Jonathan Santlofer - L.A. Noire - The Collected Stories

(Did poor Betty Short have a “cross-eye”? Some photos you can see it, kind of—her left eye isn’t looking at you exactly the way the right eye is. So you’d think—something isn’t right about this girl, she’s witchy.)

One day in September 1946 the phone rang— Hello? Is this K. Keinhardt the pin-up photographer I am speaking to? —this prissy voice & I say Who the fuck is this? & he says Excuse me I am hoping to speak with Mr. Keinhardt on a proposition & I say What kind of a proposition? & he says I have been led to believe that you take “pin-up” photos for the calendars & I say I am a studio photographer in the tradition of Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand—“nudes” are a small part of my repertoire & he says My proposition is: in my profession I see almost exclusively injured, disfigured, or malformed human bodies—particularly the female body is a sorry sight when it is far from “perfect”—and so—I am wondering if I might make a proposition to you, Mr. Keinhardt, who photograph only “perfect” female bodies…

The deal was, Dr. M. would pay me twenty-five bucks—(which I later upped to thirty-five)—just to be a secret “observer”: looking through a peep-hole in the screen behind the camera tripod.

Sure I said. As long as you don’t take pictures of your own.

How many times did Dr. M. come to the studio on Vicente Blvd, that fall and into the winter of 1947?—maybe a dozen times—& he never caused any trouble, just paid me in cash.

Parked his shiny black 1946 Packard sedan across the street.

Sat in the back behind the screen. “Observed.”

Dr. M. had a face like a smudged charcoal drawing of Harry Truman, say. Same kind of glasses as Truman. You could not imagine this man young but only middle-aged with a prim little mouth & sagging jowls.

Starched white shirt, no necktie but a good-quality coat and pressed trousers. Graying-brown hair trimmed and with a part on the left. Kind of stubby fingers for a surgeon but Dr. M. had that quiet air of “authority”—you could imagine this character giving orders to nurses and younger doctors in that voice.

You could imagine the man giving orders to women—in that voice.

Yes he was what you’d call a “gentleman”—“good breeding”—good taste too, he preferred the White Rose to the Black Dahlia—at least, that had been his wish.

Of Betty Short whom he saw photographed on three separate occasions Dr. M. said frowning afterward:

That black-haired vixen. She’s got a dirty mind—you can see it in her eyes—that cross-eye. And always licking her lips like there’s something on her lips she can’t get enough of tasting.

Of Norma Jeane whom he saw photographed just once—(historic “Miss Golden Dreams” which was a session of just forty minutes, surprisingly)—Dr. M. did not speak at all as if tongue-tied.

Dr. M. did request the girls’ names, telephone numbers & addresses & I told him NO.

NO I cannot violate the girls’ privacy—that would be a considerable extra fee, Doctor!

Something in my manner discouraged him. The Bone Doctor mumbled sorry & did not pursue the issue, did not even ask how much the “extra fee” might be—which was unexpected.

After THE BLACK DAHLIA in all the papers the Bone Doctor vanished. He did not ever call me again & no one would ever know of his visits to my studio except me—and Betty Short.

And how much Betty Short knew, I don’t know.

Afterward I tried to find out who Dr. M. was—thinking maybe the Bone Doctor might find it worth while to pay me not to give the L.A. homicide detectives his name—but I couldn’t track him.

So I thought Could be just a coincidence.

A year or so before in L.A. there’d been another girl murdered in what was called a “sex frenzy”—in fact a girl Betty Short had known from the Top Hat—ankles and wrists tied with rope in the same way as The Black Dahlia —some of the same kind of torture-stab-wounds—and left in a bathtub naked—(but not dissected at the waist like Betty)—so you might think the same guy did both murders—but the detectives couldn’t come up with any actual “suspects”—there just wasn’t evidence & in the mean time there’s kooks confessing to the murder—not just men but some women, too!

Could be just a coincidence, I thought then, & I think now. Anyway—K.K. is not going to get involved.

It was just a n-nightmare.

It was the awfulest—most horrible—thing…

You could not ever imagine such a—an awful thing…

When I came back to the room that night I was kind of m-mad at Betty ‘cause she’d stood me up at the Top Hat—also Betty had not paid me back the thirty dollars she owed me—thirty dollars was a lot —also Betty was always in my things—she would “borrow” & never return what she took—like my lipsticks— that made me mad!

At 20 Century-Fox I went to auditions all the time. Betty was not on contract but got on a list to audition, too—it costs money for makeup & clothes—& hair—Betty dyed her hair that inky-black color—my hair, that was brown, about the color of Betty’s natural hair, they made me bleach at the Blue Book Agency saying they could get twice as many shoots for me as with my brown hair & this turned out to be correct though an understatement—more like three times as many shoots. Like Anita Loos says— Gentlemen Prefer Blondes —this is a fact.

But Betty Short had the wrong complexion for blond—so dyed-black hair was perfect for her. & with white makeup & powder & dark lipstick she made herself look really glamorous—“sexy.”

Always wearing black clothes—that wasn’t Betty’s idea but some agent. Trying to get Betty Short work in the studios. Not who you are but who you know —they’d tell us. To get a contract you’d have to “entertain” the producers & their friends & then to keep the contract renewed you’d be expected to live in one of their residences like Mr. Hansen’s—he liked us to lie around the pool in the sun in teeny bathing suits & sunglasses—it was just party, party, party night after night & Betty Short thrived on it—& sleeping through the day—but I needed to get to my acting class & my dance class & that was no joke—you can’t audition either, if you are hung-over & have shadows under your eyes. So—Betty Short & me—we did not always get along one hundred percent—being from different backgrounds too for Betty did actually have a “father”—she’d lived with him before coming to L.A.—she showed me pictures of him—& she said Oh my father was pretty well-to-do in Medford, MA when I was a little girl—see, this is my sisters & me on Daddy’s miniature golf course—then Daddy lost the business—people stopped buying miniature golf courses I guess—in the damn old Depression.

And I was so jealous!—I said Oh Betty at least you have a f-father—you could go to him in Vallejo even now & Betty said with this hurt angry look Like hell I would never crawl back to him or to any God-damn man, my drunk father kicked me out saying I was no good, I was not even a good housekeeper like my mother, & Daddy accused me of being a strumpet & a whore—just on the evidence that I dated some boys.

& I said But maybe your father feels differently now, you are older now & maybe he needs you & Betty looks as me like I am an idiot saying Maybe he needs me but I don’t need him, & I don’t need any man to boss me around, I will marry a rich man who adores me & wants to please ME not the other God-damn way around, see?