The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy

  “Like the Red Arrow Motel?”

  “No! Like one of Daddy’s old houses that Georgie took care of! Betty forgot her purse, so we thought she’d be back for it, but she never came back and neither did Georgie, and then the papers came out and we knew what must have happened.”

  If Madeleine thought her confession was over, she was wrong. “Tell me what you did then. How you covered things up.”

  Madeleine caressed Emmett while she spoke. “I went looking for Linda Martin, and I found her at a motel in the Valley. I gave her money and told her that if the police picked her up and asked her about the movie she was to say it was filmed in Tijuana with a Mexican crew. She kept her part of the bargain when you captured her, and she only mentioned the movie because she had the print in her purse. I tried to find Duke Wellington, but I couldn’t. That worried me, then he sent in his alibi to the Herald-Express, and it didn’t mention where the movie was shot. So we were safe. Then—”

  “Then I came along. And you pumped me for dope on the case, and you threw me little tidbits about Georgie to see if I bit.”

  Madeleine quit stroking Daddy and studied her manicure. “Yes.”

  “What about the alibi you gave me? Laguna Beach, check with the servants?”

  “We gave them money in case you actually did check. They don’t speak English too well, and of course you believed me.”

  Madeleine was smiling now. I said, “Who mailed Betty’s pictures and little black book in? There were envelopes sent, and you said Betty left her purse here.”

  Madeleine laughed. “That was genius sister Martha. She knew I knew Betty, but she wasn’t home that night Betty and Georgie were here. She didn’t know Georgie was blackmailing Daddy or that he killed Betty. She ripped the page with our number on it out of the book, and she scratched the faces off the men in the pictures as her way of saying, ‘Look for a lesbian,’ namely me. She just wanted me smeared, implicated. She also called the police and gave them a tip on La Verne’s. The scratched faces were très genius Martha—she always scratches like a cat when she’s mad.”

  Something in her statement hit me as wrong, but I couldn’t pin it down. “Martha told you this?”

  Madeleine buffed her red claws. “When the little black book stuff made the papers, I knew it had to be Martha. I scratched a confession out of her.”

  I turned to Emmett “Where’s Georgie?”

  The old man stirred. “He’s probably staying at one of my vacant houses. I’ll bring you a list.”

  “Bring me all four of your passports, too.”

  Emmett walked out of the battlefield bedroom. Madeleine said, “I really did like you, Bucky. I really did.”

  “Save it for Daddy. You’re wearing the pants now, so save the sugar for him.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “First I’m going home and putting all of this on paper, attached to material witness warrants for you and Daddy. Then I’m leaving them with another officer in case Daddy goes to his friend Mickey Cohen with an offer for my head. Then I’m going after Georgie.”

  Emmett came back and handed me four U.S. passport holders and a sheet of paper. Madeleine said, “If you turn in those warrants, we’ll ruin you in court. Everything about us will come out.”

  I stood up and kissed the brass girl hard on the lips. “Then we’ll all go down together.”

  I didn’t drive home to write it all out. I parked a few blocks from the Sprague manse and studied the list of addresses, spooked by the juice Madeleine had shown, by her sense of how deep our stalemate went.

  The houses were situated in two locales: Echo Park and Silverlake, and across town in Watts—bad territory for a fifty-three-year-old white man. Silverlake-Echo was several miles due east of Mount Lee, a hilly area with lots of twisting streets, greenery and seclusion, the kind of terrain a necrophiliac might find soothing. I drove there, five addresses circled on Emmett’s sheet.

  The first three were plain deserted shacks: no electricity, broken windows, Mexican gang slogans painted on the walls. No ‘39 Ford pickup 6B119A nearby—only desolation accompanied by Santa Ana winds blowing down from the Hollywood Hills. Heading toward the fourth pad just after midnight was when I got the idea—or the idea got me.

  Kill him.

  No public glory, no public disgrace—private justice. Let the Spragues go or coerce a detailed confession out of Georgie before you pull the trigger. Get it on paper, then figure out a way to hurt them with it at your leisure.

  Kill him.

  And try to live with it.

  And try to lead a normal life with Mickey Cohen’s good pal running the same type of schemes on you.

