The Black Dahlia

The bell sounded. I moved toward the center of the ring on wobbly legs. Blanchard, back in a crouch, came at me. His legs were trembling just like mine, and I saw that his cuts were closed.

I fired off a weak jab. Blanchard caught it coming in and still kept coming, muzzling my glove out of the way as my dead legs refused to backpedal. I felt the laces rip open his eyebrows; my gut caved in just as I saw Blanchard’s face streaming with blood. My knees buckled; I spat my mouthpiece, toppled backward and hit the ropes. A right hand bomb was arching toward me. It looked like it was launched from miles and miles away, and I knew I’d have time to counter. I put all my hate into my own right and shot it straight at the bloody target in front of me. I felt the unmistakable crunch of nose cartilage, then everything went black and hot yellow. I looked up at blinding light and felt myself being lifted; Duane Fisk and Jimmy Le

When it all sank in, I laughed and pulled my arms free. The last thing I thought of before passing out was that I had cut the old man loose—and clean.

I got ten days off from duty—at the insistence of the doctor who examined me after the fight. My ribs were bruised, my jaw was swollen to twice its normal size and the punch that did me in loosened six of my teeth. The croaker told me later that Blanchard’s nose was broken, and that his cuts required twenty-six stitches. On the basis of damage inflicted, the fight was a draw.

Pete Lukins collected my wi

After that I stuck to my apartment, reading and listening to jazz on the radio, slopping up ice cream and soup, the only food I could handle. I felt content in knowing I had played as hard as I could—wi

The phone rang constantly; since I knew it had to be reporters or cops offering condolences, I never answered. I didn’t listen to sports broadcasts and I didn’t read the newspapers. I wanted a clean break with local celebrity, and holing up was the only way to accomplish it.

My wounds were healing, and after a week I was itchy to go back on duty. I took to spending afternoons on the back steps, watching my landlady’s cat stalk birds. Chico was eyeing a perched bluejay when I heard a reedy voice call out, “Ain’t you bored yet?”

I looked down. Lee Blanchard was standing at the foot of the steps. His eyebrows were laced with stitches and his nose was flattened and purple. I laughed and said, “Getting there.”

Blanchard hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Wanta work Warrants with me?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Captain Harwell’s been calling to tell you, only you were fucking hibernating.”

I was tingling. “But I lost. Ellis Loew said—”

“Fuck what Ellis Loew said. Don’t you read the papers? The bond issue passed yesterday, probably because we gave the voters such a good show. Horrall told Loew that Joh

I walked down the steps and stuck out my hand. Blanchard shook it and winked.

So the partnership began.

Chapter 5

Central Division Warrants was on the sixth floor of City Hall, situated between the LAPD’s Homicide Bureau and the Criminal Division of the DA’s Office—a partitioned-off space with two desks facing each other, two file cabinets spilling folders and a map of the County of Los Angeles covering the window. There was a pebbled glass door lettered with DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY ELLIS LOEW separating the cubicle from the Warrants boss and DA Buron Fitts—his boss—and nothing separating it from the Homicide dicks’ bullpen, a huge room with rows of desks and corkboard walls hung with crime reports, wanted posters and miscellaneous memoranda. The more battered of the two desks in Warrants had a plate reading SERGEANT L.C. BLANCHARD. The desk facing it had to be mine, and I slumped into the chair picturing OFFICER D.W. BLEICHERT etched on wood next to the phone.

I was alone, the only one on the sixth floor. It was just after 7:00 A.M., and I had driven to my first day’s duty early, in order to savor my plainclothes debut. Captain Harwell had called to say that I was to report to my new assignment on Monday morning, November 17, at 8:00, and that the day would begin with attending the reading of the felony summary for the previous week, which was mandatory for all LAPD perso

The sixth floor housed the Department’s elite divisions: Homicide, Administrative Vice, Robbery and Bunco, along with Central Warrants and the Central Detective Squad. It was the domain of specialist cops, cops with political juice and up-and-comers, and it was my home now. I was wearing my best sports jacket and slacks combo, my service revolver hung from a brand-new shoulder rig. Every man on the Force owed me for the 8 per cent pay raise that came with the passage of Proposition 5. My departmental juice was just starting. I felt ready for anything.

Except rehashing the fight. At 7:40 the bullpen started filling up with officers grumbling about hangovers, Monday mornings in general and Bucky Bleichert, dancemaster turned puncher, the new kid on the block. I stayed out of sight in the cubicle until I heard them filing into the hall. When the pen fell silent, I walked down to a door marked DETECTIVES’ MUSTER ROOM. Opening it, I got a standing ovation.

It was applause military style, the forty or so plainclothesmen standing by their chairs, clapping in unison. Looking toward the front of the room, I saw a blackboard with “8%!!!” chalked on it. Lee Blanchard was next to the board, standing beside a pale fat man with the air of high brass. I sighted in on Mr. Fire. He gri

“Officer Bleichert, the men of Central Dicks, Homicide, Ad Vice, Bunco, et cetera,” he said. “You already know Sergeant Blanchard and Mr. Loew, and I’m Captain Jack Tierney. You and Lee are the white men of the hour, so I hope you enjoyed your ovation, because you won’t get another one until you retire.”

Everyone laughed. Tierney rapped the podium and spoke into an attached mike. “Enough horseshit. This is the felony summary for the week ending November 14, 1946. Pay close attention, it’s a doozy.

“First off, three liquor store stickups, on the nights of 11/10, 11/12 and 11/13, all within ten blocks on Jefferson in University Division. Two teenaged Caucasians with sawed-offs and the heebie-jeebies, obviously hopheads. The University dicks have got no leads, and the squad boss there wants a Robbery team on it full-time. Lieutenant Ruley, see me at 0900 on this, and all you men put out the word to your snitches—hophead-heister is a bad MO.

“Moving east, we’ve got freelance prosties working the restaurant bars in Chinatown. They’re servicing their johns in parked cars, lowballing the girls Mickey Cohen’s been ru