Max Collins - Angel in black

The search for Arnold Wilson ended later in ’47, in San Francisco. One of criminal lawyer Jake Ehrlich’s investigators spotted our man in a second-floor saloon called Finocchio’s that catered to the gay set. The investigator tracked him to a Grant Avenue flophouse in Chinatown, called me, and I flew out that night.

The next morning, in Chinatown, I found the hotel had burned down and sixteen people had died, mostly transients. A tall charred corpse was found in Wilson’s room. God or kismet or somebody had seen to it that the Butcher’s apprentice had met a fitting hellish fate.

But as I stood looking at the smoldering building, firefighters doing their job, I felt cheated somehow; then after an hour, I turned my back on it, and flew home, doing my best to leave my smoldering hatred for that son-of-a-bitch behind.

In February 1982 I made a trip to California. I had retired long ago, and my second wife and I lived in Florida, in Boca Raton. A healthy, spry old S.O.B., I was still chairman of the board of the A-1 Detective Agency, but my son was the president of the firm now, and had been for quite a while. He was working out of the Los Angeles office and I had traveled alone, to visit him, since he and my wife didn’t get along.

Also, I’d been contacted by a writer named Gil Johnson about the Black Dahlia case. He was working on a nonfiction book about the murder, and my name had turned up in his research. He wanted to talk. At first I’d been reluctant, but then he caught my interest.

“I’ve solved the case,” he said. His voice over the phone was a mellow, actorly baritone.

I was sitting on the patio of our house on the causeway, watching boats go by, sipping lemonade. “Really?”

“I’ve come across this old guy who knew the killer.”

“Is that right?”

“He says the killer was named Al Morrison.”

Now I was less interested. “Is that so?”

“Yes… but to tell you the truth, I have a feeling this old geezer… he’s an alcoholic, skid-row type… may have been a sort of accomplice in the crime.”

And now I was very interested. “What’s his name, this geezer?”

“Smith. Arnold Smith.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Emaciated as hell. Bad acne scars. Maybe six four… walks with a limp. Says he got it in the war.”

“Well, I might be able to talk to you about the case.”

“Oh! That’s great! I’d been warned you didn’t give interviews… I heard you were writing your own book…”

“I’m working on my memoirs, but I’m years away from the Dahlia. I don’t mind giving another writer a helping hand. I’ve been wanting to get out to the Coast to see my son, anyway. How can I get in touch with you?”

Three days later we were sitting with draft beers in front of us in a booth in Musso and Frank’s on Hollywood Boulevard, that no-nonsense dark-wood-paneled meeting place where actors, agents, and surly waiters converge.

Johnson was in his mid-forties, smooth, intelligent, leading-man handsome with a full head of silvering brown hair, wearing a brown sportjacket and a yellow sportshirt and looking, well, Hollywood. He had already explained that he was a former actor, occasional screenwriter and that he’d written a true crime book about the Manson family that had led to more work in that vein.

“I stumbled onto this character quite by accident,” Johnson said. “A girlfriend and I were visiting this couple in Silver Lake, where I was living at the time. It was a little party, maybe half a dozen people, some of them fairly rough characters-I know my girl told me later she’d felt uneasy.”

The host of the party had taken all his guests out to the garage, to see if he had “anything they wanted.”

“It was full of stuff-stereo equipment, TVs, golf clubs, you name it-guy was a thief, obviously, or a fence. Anyway, as the night wore on, we were listening to old records from the ’40s and ’50s, and this tall, thin, sick-lookin’ character starts reminiscing about Los Angeles in the ’40s, after the war. I mentioned I was working on a book about that period. He asked me what the subject was, and I said the Black Dahlia murder… And he said he knew her.”

“Did you take this seriously? It was a party, you were all drinking…”

“I took him seriously-there was something… intense and, frankly, creepy about his manner. He said he used to know Elizabeth Short when she hung out at a cafe on McCadden. He said he knew one of the members of a heist crew who hung out there, too, a Bobby Savarino.”

“Really.”

“Anyway, he asked me if I was willing to pay him for information, and I said yes, if it proved of value. Imagine my surprise when, over time, this developed into him saying he knew the killer, and that the killer had confessed to him.”

“Have you checked up on this guy?”

“Shit, yes. He’s got a five-page rap sheet and a dozen AKAs-burglary, theft, vagrancy, intoxication, lewd conduct. He’s gay, or anyway, bi. Served a couple short stretches.”

“What do you want from me?”

Johnson leaned forward, his passion for the subject palpable. “You worked on the Black Dahlia case-hell, you found the body.”

I shrugged. “I was there when the body was found. I did background investigation for the Examiner.”

“Here’s where I’d like to start. I’d like to go over with you what Smith told me, and see if it gibes with what you know.”

“Be glad to.” I checked my watch. “But, uh… let’s make it another time. I need to catch up with my boy.”

Johnson smiled; handsome guy, should have made it big as an actor. “Mr. Heller, your son’s got quite a reputation. What’s it feel like, having your kid take over the family business?”

I shrugged again. “He’s good at it.”

“Are you two… close? Or is there competition?”

“We get along.” I finished my beer. “I just wish he weren’t such a cynical, skirt-chasing wiseass.”

That seemed to amuse him, for some reason. Then he said, “Well, uh-let’s set up a meet.”

“Sure. How about tomorrow afternoon, same place-say, two o’clock? Maybe I should talk to this Smith. Where’s he live, anyway?”

“Dump called the Holland Hotel. But let’s have our meeting, first. Get you grounded in the basics. Then I’ll put you two together.”

I nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

The Holland Hotel was at 7th and Columbia, near downtown L.A. I had called ahead to get the room number-Arnold Smith was in 202-and, just after dark, I went in through a rear, service door, carrying a bottle of bourbon in a paper bag. The place was just a step up from a flophouse, and when I knocked on the door marked 202, brown flakes of paint fell off, like dark dandruff.

“Who the fuck is it?” a raspy, reedy voice called.

“Gil Johnson asked me to drop by,” I said, raising my voice. “Got a bottle for you!”

“It’s open!”

I went in. The room was a glorified cubicle that reeked of urine, which was about the color of the decaying, water-damaged plaster walls. There wasn’t much room for anything but a scarred old oak dresser, a well-worn armchair, a metal single bed, and a battered oak nightstand with a gooseneck lamp, a pink-and-black plastic clock radio from which emanated staticky country-western music, a couple paperbacks, a bathroom glass, a box of kitchen matches, and a half-empty pack of Chesterfield cigarettes.

A TV stand near the bed stood empty-if a TV had been there, it had long since been hocked. The corner room had two windows, both undraped, with ancient cracked manila shades, drawn. The light green carpet was indoor-outdoor and badly worn. The room was fairly dark but for a pool of light thrown by the gooseneck lamp, hitting the drunk on the unmade bed like a spotlight.