  I put it all out of mind when I saw that the fourth house was intact at the dead end of a cul-de-sac—chaste exterior, the lawn neatly tended. I parked two doors down, then prowled the street on foot. There were no Ford trucks—and plenty of curbside spaces for them.

  I studied the house from the sidewalk. It was a ‘20s stucco job, small, cube-shaped, off-white with a wood-beam roof. I circled it, driveway to tiny backyard and around a flagstone path to the front. No lights—the windows were all covered with what looked like thick blackout curtains. The place was utterly silent.

  Gun out, I rang the buzzer. Twenty seconds, no answer. I ran my fingers down the door-doorjamb meeting point, felt cracked wood, got out my handcuffs and wedged in the narrow part of one ratchet. The teeth held; I whittled at the wood near the lock until I felt the door play slacken. Then I gave it a gentle kick—and it opened.

  Light from outside guided me to a wall switch; I flipped it on, saw a cobweb-streaked empty room, walked to the porch and shut the door. The blackout curtains held in every bit of illumination. I moved back into the house, closed the door and stuck wood slivers into the bolt fixture to jam the lock.

  With front access blocked off, I walked to the rear of the house. A medicinal stench was issuing from a room adjoining the kitchen. I toed the door open and tapped the inside wall for a switch. I hit one; harsh light blinded me. Then my vision cleared and I placed the smell: formaldehyde.

  The walls were lined with shelves holding jars of preserved organs; there was a mattress on the floor, half covered by an army blanket. A red-headed scalp and two notebooks lay on top of it. I took a wheezing breath and forced myself to see it all.

  Brains, eyes, hearts and intestines floating in fluid. A woman’s hand, wedding ring still attached to her finger. Ovaries, glots of shapeless viscera, a jar filled with penises. Gum sections replete with gold teeth.

  I felt dry heaves coming on, and squatted by the mattress so I wouldn’t have to see any more gore. I picked up one of the notebooks and leafed through it; the pages were filled with neatly typed descriptions of grave robberies—cemeteries, plot names and dates in separate columns. When I saw “East Los Angeles Lutheran,” where my mother was buried, I dropped the book and reached for the blanket for something to hold; crusted semen top to bottom made me throw it at the doorway. I opened the other binder to the middle then, neat masculine printing taking me back to January 14, 1947:

  When she woke up Tuesday morning I knew she couldn’t take much more and I knew I couldn’t risk staying in the hills much longer. Derelicts and lovebirds were sure to be out and about sooner or later. I could tell she was so damn proud of her little titties even while I took Chesterfields to them yesterday. I decided to cut them off slowly.

  She was still in a stupor, maybe even shock. I showed her the Joe DiMaggio Louisville Slugger which had given me so much pleasure since Sunday night. I teased her with it. That took her out of her shock. I poked it at her little hole and she almost swallowed her gag. I wished there were nails to put in it, like the iron maiden or a chastity belt she would not soon forget. I held the bat in front of her, then I opened up a cigarette burn on her left tittie with my knife. She bit on her gag and blood from where I took the Joe DiMaggio to her teeth came out due to her biting so hard. I stuck the knife down to a little bone I felt, th
en I twisted it. She tried to scream and the gag slipped deeper into her throat. I pulled it out for one second and she yelled for her mother. I put it back in hard and cut her again on the right tittie.

  She’s getting infected where’s she’s tied up now. The ropes are cutting her ankles and they’re squishy with pus …”

  I put the notebook down, knowing I could do it, knowing if I faltered, a few more pages would turn me around. I stood up; the organ jars caught my attention, dead things all in a row, so neat, so perfect. I was wondering whether Georgie had ever killed before when I noticed a jar all by itself on the window ledge above the head of the mattress.

  A triangular piece of flesh, tattooed. A heart with the Army Air Corps insignia inside it, the words “Betty & Major Matt” below.

  I closed my eyes and shook head to toe; I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to tell Betty I was sorry I’d seen that special part of her, that I didn’t mean to pry so far, that I was just trying to help. I tried to say it and say it and say it. Then something touched me softly, and I was grateful for the gentleness.

