“Well, I wasn’t at the competition, Mrs. Short-I’m trying to get in touch with Betty. Would you happen to have her most recent address?”
“I don’t understand. If she won the beauty contest, why don’t you have-”
“We got Elizabeth’s name from the Chamber of Commerce,” I said glibly, feeling like the goddamn liar I was, “who sponsored the contest, but they neglected to give us her address, in their press release.”
“I don’t know if I have her most recent address-she was staying in San Diego, at least until two weeks ago.”
Richardson was nodding at me, mouthing, “Good, good.”
“But it doesn’t surprise me she’s back in the Hollywood area,” her mother was saying.
“Why is that, Mrs. Short?”
“Well, Elizabeth said she only went down to San Diego because of the movie union strikes-she said everything in the film industry was kind of shut down. But I know she had to get back to Hollywood before too long.”
“Why is that?”
The pride in Mrs. Short’s voice was palpable. “Betty had a screen test coming up.”
“Really? Do you know for what studio?”
“It wasn’t a studio, I don’t think. She said it was a director, some famous director.”
“Well, that’s swell. Did she say what director?”
“No-just that he was very, very famous. It’s someone she met at the Hollywood Canteen.”
“Oh, she worked at the Canteen?” Actually, I knew that already-Beth had mentioned that, and the “famous director”-but I hadn’t shared the information with anybody.
“I don’t think she did, officially. But she said she was on the list to be a junior hostess, and got meals there, free, sometimes.”
“The Hollywood Canteen, that’s a wonderful thing, supporting our servicemen like that.”
Mrs. Short laughed, lightly. “I don’t mean to speak out of school, but my daughter does have a soft spot for a man in uniform.”
“Well, a lot of girls do these days, Mrs. Short.”
“They certainly do…” And now her tone turned somber. “… Elizabeth was engaged to a major in the Army Air Corps, oh, for almost three years. But he died in action.”
“I’m so sorry. Do you, uh, happen to know where she was staying in San Diego?”
“I told you, I don’t think she’s still staying there…”
“Have you heard from her since she left San Diego?”
“Well, no-but maybe the nice people she was staying with would have a forwarding address for Elizabeth… Let me see if I can find that letter for you… Do you mind hanging on? I mean it is long distance, and this must be terribly expensive for you.”
“No, please, do see if you can find that letter.”
“All right.”
As she put down the phone, I could hear Mrs. Short excitedly telling her tenant the good news about Elizabeth winning a beauty contest in Hollywood.
“Heller,” Richardson said, “you’re doing great.”
“Kiss my ass,” I said.
“I just might, if you land that address.”
Finally Mrs. Short came back on the line, and said, “I found it! Let me just read through this letter, refresh my memory… She was working part-time at a Naval hospital in San Diego, staying with a girl friend named Dorothy French, at the home of the girl’s mother, Mrs. Elvera French-in Pacific Beach. I believe that’s a suburb of San Diego. Do you have a pencil?”
“Yes,” I said, and she read off the address.
I glanced over at Fowley and Richardson. Covering the mouthpiece, I said, “You got your goddamn address.”
“Now,” Richardson said.
“What?”
“Tell her now.”
“What a sweet bastard you are…” Into the phone, I said, “Mrs. Short, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you. Are you sitting down, ma’am?”
“Why, yes, I am-what is it? Is something wrong?”
“Forgive me for the pretense. I had to make sure I was speaking to the right person… that you were in fact Elizabeth Short’s mother, the right Elizabeth Short…”
“Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?”
“Forgive me-yes. A young woman was killed, probably Tuesday night.”
“Oh God… oh dear God…”
“Her body was found Wednesday morning.”
“Do you mean… murdered? My Betty was murdered?”
“This young woman, who we believe to be your daughter, was murdered, yes.”
“Are you… are you sure it’s Betty?”
“This girl had black hair, weighed about 115 pounds, was five feet five, a lovely girl with blue-green eyes and a fair complexion.”
