The Black Dahlia

I ran back. There was Lee Blanchard, “The Southland’s good but not great white hope,” facing down three marines in dress blues and a pachuco in a full-drape zoot suit. He had them cornered in the center walkway of a ratty bungalow court and was holding them off with parries from his nigger knocker. The jarheads were taking roundhouse swipes at him with their two-by-fours, missing as Blanchard moved sideways and back and forth on the balls of his feet. The pachuco fondled the religious medals around his neck, looking bewildered.

“Bleichert code three!”

I waded in, jabbing with my stick, the weapon hitting shiny brass buttons and campaign ribbons. I caught clumsy truncheon blows on my arms and shoulders and pressed forward so the marines would be denied swinging room. It was like being in a clinch with an octopus, and no referee or three-minute bell, and on instinct I dropped my baton, lowered my head and started winging body punches, making contact with soft gabardine midsections. Then I heard, “Bleichert step back!”

I did, and there was Lee Blanchard, the nigger knocker held high above his head. The marines, dazed, froze; the club descended: once, twice, three times, clean shots to the shoulders. When the trio was reduced to a dress blue rubble heap, Blanchard said, “To the halls of Tripoli, shitbirds,” and turned to the pachuco. “Hola, Tomas.”

I shook my head and stretched. My arms and back ached; my right knuckles throbbed. Blanchard was cuffing the zooter, and all I could think to say was, “What was that all about?”

Blanchard smiled. “Forgive my bad ma

Dos Santos shook his head no; Blanchard shook his head sadly. “He’s dead meat. Manslaughter Two’s a gas chamber jolt for spics. Hepcat here’s about six weeks away from the Big Adios.”

I heard shots coming from the direction of Evergreen and Wabash. Standing on my toes, I saw flames shooting out of a row of broken windows, crackling into blue and white flak when they hit streetcar wires and phone lines. I looked down at the marines, and one of them gave me the finger. I said, “I hope those guys didn’t get your badge number.”

“Fuck them sideways if they did.”

I pointed to a clump of palm trees igniting into fireballs. “We’ll never be able to get him booked tonight. You ran down here to roust them? You thought—”

Blanchard silenced me with a playful jab that stopped just short of my badge. “I ran down here because I knew there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about restoring order, and if I just stood around I might have gotten killed. Sound familiar?”

I laughed. “Yeah. Then you—”

“Then I saw the shitbirds chasing hepcat, who looked suspiciously like the subject of felony warrant number four eleven dash forty-three. They cornered me here, and I saw you walking back looking to get hurt, so I thought I’d let you get hurt for a reason. Sound reasonable?”

“It worked.”

Two of the marines had managed to get to their feet, and were helping the other one up. When they started for the sidewalk three abreast, Tomas Dos Santos sent a hard right foot at the biggest of the three asses. The fat PFC it belonged to turned to face his attacker; I stepped forward. Surrendering their East LA campaign, the three hobbled out to the street, gunshots and flaming palm trees. Blanchard ruffled Dos Santos’ hair. “You cute little shit, you’re a dead man. Come on, Bleichert, let’s find a place to sit this thing out.”

We found a house with a stack of daily papers on the porch a few blocks away and broke in. There were two fifths of Cutty Sark in the kitchen cupboard, and Blanchard switched the cuffs from Dos Santos’ wrists to his ankles so he could have his hands free to booze. By the time I made ham sandwiches and highballs, the pachuco had killed half the jug and was belting “Cielito Lindo” and a Mex rendition of “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” An hour later the bottle was dead and Tomas was passed out. I lifted him onto the couch and threw a quilt over him, and Blanchard said, “He’s my ninth hard felon for 1943. He’ll be sucking gas inside of six weeks, and I’ll be working Northeast or Central Warrants inside of three years.”

His certainty rankled me. “Ixnay. You’re too young, you haven’t made sergeant, you’re shacking with a woman, you lost your high brass buddies when you quit fighting smokers and you haven’t done a plainsclothes tour. You—”

I stopped when Blanchard gri

“Pretty?”

“Yeah, pretty. You know a lot about me, Bleichert.”

“People talk about you.”

“They talk about you, too.”

“What do they say?”

“That your old man’s some sort of Nazi drool case. That you ratted off your best friend to the feds to get on the Department. That you padded your record fighting built-up middleweights.”

The words hung in the air like a three-count indictment. “Is that it?”

Blanchard turned to face me. “No. They say you never chase cooze and they say you think you can take me.”

I took the challenge. “All those things are true.”

“Yeah? So was what you heard about me. Except I’m on the Sergeants List, I’m transferring to Highland Park Vice in August and there’s a Jewboy deputy DA who wets his pants for boxers. He’s promised me the next Warrants spot he can wangle.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Yeah? You want to hear something even more impressive?”

“Hit me.”

“My first twenty knockouts were stumblebums handpicked by my manager. My girlfriend saw you fight at the Olympic and said you’d be handsome if you got your teeth fixed, and maybe you could take me.”

I couldn’t tell if the man was looking for a brawl then and there or a friend; if he was testing me or taunting me or pumping me for information. I pointed to Tomas Dos Santos, twitching in his booze sleep. “What about the Mex?”

“We’ll take him in tomorrow morning.”

“You’ll take him in.”

“The collar’s half yours.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Okay, partner.”

“I’m not your partner.”

“Maybe someday.”

“Maybe never, Blanchard. Maybe you work Warrants and pull in repos and serve papers for the shysters downtown, maybe I put in my twenty, take my pension and get a soft job somewhere.”

“You could go on the feds. I know you’ve got pals on the Alien Squad.”

“Don’t push me on that.”

Blanchard looked out the window again. “Pretty. Make a good picture postcard. ‘Dear Mom, wish you were here at the colorful East LA race riot.’“

Tomas Dos Santos stirred, mumbling, “Inez? Inez? Qué? Inez?” Blanchard walked to a hall closet and found an old wool overcoat and tossed it on top of him. The added warmth seemed to calm him down; the mumbles died off. Blanchard said, “Cherchez la femme. Huh, Bucky?”

“What?”

“Look for the woman. Even with a snootful of juice, old Tomas can’t let Inez go. I’ll lay you ten to one that when he hits the gas chamber she’ll be right there with him.”

“Maybe he’ll cop a plea. Fifteen to life, out in twenty.”

“No. He’s a dead man. Cherchez la femme, Bucky. Remember that.”

I walked through the house looking for a place to sleep, finally settling on a downstairs bedroom with a lumpy bed way too short for my legs. Lying down, I listening to sirens and gunshots in the distance. Gradually I dozed off, and dreamed of my own few and far between women.