  I turned around and saw a man, his face all scars, his hands holding little hooked instruments, tools for cutting and probing. He touched the scalpels to his cheeks; I gasped at where I’d been and reached for my gun. Twin streaks of steel lashed at me; the .45 slipped out of my waistband and hit the floor.

  I sidestepped; the blades snagged my jacket and ripped a piece of my collarbone. I sent a kick at Tilden’s groin; the grave raper caught the blow off balance, buckled and leaped forward, crashing into me, knocking me back into the wall shelving.

  Jars broke, formaldehyde sprayed, awful pieces of flesh were loosed. Tilden was right on top of me, trying to bring his scalpels down. I held his wrists up, then shot a knee between his legs. He grunted but didn’t retreat, this face getting closer and closer to mine. Inches away, he bared his teeth and snapped; I felt my cheek tearing. I kneed him again, his arm pressure slackened, I caught another bite on the chin, then dropped my hands. The scalpels hit the shelf in back of me; I flailed for a weapon and touched a big piece of glass. I dug it into Georgie’s face just as he yanked the blades free; he screamed; steel dug into my shoulder.

  The shelving collapsed. Georgie fell on top of me, blood pouring from an empty eye socket. I saw my .45 on the floor a few feet away, dragged the two of us there and grabbed it. Georgie raised his head, making animal screeches. He went for my throat, his mouth huge in front of me. I jammed the silencer into his eye hole and blew his brains out.

  Thirty-three

  Russ Millard supplied the Short case epitaph.

  Adrenaline-fried, I left the death house and drove straight to City Hall. The padre had just gotten in from Tucson with his prisoner; when the man was ensconsed in a holding cell, I took Russ aside and told him the entire story of my involvement with the Spragues—from Marjorie Graham’s lez tip to the shooting of Georgie Tilden. Russ, dumbstruck at first, drove me to Central Receiving Hospital. The emergency room doc gave me a tetanus shot, said, “God, those bites look almost human,” and sutured them up. The scalpel wounds were superficial—and required only cleansing and bandaging.

  Outside, Russ said, “The case has to stay open. You’ll be canned from the Department if you tell anyone else what happened. Now let’s go take care of Georgie.”

  It was 3:00 A.M. when we got to Silverlake. The padre was shaken by what he saw, but held his composure ramrod stiff. Then the best man I ever knew astonished me.

  First he said, “Go over and stand by the car”; then he fiddled with some pipes on the side of the house, paced off twenty yards and emptied his service revolver at the spot. Gas ignited; the house went up in flames. We highballed out of there without headlights. Russ shot me his line: “That obscenity did not deserve to stand.”

  Then it was incredible exhaustion—and sleep. Russ dropped me at the El Nido, I dived onto the bed and into twenty-odd hours of pitch-black unconsciousness. Waking up, the first thing I saw was the four Sprague passports on the dresser: the first thing I thought was: they have to pay.

  If health and safety code violations or worse came down, I wanted the family in the country where they would suffer. I called the U.S. passport office, impersonated a detective captain and put a police hold on passport reissues for all four Spragues. It felt like an impotent gesture—a slap on the wrist. I shaved and showered then, extra careful not to wet my bandages or sutures. I thought about the end of the case so I wouldn’t think about the shambles my life was in. I recalled that something Madeleine said the other day was off, wrong, out of sync. I played with the question while I dressed; going out the door to get something to eat, it hit home:

  Madeleine said that Martha called the police with a tip on La Verne’s Hideaway. But: I knew the Short case paperwork better then any cop alive, and there were no notations anywhere pertaining to the place. Two incidents sparked me then. Lee getting a long call during our phone-answering stint the morning after I met Madeleine; Lee going directly to La Verne’s after he cracked up at the stag film showing. Only “Genius” Martha could give me answers. I drove to Ad Agency Row to brace her.

  I found Emmett Sprague’s real daughter alone, eating lunch on a bench in the shade of the Young & Rubicam Building. She didn’t look up when I sat down across from her; I remembered that Betty Short’s little black book and pictures were taken out of a mailbox a block away.