“That could be a lot of girls in Hollywood, couldn’t it? Did this girl have a scar on her back? Elizabeth had a scar on her back from a lung operation-she was sick with pleurisy, when she was small, and had to have a rib removed. If this girl didn’t have that, then-”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Short. She did have such a scar.”
“Oh dear… oh dear…”
She was weeping.
“Mrs. Short, I know there’s nothing I can say except that I’m sorry, and I apologize for the deception.”
Suddenly Richardson was behind me-I hadn’t noticed him move from Fowley’s side: it was startling, like a jump cut in a movie.
Clamping his hand over the mouthpiece, Richardson leaned in and whispered harshly into my ear, machine-gunning the words, “Commiserate with the woman-cry along with her-tell her the Examiner feels for her, tell her we’ll pay for the funeral, we’ll bring her and her daughters out here, all expenses paid…”
“You tell her.” I yanked the phone free from him. “Mrs. Short, once again, my sincere apologies-the city editor of the Examiner would like to speak with you.”
And I handed him the phone, got out of the chair, and gestured for him to sit.
He sat, not missing a beat as he smoothly spoke. “Mrs. Short, this is James Richardson of the Los Angeles Examiner — if you will stay on the line, we want to help you in your time of grief… please stay on the line… Thank you.” Richardson covered the receiver. “Heller, you and Fowley get your asses down to San Diego, toot sweet.” To Fowley, who was already getting up, notepad in hand, Richardson said, “Leave your notes with a rewrite man-just take the address… That a good enough lead for the first string, Bill?”
“Not bad,” Fowley said, and I followed him out of the editorial chamber as Richardson, in a voice that would have melted butter, soothed and consoled and manipulated Elizabeth Short’s mother.
As we walked through the bustling city room, Fowley said, “If Richardson can convince that dame to let him fly her out here, we can keep her away from the cops long enough to wring Christ knows how many leads out of her. The boss is something, isn’t he?”
“One of a kind,” I said.
Then I excused myself and went into the bathroom and puked up my breakfast.
The outskirts of Los Angeles blended into the bleakness of derrick-flung oil fields, which quickly gave way to vegetable farms and citrus groves. Soon Highway 101 slipped down to the ocean, whose shimmering blue beauty contrasted nicely with the brush-dotted hills of a barren coastline occasionally broken by farming and resort communities.
The morning was sunny yet cool, and the surf-level ride to San Diego-with Fowley behind the wheel of the blue ’47 Ford-was pleasant enough, considering the company.
“Some way to spend your honeymoon, huh, Heller?” Fowley said, hat pushed back, cigarette dangling, windows down, wind rushing by.
“Peg knew I was going to do a little work out here,” I said.
“Beautiful girl, you lucky bastard. Seems like a nice gal, too. Understanding, is she? About the screwy nature of what you do for a living, I mean?”
“She understands,” I said.
She’d even forgiven me, in the middle of the night, when I cuddled in next to her. And I’d forgi
ven her. We’d even made love again, passionately, desperately, bawling like babies when we climaxed, as might be expected from a pair of newlyweds trying to make up for the wife wanting to abort their child and a husband who’d threatened to kill her.
I’d seen Peggy off early this morning, with some flowers I’d bought at the hotel gift shop, wishing her well on day one of her first Hollywood shoot. No makeup on, turbaned, in a boyish cotton T-shirt and gray slacks, she looked goddamn gorgeous.
“Let’s not hurt each other anymore,” she suggested.
“It’s a deal.”
I gave her a big kiss and walked her to the studio-provided limo.
“So, tell me, Nate,” Fowley was saying, working his voice above the wind and the staticky sound of Frank Sinatra singing, “The Girl That I Marry”-great guy to be giving marital advice.
“Tell you what, Bill?”
“What does your partner Rubinski think about the A-1 Detective Agency falling into the biggest crime since Papa Hitler’s rubber broke?”
I grunted. “Fred thinks we better be in on the solving of this crime, if we want the right kind of publicity.”
“We’ll solve it. Hell, you don’t think the cops are gonna beat us to it?”
“No, not the way the Examiner is withholding evidence, and doling it out to the cops like a kid’s allowance.”
