a bar, buying drinks for the house, then driving to Ensenada. That bit of dope earned a five spot and a demand for an explanation. The cop said, “The priest my brother. He ordain himself. Vaya con Dios. Keep your money in your pocket.”

  I took the coast road eighty miles south to Ensenada, wondering where Lee got that kind of money to throw around. The drive was pleasant—scrub-lined bluffs giving way to the ocean on my right, hills and valleys covered with dense foliage to the left of me. Car traffic was scarce, with a steady trickle of pedestrians walking north: whole families lugging suitcases, looking scared and happy at the same time, like they didn’t know what their dash across the border would bring them, but it had to be better than sucking Mexican dirt and tourist chump change.

  Approaching Ensenada at twilight, the trickle became a migration march. A single line of people hugged the northbound roadside, belongings wrapped in blankets and slung over their shoulders. Every fifth or sixth marcher carried a torch or a lantern, and all the small children were strapped papoose-style onto their mothers’ backs. Coming over the last hill outside the city limits, I saw Ensenada, a smear of neon below me, torchlights punctuating the darkness until the overall fluorescence swallowed them.

  I drove down into it, quickly sizing up the burg as a sea breeze version of TJ catering to a higher class of turista. The gringos were well behaved, there were no child beggars on the streets and no barkers in front of the profusion of juice joints. The wetback line originated out in the scrubland, and only cut through Ensenada to reach the coast road—and to pay tribute to the Rurales for letting them through.

  It was the most blatant shakedown I had ever seen. Rurales in brownshirts, jodhpurs and jackboots were walking from peasant to peasant, taking money and attaching tags to their shoulders with staple guns; plainsclothes cops sold parcels of beef jerky and dried fruit, putting the coins they received into changemakers strapped next to their sidearms. Other Rurales were stationed one man to a block to check the tags; when I turned off the main drag onto an obvious red light street, I glimpsed two brownshirts rendering a man senseless with the butts of their weapons: sawed-off pump shotguns.

  I decided that it would be wise to check in with the law before going out to question the Ensenada citizenry. Also, Lee had been spotted talking to a group of Rurales up near the border shortly after leaving LA, and it might be possible to shake the locals for a line on him.

  I followed a caravan of ‘30s-vintage prowl cars down the red light block and across to the street paralleling the beach—and there was the station. It was a converted church: barred windows, the word POLICÍA painted in black over religious scenes carved into the white adobe facade. A searchlight was stationed on the lawn; when I got out of the car, badge out, American grin on, it was shined right at me.

  I walked into it, eyes shielded, face smarting from the heat blast. A man cackled, “Yanqui copper, J. Edgar, Texas Rangers.” His hand was out as I passed him. I pressed a dollar bill into it and entered the station.

  The interior was even more churchlike: velvet wall hangings depicting Jesus and his adventures decorated the entrance hall; the benches filled with lounging brownshirts looked like pews. The front desk was a big block of dark wood, Jesus on the cross carved into it—most likely a retired altar. The fat Rurale standing sentry there licked his lips when he saw me coming—he reminded me of a child molester who would never retire.

  I had my obligatory onesky out, but held back. “Los Angeles Police to see the chief.”

  The brownshirt rubbed his thumbs and forefingers together, then pointed to my badge holder. I handed it over along with the dollar; he led me down a Jesus-frescoed hallway to a door marked CAPITÁN. I stood there while he went in and talked in rapid-fire Spanish; when he exited, I got a heel click and a belated salute.

  “Officer Bleichert, come in please.”

  The non-accented words surprised me; I walked in to answer them. A tall Mexican man in a gray suit was standing there with his hand out—for a shake, not a dollar bill.

  We shook. The man sat down behind a big desk and tapped a plate reading CAPITÁN VASQUEZ. “How can I help you, Officer?”

  I grabbed my badge holder off the desk and put a picture of Lee down in its place. “That man is a Los Angeles police officer. He’s been missing since late January, and when he was last seen he was heading here.”

  Vasquez examined the snapshot. The corners of his mouth twitched; he immediately tried to cover up the response by turning if into a negative head shake. “No, I haven’t seen this man. I will put out a bulletin to my officers and have them inquire in the American community here.”

  I answered the lie. “He’s a hard man to miss, Captain. Blond, six feet, built like a brick shithouse.”

  “Ensenada attracts rough trade, Officer. That is why the police contingent here is so well armed and vigilant. will you be staying awhile?”

  “At least overnight. Maybe your men missed him, and I can get some leads.”

  Vasquez smiled. “I doubt that. Are you alone?”

  “I have two partners waiting for me in Tijuana.”

  “And what division are you assigned to?”

  I lied big. “Metropolitan.”

  “You are very young for such prestigious duty.”

  I picked up the photo. “Nepotism, Captain. My dad’s a deputy chief and my brother’s with the consulate in Mexico City. Good night.”

  “And good luck, Bleichert.”

  I rented a room at a hotel within walking distance of the nightclub/red light strip. For two dollars I got a ground-floor flop with an ocean view, a bed with a pancake-thin mattress, a sink and a key to the community john outside. I dumped my grip on the dresser, and as a precaution on the way out, yanked two hairs from my head and spit-glued them across the door-doorjamb juncture. If the fascisti prowled the pad, I would know.

  I walked to the heart of the neon smear.

  The streets were filled with men in uniform: brownshirts, U.S. marines and sailors. There were no Mex nationals to be seen, and everyone was quite orderly—even the knots of jarheads weaving drunk. I
decided that it was the walking Rurale arsenal that kept things pacified. Most of the brown-shirts were scrawny bantamweights, but they were packing firepower grande: sawed-offs, tommmys, .45 automatics, brass knucks dangling from their cartridge belts.

  Fluorescent beacons pulsated at me: Flame Klub, Arturo’s Oven, Club Boxeo, Falcon’s Lair, Chico’s Klub Imperial. “Boxeo” meant “boxing” in Spanish—so I made that dump my first stop.

  Expecting darkness, I walked into a garishly lit room crowded with sailors. Mexican girls danced half naked on top of a long bar, dollar bills tucked into their G-strings. Canned marimba music and catcalls made the joint a deafening pocket of noise; I stood on my tiptoes looking for someone with the air of proprietor. At the back I saw an alcove papered with fight publicity stills. It drew me like a magnet, and I threaded my way past a new shift of nudies slinking to the bar to get to it.

  And there I was, in great light heavyweight company, sandwiched between Gus Lesnevich and Billy Conn; And there was Lee, right next to Joe Louis, who he could have fought if he’d dived for Benny Siegel.

  Bleichert and Blanchard. Two white hopes gone wrong.

  I stared at the pictures for a long time, until the raucousness around me dissipated and I wasn’t in some upholstered sewer, I was back in ‘40 and ‘41, winning fights and rutting with giveaway girls who looked like Betty Short. And Lee was scoring knockouts and living with Kay—and, strangely, we were a family again.

  “First Blanchard, now you. Who’s next? Willie Pep?”

  I was back in the sewer immediately, blurting, “When? When did you see him?”

  Whirling around, I saw a hulking old man. His face was cracked leather and broken bones—a punching bag—but his voice was nothing like a stumblebum’s: “A couple of months ago. The heavy rains in February. We musta talked fights for ten hours straight.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I ain’t seen him since that one time, and maybe he don’t want to see you. I tried to talk about that fight you guys had, but Big Lee won’t have any. Says ‘We ain’t partners no more’ and starts tellin’ me the featherweights are the best division pound for pound. I tell him, nix—it’s the middles. Zale, Graziano, La Motta, Cerdan, who you kiddin’?”