I started smelling Corporal Joseph Dulange as an attention-seeking drool case. Russ said, “Booze confessions aren’t valid in court, Joe. But I’ll tell you what. You convince me you killed Betty Short, and I’ll make sure Johnnie comes back to LA with us. A nice eight-hour flight would give you plenty of time to renew your acquaintance with him. What do you say?”

“I say I chopped the Dahlia.”

“I say you didn’t. I say you and Johnnie are going to stay parted for a while.”

“I chopped her.”

“How?”

“On her titties, ear to ear and in half. Chop. Chop. Chop.” Russ sighed. “Let’s backtrack, Joe. You flew out of Dix on Wednesday, January eighth, you landed at Camp MacArthur that night. You and Johnnie are in LA, anxious to sow some wild oats. Where did you go first? Hollywood Boulevard? Sunset Strip? The beach? Where?”

Dulange cracked his knuckles. “Nathan’s Tattoo Parlor, 463 North Alvarado.”

“What did you do there?”

Crazy Joe rolled up his right sleeve, revealing a forked snake’s tongue with “Frenchy” emblazoned below it. Flexing his bicep, the tattoo stretched. Dulange said, “I’m a Frenchman.”

Millard pulled his patented reversal. “I’m a cop, and I’m getting bored. When I get bored, Detective Bleichert takes over. Detective Bleichert was once the tenth-ranked light heavyweight in the world, and he is not a nice man. Right, partner?”

I balled my fists. “I’m a German.”

Dulange laughed. “No tickee, no washee. No Johnnie, no story.”

I almost leaped across the table at him. Russ grabbed my elbow and held it, viselike, while he bargained. “Joe, I’ll make you a deal. First you convince us you knew Betty Short. Give us some facts. Names, dates, descriptions. You do that, and when we take our first break, you and Johnnie can go back to your cell and get reacquainted. What do you say?”

“Johnnie pint?”

“No, his big brother Johnnie fifth.”

The Frenchman grabbed the pack of butts and shook one loose; Russ had his lighter out and extended. Dulange took a monumental drag, exhaling a rush of words along with the smoke:

“After the tattoo joint, me and Johnnie got a cab downtown and got a room. Havana Hotel, Ninth and Olive, deucesky a night, big cockroaches. They started makin’ a ruckus, so I put out mousetraps. That killed ‘em. Me and Johnnie slept it off, then the next day we went cunt chasin’. No luck. Next day I get me this Filipino cunt at the bus depot. She says she needs bus fare to Frisco, so I offer her a fivesky to take on me and Johnnie. She says tensky minumum for two guys. I say Johnnie’s hung like Jesus, she should pay me. We go back to the hotel, all the cockroaches got loose from the traps. I introduce her to Johnnie, tell her he goes first. She gets scared, says, ‘You think you’re Fatty Arbuckle?’ I tell her I’m a Frenchman, who does she think she is, thinks she can high-hat Johnnie Red?

“Cockroaches start howlin’ like niggers. The Filipino says Johnnie’s got sharp teeth, no sir. She runs like sixty, me and Johnnie hole up till late Saturday. We want cunt bad. We go by this army-navy on Broadway, and I get me some ribbons for my Ike jacket. DSC with oak leaf, silver star, bronze star, ribbons for all the Jap campaigns. I look like George S. Patton, only hung bigger. Me and Johnnie go to this bar called the Night Owl. Dahlia sashays in, Johnnie says, ‘Yes sir, that’s my baby, no sir, don’t mean maybe, yes sir, that’s my baby now.’“

Dulange stubbed out his cigarette and reached for the pack. Russ jotted notes; I figured time and location, remembering the Night Owl from my days working Central Patrol. It was on 6th and Hill—two blocks from the Biltmore Hotel, where Red Manley dropped Betty Short on Friday, January tenth. The Frenchman, DT recollections notwithstanding, had gained another notch of credibility.

Russ said, “Joe, this was Saturday the eleventh into Sunday the twelfth you’re talking about?”