“Ah, you’re overstating.”
“In future I’ll strive for the subtlety expected of Examiner staffers. Anyway, Harry the Hat knows what he’s doing, at least.”
“Yeah, the Hat’s smart enough to know to look over our shoulders, you mean. But he’s the exception.” Fowley lighted up a fresh cigarette off the dashboard lighter. “Half the LAPD is in Mickey Cohen’s pocket, the other half’s in Jack Dragna’s. Besides which, these LAPD detectives are the biggest bunch of boobs this side of the Mississippi.”
“You may have heard, we have our fair share of bent cops in Chicago.”
“Ah, yes, but not idiot bent cops!” Fowley raised an authoritative finger. “There are more unsolved murders in Los Angeles per capita than any other major American city.”
“With guys like Finis Brown in the department, I’m not surprised.”
Fowley grinned over at me. “Ever hear of Thad Brown?”
“Isn’t he Chief of Detectives?”
“That’s right-Fat Ass is his brother.”
“No! Thad Brown’s supposed to be a good, honest cop!”
“That’s right, Nate. And his brother is a Mickey Cohen bag man. You figure it. Funny thing is, the uniformed officers in L.A. are pretty fair cops; it’s just the detectives that couldn’t find their ass with two hands.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, take your motorcycle cop for instance. Those cycle jockeys got a rigorous exam to take, tougher than hell. And the department encourages the uniformed boys to take university extension courses, and major in criminal science, really improve their efficiency in police work. That’s the rank-and-file… but to become a big-shot detective? There’s no definitive exam-you just get appointed.”
“Based on what?”
Fowley shrugged, both hands on the wheel. “Based on your ability to fit in with the Old Boy network of detectives, the ones that have ongoing deals with bailbondsmen and criminal attorneys. It’s the same dicks who are in Cohen’s pocket-him or Dragna.”
Cohen and Dragna again. Funny Fowley bringing them up. When I’d called my L.A. partner Fred Rubinski at home, last night-to give him the censored version of our agency’s involvement with the Examiner and the “Werewolf Slaying”-Fred had mentioned the same two notorious names.
“You may be on to something,” Fred had told me, “where the wound to that girl’s face is concerned. These cops and reporters aren’t from Chicago, like us-they don’t know how to read the signs.”
“Getting slashed ear-to-ear means you’re talking too much. How hard is that to read?”
“Well read this, Nate: that vacant lot where this girl was found is only a couple blocks from where Jack Dragna lives.”
“What? No shit?”
“None. He’s a well-known Leimert Park resident.”
Jack Dragna was the so-called “Capone of California.” Born Anthony Rozzotti, Dragna had been a typical Prohibition-era mob boss, operating bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution out of L.A.’s Italian ghetto; Nitti had done business with him in the early ’40s, when Willie Bioff and George Browne infiltrated the movie unions.
I gathered that Dragna-whom I’d never met-had resented the intrusion of Ben Siegel, a few years before, into the Los Angeles scene. East Coast mob bosses Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano had simply foisted Siegel upon Dragna, unapologetically muscling in on the California Godfather’s territory; and in recent months-after Ben began focusing his attention on the Flamingo hotel/casino in Las Vegas-Siegel’s L.A. rackets interests had been turned over to his former bodyguard, the diminutive, dapper, if somewhat goonish Mickey Cohen.
“Are Cohen and Dragna business partners,” I asked Fred, “or business rivals?”
“Yes,” Rubinski said. “Rumor has it Dragna is working against Mickey, but it’s all sub rosa stuff. You know Mickey a little, don’t you?”
“A little is right-I remember him from Chicago. And Ben Siegel reintroduced us a few months ago, on Tony Cornero’s gambling ship.”
“Ah, the late lamented Lux,” Fred said. “Well, you know Mick is a regular at Sherry’s. He’s an affable little guy, for a roughneck. He’d be good for you to get to know better.”
“I don’t mind Mickey Cohen frequenting your restaurant, Fred, but I’m not sure we want him for an A-1 client. We’re already trying to collect bad debts for Ben Siegel, and I’ve got enough p.r. problems over my so-called Capone/Nitti associations.”
