by Ry Cooder
“Just tell it, Woody,” I said.
“The blond, you remember, you saw her, in the fur coat? All I said was, ‘That’s a mighty nice coat.’ ”
“You let her out on the fourth.”
“Yeah, but this was later. She rang the buzzer, and I went up. I was going off duty, but I figured it won’t hurt me to go back. It’s dark on the stairs. I didn’t mean nothing, Mr. Kloer, I’m a sick man.”
“You went back up. Take it from there.” I looked at the office clock. It was 10:30.
“I went back up to the fourth. She says, ‘Down, boy.’ I says, ‘Going down.’ Like I always say. Then, she came up close to me. She leaned on me. She says, ‘I said, down, boy.’ I says, ‘Lady, I’m trying to operate this elevator.’ She says, ‘Do you pull that trick with all the girls, or do you like me special?’” Woody started to cry.
“What happened?”
“She laughed at me with her big mouth. I pushed her off. Maybe I pushed a little too hard, I don’t know. The Good Lord knows how sick I am. She fell. I think she hit her head. Please help me, Mr. Kloer.”
“Where is she?”
“Right here, on the third. In the elevator.”
I walked down the hall to the elevator cage. The hallway was dark. The light in the elevator was an outdoor bulb and it was too bright. She was lying on her back with her head jammed in the corner. She looked all wrong, like the strings had been cut — the way they look in police photographs — one arm pinned underneath and the other flung out to the side. One shoe was off. Her dress was hiked all the way up, and her panties were torn. Good old Dickpants. There was blood. It made me feel sick. I checked her purse, like they do in the movies, but then I heard somebody walking toward me. I panicked. I put the purse down and tried to stand up and I stumbled. A hand steadied me. It was Houseley. “He’s gone,” Houseley said, after I got my balance.
“Who?” I asked.
“Office door is open. Whiskey bottle’s empty. Woody, I presume, has ankled the scene and left you holding the proverbial bag.”
I felt faint, sick. The army doctors had warned me about what they called “overstimulation.”
“I think she’s dead, but I’m afraid to touch her,” I said to Houseley. “You’re the doctor, you want to make sure, don’t you? I got to call the cops.”
Houseley shook his head. “She’s dead as she’ll ever be. I’m wanted in five states, please allow me to step gracefully off. Au revoir, mon vieux.” He disappeared down the back stairs, and then there was nothing on the third floor except the dead girl in the light and the ringing in my head and the radio in the lab. The announcer was signing off: “Be sure to tune in again next week for the uptown sounds of Harry Spivak and the boys, featuring the glamorous vocal stylings of Miss Josephine Hutchinson! This program was transcribed for broadcast on the Armed Services Radio Network. Roy Rowan speaking.”
“Kloer, get your stuff and clear out,” was all Puss Walgreen had to say. The thanks I get. He claimed Woody absconded with five thousand dollars’ worth of his dental gold supply while I was out of the room. He implied I might be in on it. I figured Puss was going to stick it to the insurance company. He never kept that much gold around; you order it as you need it. The cops took my statement and told me not to leave town. I told them my car couldn’t get past the city limits.
They put out an APB for Woody. May be carrying a concealed weapon, approach with caution. Detective Spangler didn’t buy the Dickpants story: “This was penetration with instrument. We’ll find it.”
The cops wanted to know what the girl was doing in the Belfont. She didn’t have much money in her purse, so it wasn’t a payoff. Unless I took it? She was going up to the fourth, but she didn’t say why, not in my presence. I never even been up there. How would I know if this was a grudge screw? I make teeth, that’s all I know about. Woody had never been in trouble in the building before. He’s an old man, he doesn’t have any known associates.
“He’s a deviated sex-killer,” Spangler said, “It’s another Black Dahlia. This baby is mine.”
The police turned me loose from headquarters at seven in the morning. I hadn’t been outdoors at that hour in years. I drove over to Philippe’s on Alameda and got breakfast. Ordinarily, I didn’t eat breakfast, but I ordered bacon and eggs. I hadn’t had bacon since I was in the army. Army bacon was mostly fat.