Dulange fired up another cigarette. “I’m a Frenchman, not a calendar. Sunday follows Saturday, you figure it out.”

“Go on.”

“Anyhow, Dahlia, me and Johnnie have a little chat, and I invite her over to the hotel. We get there and the cockroaches are loose, singin’ and bitin’ at the woodwork. Dahlia says she won’t spreadsky ‘less I kill ‘em. I grab Johnnie and start boppin’ ‘em with him, Johnnie told me it don’t hurt. But the Dahlia cunt won’t spreadsky till the roaches are disposed of scientific style. I go down the street and get this doctor. He gives the roaches poison injections for a fivesky. Me and Dahlia fuck like bunnies, Johnnie Red watches. He’s mad, ‘cause Dahlia’s so good I don’t want to give him none.”

I threw in a cut-the-shit question: “Describe her body. Do a good job, or you won’t see Johnnie Red until you get out of the stockade.”

Dulange’s face went soft; he looked like a little kid threatened with the loss of his teddy bear. Russ said, “Answer the man’s question, Joe.”

Dulange grinned. “Till I cut ‘em off, she had perky little titties with pink nipples. Kinda thick legs, nice bush. She had them moles I told Major Carroll about, and she had these scratches on her back, real fresh, like she’d just took a whippin.”

I tingled, remembering the “soft lash marks” the coroner mentioned at the autopsy. Russ said, “Go on, Joe.”

Dulange ghoul grinned. “Then Dahlia starts actin’ nutso, sayin’, ‘How come you’re only a corporal if you won all them medals?’ She starts callin’ me Matt and Gordon and keeps talkin’ about our baby, even though we just did it once, and I wore a safe. Johnnie gets spooked, and him and the cockroaches start singin’, ‘No sir, that ain’t my baby.’ I want more cuntsky, so I take Dahlia down the street to see the roach doctor. I slip him a tensky, and he gives her a fake examination and tells her, ‘The baby will be healthy and arrive in six months.’“

More confirmation, smack in the middle of a DT haze—the Matt and Gordon were obviously Matt Gordon and Joseph Gordon Fickling, two of Betty Short’s fantasy husbands. I thought 50-50, let’s close it out for Big Lee Blanchard; Russ said, “Then what, Joe?”

Dulange looked genuinely puzzled—past bravado, boozebrain memories and a desire to be reunited with Johnnie Red. “Then I sliced her.”

“Where?”

“In half.”

“No, Joe. Where did you perform the murder?”

“Oh. At the hotel.”

“What room number?”

“116.”

“How’d you get the body to9th and Norton?”

“I stole a car.”

“What kind of car?”

“A Chevy.”

“Make and model?”

“‘43 sedan.”

“American cars weren’t manufactured during the war, Joe. Try again.”

“‘47 sedan.”

“Somebody left the keys in a nice new car like that? In downtown LA?”

“I hot-wired it.”

“How do you hot-wire a car, Joe?”

“What?”

“Explain the procedure to me.”

“I forgot how I did it. I was drunk.”

I cut in: “Where’s9th and Norton?”

Dulange toyed with the cigarette pack. “It’s near Crenshaw Boulevard and Coliseum Street.”

“Tell me something that wasn’t in the papers.”

“I cut her to ear to ear.”

“Everybody knows that.”

“Me and Johnnie raped her.”

“She wasn’t raped, and Johnnie would have left marks. There weren’t any. Why’d you kill her?”

“She was a bad fuck.”

“Bullshit. You said Betty fucked like a rabbit.”

“A bad rabbit.”

“All cats are gray in the dark, shitbird. Why’d you kill her?”

“She wouldn’t go French.”

“That’s no reason. You can get French at any five-dollar whorehouse. A Frenchman like you should know that.”

“She gave bad French.”

“There’s no such thing, shitbird.”

“I chopped her!”

I slammed the tabletop a la Harry Sears. “You’re a lying frog son of a bitch!”

The JA man got to his feet; Dulange bawled, “I want my Johnnie.”

Russ told the captain, “Have him back here in six hours,” and smiled at me—the softest smile I’d ever seen him give.