“We believe you, son. Now when did Liz leave you?”

“Late. Late Saturday. Maybe twelve, maybe one.”

“You mean early Sunday morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No.”

“Did she mention any men’s names? Boyfriends? Men she was going to see?”

“Uh… some flyboy she was married to.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see her again?”

“No.”

“Did your father know Liz at all?”

“No.”

“Did he force the house detective to change the name on the registration book after Liz’s body was found?”

“Uh… yes.”

“Do you know who killed Liz Short?”

“No! No!”

Johnny was starting to sweat. I was too-anxious for facts to nail him with now that it looked like he and the Dahlia were just a one-night stand. I said, “You told your father about Liz when she made the papers, is that right?”

“Uh… yes.”

“And he told you about a guy named Charlie Issler? A guy who used to pimp Liz Short?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you Issler was in custody as a confessor?”

“Uh… yes.”

“Now you tell me what he said he was going to do about that, shitbird. You tell me damn good and slow.”

Fat Boy’s cut-rate heart rose to the challenge. “Daddy tried to get Ellis Jewboy to cut Issler loose, but he wouldn’t. Daddy knew this morgue attendant who owed him, and he got this DOA cooze and talked Jewboy into this idea. Daddy wanted Uncle Bill for it, but Jewboy said no, take you. Daddy said you’d do it ‘cause without Blanchard to tell you what to do you were jelly. Daddy said you were a sob sister, weak sister, buck tooth…”

Johnny started laughing hysterically, shaking his head, spraying sweat, rattling his cuffed wrist like a zoo animal with a new plaything. Russ stepped in front of me. “I’ll make him sign a statement. You take a half hour or so to calm down. I’ll feed him coffee, then when you get back we’ll figure out what’s next.”

I walked out to the fire escape, sat down and dangled my legs over the edge. I watched cars head up Wilcox to Hollywood and got it all down, the cost to myself, the whole enchilada. Then I played license plate blackjack, southbound versus northbound, out-of-state cars as wild cards. Southbound was me, the house; northbound was Lee and Kay. Southbound stood on a chickenshit seventeen; northbound got an ace and a queen for pure blackjack. Dedicating the enchilada to the three of us, I went back to the room.

Johnny Vogel was signing Russ’s statement, flushed and sweaty, with a bad case of the shakes. I read the confession over his shoulder: it laid out the Biltmore, Betty, and Fritzie’s beating of Sally Stinson succinctly, to the tune of four misdemeanors and two felonies.

Russ said, “I want to sit on this for now, and I want to talk to a legal officer.”

I said, “No, padre,” and turned to Johnny.

“You’re under arrest for suborning prostitution, withholding evidence, obstruction of justice and accesory to first-degree assault and battery.”

Johnny blurted, “Daddy” and looked at Russ. Russ looked at me—and held out the statement. I put it in my pocket and cuffed Junior’s wrists behind his back while he sobbed quietly.

The padre sighed. “It’s the shithouse until you retire.”

“I know.”

“You’ll never get back to the Bureau.”

“I’ve already got a taste for shit, padre. I don’t think it’ll be so bad.”

I led Johnny down to my car and drove him the four blocks to Hollywood Station. Reporters and camera jockeys were lounging on the front steps; they went nuts when they saw the plainclothesman with the uniformed cop in bracelets. Flashbulbs popped, newshounds recognized me and shouted my name, I yelled back, “No comment.” Inside, bluesuits goggle-eyed the sight. I shoved Johnny to the front desk and whispered in his ear: “Tell your daddy I know about his extortion deal with the fed reports, and about the syph and the whorehouse in Watts. Tell him I’m going to the papers with it tomorrow.”

Johnny went back to his quiet sobbing. A uniformed lieutenant came over and blurted, “What on God’s earth is this here?”

A flashbulb went off in my eyes; there was Bevo Means with his notepad at the ready. I said, “I’m Officer Dwight Bleichert and this is Officer John Charles Vogel.” Handing the statement to the lieutenant, I winked. “Book him.”

I dawdled over a big steak lunch, then drove downtown to Central Station and my regular tour of duty. Heading into the locker room, I heard the intercom bark: “Officer Bleichert, go to the watch commander’s office immediately.”

I reversed directions and knocked on Lieutenant Jastrow’s door. He called out, “It’s open.” I walked in and saluted like an idealistic rookie. Jastrow stood up, ignored the salute and adjusted his horn-rims like he was seeing me for the first time.

“You’re on two weeks vacation leave as of now, Bleichert. When you return to duty, report to Chief Green. He’ll assign you to another division.”

Wanting to milk the moment, I asked, “Why?”

“Fritz Vogel just blew his brains out. That’s why.”

My farewell salute was twice as crisp as my first one; Jastrow ignored it again. I walked across the hall thinking of the two blind whores, wondering if they’d find out or care. The muster room was crammed with blues waiting for roll call—a last obstacle before the parking lot and home. I took it slow, standing GI straight, meeting the eyes that sought mine, making them look down. The hisses of “Traitor” and “Bolshevik” all came when my back was turned. I was almost out the door when I heard applause and turned to see Russ Millard and Thad Green clapping good-bye.

Chapter 24

Exiled to the shithouse and proud of it; two weeks to kill before I began serving my sentence at some putrid LAPD outpost. The Vogel arrest-suicide whitewashed as interdepartmental offenses and a father’s shame over the ignominy. I closed out my glory days the only way that seemed decent—I chased the gone man.

I started at the LA end of his vanishing act.

I got nothing from repeated readings of Lee’s arrest scrapbook; I questioned the lezzies at La Verne’s Hideaway, asking whether Mr. Fire showed up to abuse them a second time—and got no’s and jeers. The padre sneaked me a carbon of the complete Blanchard felony arrest file—it told me nothing. Kay, content in our monogamy, told me I was worse than a fool for what I was doing—and I knew it scared her.

Dredging up the Issler/Stinson/Vogel connection had convinced me of one thing—that I was a detective. Thinking like one as far as Lee was concerned was another matter, but I forced myself to do it. The ruthlessness I had always seen—and secretly admired—in him came across even deeper, making me care for him even more unequivocally. As did the facts I always came back to:

Lee disappeared when the Dahlia, Benzedrine and Bobby De Witt’s imminent parole converged on him;

He was last seen in Tijuana at a time when De Witt was heading there and the Short case was centered on the U.S.—Mexico border;

De Witt and his dope partner Felix Chasco were murdered then, and even though two Mexican nationals were nailed for the job, it could have been a railroad—the Rurales wiping an unwanted homicide off their books;

Conclusion: Lee Blanchard could have murdered De Witt and Chasco, his motive a desire to protect himself from revenge attempts and Kay from lounge lizard Bobby’s possible abuse. Conclusion within that conclusion: I didn’t care.

My next step was to study the transcript of De Witt’s trial. At the Hall of Records, more facts sunk in:

Lee named the informants who gave him the dope on De Witt as the Boulevard-Citizens “brains,” then said that they left town to avoid reprisals from Lizard’s friends. My follow-up call to R&I was unsettling—the snitches had no records at all. De Witt asserted a police frame because of his prior dope arrests, and the prosecution based its case on the marked money from the robbery found at De Witt’s house and the fact that he had no alibi for the time of the heist. Of the four-man gang, two were killed at the scene of the crime, De Witt was captured and the fourth man remained at large. De Witt claimed not to know who he was—even though stooling might have gotten him a sentence reduction.