I am what you call a methodical person, that’s the steel player in me. Steel guitar is a very methodical instrument and very logical, and that’s why I like it. You sit there and you put your steel bar down on the strings and you play your patterns. That’s how we do it. It’s fine for a genius like Joaquin Murphy to play free and easy and just wing it, but the average Joe has to plan ahead.
The citizens cleared out, and Philippe’s got quiet. I tried to do a little thinking. I couldn’t do any work that meant standing up for long periods, and I didn’t have skills you need for office work. The one thing I knew how to do besides making teeth was playing the steel guitar, and I didn’t even own one. But that could change.
Ray Randy: Why didn’t he come back for his teeth? It must have been something drastic. I wrote down all the places he might be: The Sunshine Hotel on Bunker Hill; the Musicians Union in Hollywood; The Riverside Rancho, a Country-Western joint in Glendale. Any bar between here and the Pacific Ocean. Turned out to be none of those.
Woody Atkins, AKA Dickpants: He slept on a cot in the basement, and the building superintendent paid him in cash. The police found an old copy of Mankind United under his pillow. Happy Birthday Woodrow from Gertrude was inscribed on the flyleaf. I figured Woody was just a lonely, old man who ran the elevator and had a weird nervous disorder, and now he was gone. Not my problem. Turned out it was.
Houseley Stephenson: If I could locate him, maybe he could help me. I found him all right, but when I did, he was no help at all.
The Barlow Sanitarium had been a tuberculosis hospital back in the 1800s. It was very rundown and very quiet. The reception area was dim and smelled like floor wax.
The usual nurse was sitting at the usual desk, and I had a flashback to the army hospital in San Diego. I should have worn my medals, and I’ve got plenty.
The nurse stared at me. I leaned heavy on my cane. Up close, she was not so usual: about thirty, with very smooth, clear skin and black hair. Her eyes brought you up short, though, they stopped your show. Violet, for real.
“Howdy, ma’am,” I said, with a little salute thrown in. “My name is Loren Kloer. They call me Sonny. I’m looking for Dr. Stephenson.”
“There’s nobody here by that name,” she said. I liked her voice, she wasn’t army.
“I’m talking about Dr. Houseley Stephenson. He told me he was consulting. So maybe he’s not on the regular staff, see?”
“Just a moment, please,” said the nurse. She went through a side door and came back with a man in a white coat. He was very tall and thin with a very tall, wavy hairdo, like a gospel singer. He had big red lips that he poked out in an aggravated way, and dark beady eyes. He sighted down his long nose at me and said, “I’m Dr. Cross. This is a private hospital, what do you want here?”
“Very little. I want to see Dr. Houseley Stephenson, if he’s available. If not, I’ll come back later,” I said.
“You’ve made a mistake. There’s no such person as Houseley Stephenson.”
“I make mistakes, but I don’t think this is one of them. I bet he’s here somewhere. How ’bout I look around, how would that be?” Dr. Cross didn’t like that at all. He pursed his lips and twitched his eyebrows, and pointed his clipboard at me.
“Nurse Bari, show this man out immediately. I object to these intrusions.” He turned and went back through the side door. The nurse came around from behind her desk and stood next to me. She was just my height, but plenty strong looking.
“If you please,” she said.
“Okay, but why the big display? Houseley’s a good friend of mine. I picked him u
p down the road two nights ago. He told me he was working here; it had to do with schizophrenia. See, I’m not making this up, why would I?”
“Dr. Cross is a very busy man,” she said. She held the door open for me.
“I’m in the way of being a medical man myself,” I said. “You better take the doctor’s pills away from him. He’s all strung out, he might collapse at any time.” I was kidding around, but Nurse Bari paused. Her eyes changed, and then changed back. With the clear violet, you could see it happen. I hobbled out and down the steps. She waited until I got in the car and then went back inside and closed the door. Absolute quiet returned.