“Cohen’s not that kind of gangster. He’s just a bookie.”
“Yeah, and hasn’t he been bumping off his rival bookies?”
“That’s none of my business, Nate. As long as they don’t go shooting up Sherry’s, what do I care?”
“What does it mean to you, Fred, a woman murdered, wearing the slashed mouth of an informer, being dumped on Dragna’s doorstep?”
“Could be Cohen warning Dragna-or maybe Dragna warning Cohen. Plays either way.”
“Maybe I do need to talk to Mickey Cohen.”
“Nate, I can make that happen.”
“Fred, I’ll let you know.”
Fowley and I had just passed Doheny Park, with its bougainvillea-terraced sea cliffs, when the reporter suddenly began sharing his insights on Elizabeth Short.
“We got the perfect Hollywood story here,” Fowley was saying, as Perry Como sang “Prisoner of Love” on the radio. “Small-town girl, beauty contest winner, comes looking for fame… gets it the hard way.”
“I’m not so sure being a movie star was her goal,” I said.
“Are you kidding? You heard her mom-this was a typical movie-struck kid, the time-honored see-her-name-in-lights, stars-in-her-eyes routine.”
“Stars and stripes in her eyes, you mean.”
“Huh?”
“Elizabeth Short had a thing for men in uniform,” I said. “You heard her mom say that, too.”
Fowley shrugged. “Yeah, well lots of would-be actresses were Victory Girls, during the war. You were in the service, right, Heller? Marines?”
“Yeah.”
“I was in the Coast Guard. Hey, it wasn’t the Marines, but we sank two German submarines on two convoys. And even that sorry Coast Guard uniform of mine-why, it was like a license to steal. I got more nookie than a Mormon on his honeymoon.”
“Is there a slide show that goes with this?”
“You know what I’m talking about; and these little Victory Girls-like Elizabeth Short-all they had to do was see a uniform, maybe a medal or two, or hear a sad tale about shippin’ out tomorrow, and they’d be on their backs, making the ‘V’ for victory-”
“That’s my point, Bill. I think this girl
spent more time laying soldiers and sailors than trying to break into the movies. Everybody told her she was pretty enough to be a movie star-but maybe what she really wanted was a husband.”
“House, picket fence, passel of kiddies… maybe. We can run with that, if the Hollywood angle gets old.” He shook his head, grinned goofily. “Reminds me of this Mocambo deal.”
“Mocambo deal?”
“Yeah, the robbery at the swanky nightclub. It’s what we were playing up, before the Werewolf Slayer came dancing into our boring lives.”
“I didn’t follow that story. Fill me in.” What else did we have to do? We were gliding by the white stucco and red roofs of the Spanish Village-style city of San Clemente.
The heist had gone down a week ago, Monday, January 6. The notion of the glittering Mocambo-a prime haunt of almost every Hollywood star-being victim to an armed robbery summoned images of men with guns rushing in from (and back out into) the night, terrorizing beautiful women in furs and handsome men in tuxedos, lush surroundings echoing with harsh commands.
In reality, the job had taken place in the morning, at 10:30, a “daring daylight robbery” by three armed thieves wearing slouch felt hats and raincoats. The trio had come in the back way, rounded up four employees (three of them women) into a small office, and calmly emptied the safe of $15,000 in cash and another ten grand worth of jewelry. The cash represented the nightclub’s weekend receipts, the jewels were part of a display for a Beverly Hills jewelry store. One of the thieves stood six foot four and his face was badly acne scarred, although that description fit none of the four men the cops had recently arrested.
“The ringleader is a guy named Bobby Savarino,” Fowley said. “Three other guys got nailed, too-apparently they’re part of a pretty active heist string-the cops are looking at them for some bank robberies, too, including one where a teller got shot.”
“How did these L.A. cops you’re so dismissive of manage to make the arrest?”
“Well, Savarino and his partner, I forget his name, were brought in on some unrelated petty theft charge, and got put into a show-up, where the Mocambo witnesses made ’em.”
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