The Black Dahlia

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 ru

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, then 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.