  I watched the pudgy girl-woman nibble a salad and read the newspaper. In the two and a half years since I’d seen her she’d held her own against fat and bad skin—but she still looked like a tough distaff version of Emmett.

  Martha put the paper down and noticed me. I expected rage to light up her eyes; she surprised me by saying, “Hello, Mr. Bleichert,” with just a touch of a smile.

  I walked over and sat down beside her. The Times was folded over to a Metro section piece: “Bizarre Fire in Silverlake Foothills—Body Found Charred Beyond Recognition.”

  Martha said, “I’m sorry for that picture I drew of you that night you came to dinner.”

  I pointed to the newspaper. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

  “Poor Georgie. No, I’m not surprised to see you. Father told me you knew. I’ve been underestimated all my life, and I always had a feeling Maddy and Father were underestimating you.”

  I pushed the compliment aside. “Do you know what ‘Poor Georgie’ did?”

  “Yes. From the beginning. I saw Georgie and the Short girl leave the house that night in Georgie’s truck. Maddy and Father didn’t know I knew, but I did. Only Mother never figured it out. Did you kill him?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Are you going to hurt my family?”

  The pride in the “my” knifed me. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to hurt them. Father and Maddy are dreadful people, and I went way out on a limb to hurt them myself.”

  “When you sent in Betty’s things?”

  Now Martha’s eyes fired up. “Yes. I tore out the page in the book that had our number, but I thought there might be other numbers to lead the police to Father and Maddy. I didn’t have the courage to send our number in. I should have. I—”

  I held up a hand. “Why, Martha? Do you know what would have happened if the police got the whole story about Georgie? Accessory charges, court, jail.”

  “I didn’t care. Maddy had you and Father, Mother and I had nothing. I just wanted the whole ship to sink. Mother has lupus now, she’s only got a few years left. She’s going to die, and that is so unfair.”

  “The pictures and scratch marks. What did you mean by them?”

  Martha laced her fingers together and twisted them until the knuckles were white. “I was nineteen, and all I could do was draw. I wanted Maddy smeared as a dyke, and the last picture was Father himself—his face scratched out. I thought he might have left fingerprints on the back. I was desperate to hurt him.”

  “Because h
e touches you like he touches Madeleine?”

  “Because he doesn’t!”

  I braced myself for the spooky stuff. “Martha, did you call the police with a tip on La Verne’s Hideaway?”

  Martha lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Did you talk to—”

  “I told the man about my dyke sister, how she met a cop named Bucky Bleichert at La Verne’s last night and had a date with him tonight. Maddy was gloating to the whole family about you, and I was jealous. But I only wanted to hurt her—not you.”

  Lee taking the call while I sat across a desk from him in University squadroom; Lee going directly to La Verne’s when Slave Girls From Hell drove him around the twist. I said, “Martha, you come clean on the rest of it.”

  Martha looked around and clenched herself—legs together, arms to her sides, fists balled. “Lee Blanchard came to the house and told Father he’d talked to women at La Verne’s—lesbians who could tie Maddy in to the Black Dahlia. He said he had to leave town, and for a price he wouldn’t report his information on Maddy. Father agreed, and gave him all the money he had in his safe.”

  Lee, Benzie-crazed, absent from City Hall and University Station; Bobby De Witt’s imminent parole his reason for blowing town. Emmett’s money the cash he was flaunting in Mexico. My own voice numb: “Is there more?”

  Martha’s body was coiled spring-tight. “Blanchard came back the next day. He demanded more money. Father turned him down, and he beat Father up and asked him all these questions about Elizabeth Short. Maddy and I heard it from the next room. I loved it and Maddy was wicked mad. She left when she couldn’t take any more of her beloved daddy-poo groveling, but I kept listening. Father was afraid that Blanchard would frame one of us for the killing, so he agreed to give him a hundred thousand dollars and told him what happened with Georgie and Elizabeth Short.”

  Lee’s bruised knuckles; his lie: “Penance for Junior Nash.” Madeleine on the phone that day: “Don’t come over. Daddy’s having a business soiree.” Our desperate rutting at the Red Arrow an hour later. Lee filthy rich in Mexico. Lee letting Georgie Tilden go scot fucking free.