Houseley Stephenson was an unusual name, a mouthful, and Dr. Cross had shot it back at me a little too fast. I decided to do recon, like we did back in Leyte. The army taught us the best way was to get some altitude so you can look down on your objective and get the picture. The Barlow was situated low against the hill, called Palo Verde, or “green hill.” I followed the road up to the top and parked. I walked through the tall grass to where the hill sloped down, where I could see the whole layout of the hospital. The top of L.A. City Hall was visible just over the next ridge. The city had grown up around the Ravine, but the Ravine itself hadn’t changed much since the old days when the Barlow was first built. I spread my jacket on the ground under a eucalyptus tree and sat down to rest my legs. I figured it wasn’t a military operation, so I had a smoke. After a while, I fell asleep.
My commanding officer in Leyte used to say, “You do recon, you do not engage, I don’t care what you find out there.” This was toward the end, when we were mopping up, or so we thought. We came across a company of Jap infantry in a little clearing by a pool of stagnant water.
We watched them, and it was terrible to see. They were starved and emaciated and their uniforms were in shreds. One soldier was eating gravel and whimpering like a frightened child. Another soldier went over and struck him. The first man held up his hands and begged and pleaded, and the other guy stopped hitting him. Then, the whole routine started over.
We fell back and had a powwow. One said he was for wasting the whole bunch, but another said, “Let’s take ’em back to command, we might learn something.”
Another fella said, “I say shoot ’em and keep moving.”
We couldn’t decide, so we voted. The vote was four to two in favor of taking them back, even though it went against direct orders. We advanced in a circle formation. When the soldiers saw us, they fell on their knees and went into a prayer routine, it seemed. They showed us they had discarded their weapons, so we got them to stand up and fall in line.
Then all hell broke loose. Suddenly, we were under fire. There must have been fifty more Japs up in the trees waiting for us, and they let us have it. The fact is, these guys were just decoys. They figured Americans are soft and they figured right. You know, democratic. It was a massacre for us as well as the poor starved soldiers. I grabbed one and started running back into the trees, using him as a shield. He was crying the whole time, really crying, and it made me sick, but he took the hits and it saved my life. It was just me and my buddy named Clark that survived and got back to the unit. I got hit in both legs and Clark had to carry me most of the way.
The CO didn’t want trouble, so he reported to the high command that we were heroes. I was decorated. My CO said if I ever breathed a word about what really happened, he’d track me down and kill me. I heard he died recently, so I’m not worried about him anymore, but he was right, in principle. Do not engage, because you don’t know the enemy’s strength. Remember the Japs in the trees.
A motor was running, and it woke me up. A little Mexican girl with pink hair ribbons was sitting beside me in the grass. It was getting dark.
There was an old panel truck parked down below in front of the hospital. The girl pointed to the truck. “Cousin Beto,” she said. She was holding a homemade rag doll that looked like it could have once belonged to Pancho Villa. “I like your doll,” I said, “what’s her name?”
“Lydia.”
“You know Cousin Beto?”
“Yes.”
“Does he live around here?”
“Yes. There is my house.” She pointed to a lopsided wooden shack down the road from my car. A goat was tethered to a tree in the front yard.
“Regreso a la casa para comer. Adios.” Something about going to the house to eat. I hadn’t eaten since Philippe’s. She waved good-bye and took off with her doll.
There was only one other car in front of the Barlow. It was a prewar Plymouth convertible, a cute car, a lady’s car. I’d seen it earlier. That might mean Nurse Bari was still on duty, or maybe it belonged to a black-jack-wielding orderly. I’m not one of those guys you read about in the dime-store murder books with the crazy covers, the kind of sharp cat who can break in a second-story window and get the girl out while he cuts the bad guys down with a .45 and cracks wise the whole time. Not old Sonny, not with his shot-up army hospital legs. But I had to find out if Houseley was there, so I got back in the Olds and drove down the hill. I parked right in front, next to the Plymouth. The registration on the sun visor read, “Lynn Bari, Barlow Sanitarium, Chavez Ravine Rd., Los Angeles.”
The main building was dark. There was a lighted window in one of the cottages, and I tried to walk there as quiet as a man with a cane can walk. The window gave on a small sitting room where Nurse Bari was reading a book by the light of a floor lamp. She was wearing a housecoat with a flower design, not very fancy or stylish, like she was in for the night and wasn’t expecting anyone. I watched her. She had an allure women in artistic paintings have when they’re just sitting alone doing nothing. Organ music drifted out the window from a table radio next to her chair. A man was speaking in the sorry tones of an undertaker: “Korla Pandit will now conclude this hour of blessed meditation. Send your prayer requests together with your dollars to The Brighter Day, care of this station.” The organ died away. You wouldn’t have figured the violet-eyed, alabaster-faced Nurse Bari for the likes of Korla Pandit.
She put the book down and walked through a connecting door, and I moved to the next window. Somebody was stretched out on a bed. Bari stood there for a few minutes checking a pulse and then left. There was a pair of French doors with curtains, which were unlocked. I opened the door a little and waited. No bells rang; no orderlies came running swinging rubber truncheons. Whatever the Barlow was, high-security it was not. I went in. It was Houseley. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing deep and regular.
“Houseley, wake up,” I whispered. I bent down closer and whispered again. “Houseley, it’s me, Sonny.” I took his arm and shook him. He stirred. “Won’t enlist,” he mumbled. I shook him some more. His hands reached in the air. “Whiskey!” he croaked.
“You can have a drink, but you got to answer one question,” I whispered. His hands went back down. He frowned. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“Make me a sergeant, charge the booze!”
“Listen, I been in the army, it’s hard to get liquor. Where you going to get it?”
“Captain Cross.” Houseley gave a mock salute. “Big shot, army hospital, gets what he wants.”
“The war is over, Houseley, you’re back stateside now. What’s Cross want you for?”
“He threatened me! Won’t work for him! Won’t be bothered!”
“Nurse Bari went to get you a drink, she’ll be right back.” He smiled, he liked Nurse Bari. I heard the radio. I went to the door and looked in. Now she was doing needlepoint. The radio was making noisy, echoing sounds. “Live from Temple City, it’s time once again for Championship Bowling, brought to you by Miller, the champagne of bottled beer!” Bari turned the dial. “The Slavick Jewelry Company brings you Music Into The Night, with your host, Thomas Cassidy.” An orchestra fiddled around. Bari went back to her needlepoint.
In the army, they told us be decisive. Consider your options, but don’t take too long, because someone might get the drop on y
ou and get you hurt. I put my money on violet and walked into the room. Bari looked up and saw me and put her needlepoint down — it was one of those framed panels with the old-time lettering: “For Cozy Comfort to Serve My Guests” —that was as far as she had got. I pointed to it. “What’s the rest of it, Nurse Bari?” The violet eyes gave away nothing. “I always like my kitchen best,’” she said in her low voice. I sat in a chair across from her. “My legs are killing me,” I said.
“I guess we underestimated you,” she said.
“Most people do, if they even bother. I want to know what is going on with Houseley. He told me he was a doctor here. Cross said, ‘no such person.’ Now you’re watching him. Go on from there.”
“The man you call Houseley Stephenson is a patient here, has been for years. He and Dr. Cross knew each other in the Army. He has an unusual medical condition which Dr. Cross has been treating him for ever since.”
“He’s an alcoholic, what’s so unusual?”
“He needs special medication.” Her book was facedown on the table by her knitting basket. It was more of a pamphlet than a book, entitled, “A Sample Talk for Those Who Invite Small Groups to Meetings.” She noticed me looking at it and covered it with a ball of yarn.
“You could talk me into most anything, Lynn, since that’s your name, but I make false teeth for living, so I’m sort of an expert. The other night, Houseley told me he was doing research here, and just now he babbled about something he has that Cross wanted. I think it has to do with the war, like my legs. What makes it a secret?”
“I don’t know what to say, I only came to work here four years ago. No one ever comes to see Mr. Stephenson.” Bari saw something over my shoulder, and her eyes got big. I looked around, already feeling the crazed orderly’s viselike grip on my windpipe, but it was only Houseley standing in the door. “Where’s my drink?” he said. “Told you I don’t make mistakes, the girl was fine all along. Why’d you tell everyone she died? Cross promised me bonded, can’t trust anybody.” Bari got up and took Houseley back in the other room. She was gentle with him, he went quietly. In five minutes, she was back.