Джеймс Эллрой - The Black Dahlia

She was arranging a load of books and papers in the trunk, her back to me. I said, “How much of the hundred grand did Lee let you keep?”

Kay froze, her hands on a stack of fingerpaintings. “Did Lee tell you about Madeleine Sprague and me back then? Is that why you’ve hated Betty Short all this time?”

Kay ran her fingers over the kiddie artwork, then turned and faced me. “You are so, so good at some things.”

It was another compliment I didn’t want to hear. “Answer my questions.”

Kay slammed the trunk, her eyes dead on mine. “I did not accept a cent of that money, and I didn’t know about you and Madeleine Sprague until those detectives I hired gave me her name. Lee was going to run away no matter what. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again, and I wanted him to be comfortable, if such a thing was possible. He didn’t trust himself to deal with Emmett Sprague again, so I picked up the money. Dwight, he knew I was in love with you, and he wanted us to be together. That was one of the reasons he left.”

I felt like I was sinking in a quicksand of all our old lies. “He didn’t leave, he ran from the Boulevard-Citizens job, from the frame on De Witt, from the trouble he was in with the Depart—”

“He loved us! Don’t take that away from him!”

I looked around the parking lot. Teachers were standing by their cars, eyeing the husband and wife spat. They were too far away to hear; I imagined them chalking up the fight to kids or mortgages or cheating. I said, “Kay, Lee knew who killed Elizabeth Short. Did you know that?”

Kay stared at the ground. “Yes.”

“He just let it go.”

“Things got crazy then. Lee went down to Mexico after Bobby, and he said he’d go after the killer when he got back. But he didn’t come back, and I didn’t want you going down there too.”

I grabbed my wife’s shoulders and squeezed them until she looked at me.

“And you didn’t tell me later? You didn’t tell anyone?”

Kay lowered her head again; I jerked it back up with both my hands. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

In her calmest schoolteacher voice, Kay Lake Bleichert said, “I almost told you. But you started whoring again, collecting her pictures. I just wanted revenge on the woman who ruined the two men I loved.”

I raised a hand to hit her — but a flash of Georgie Tilden stopped me.

I called in the last of my accumulated sick leave and spent a week killing time at the El Nido. I read and played the jazz stations, trying not to think about my future. I pored over the master file repeatedly, even though I knew the case was closed. Child versions of Martha Sprague and Lee racked my dreams; sometimes Jane Chambers’ slash-mouth clown joined them, hurling taunts, speaking through gaping holes in his face.

I bought all four LA papers every day, and read them cover to cover. The Hollywood sign hubbub had passed, there was no mention of Emmett Sprague, Grand Jury probes into faulty buildings or the torched house and stiff. I began to get a feeling that something was wrong.

It took a while — long hours spent staring at the four walls thinking of nothing — but finally I nailed it.

“It” was a tenuous hunch that Emmett Sprague set Lee and I up to kill Georgie Tilden. With me he was blatant: “Shall I tell you where Georgie can be found?” — perfectly in character for the man — I would have been more suspicious if he had tried a roundabout approach. He sent Lee after Georgie immediately after Lee beat him up. Was he hoping Lee’s anger would peak when he saw the Dahlia killer? Did he know of Georgie’s grave robbery treasure trove — and count on it making us killing mad? Did he count on Georgie to initiate a confrontation — one that would either eliminate him or the greedy/nosy cops who were creating such a nuisance? And why? For what motive? To protect himself?

The theory had one huge hole: namely, the incredible, almost suicidal audacity of Emmett, not the suicidal type.

And with Georgie Tilden — the Black Dahlia killer pure and clean — nailed — there was no logical reason to pursue it. But “It” was backstopped by a tenuous loose end:

When I first coupled with Madeleine in ’47, she mentioned leaving notes for Betty Short at various bars: “Your lookalike would like to meet you.” I told her the act might come back to haunt her; she said, “I’ll take care of it.”

The most likely one to have “taken care of it” was a policeman — and I refused to. And, chronologically, Madeleine spoke those words right around the time Lee Blanchard made his initial blackmail demand.

It was tenuous, circumstantial and theoretical, probably just another lie or half truth or thread of useless information. A loose end unraveled by a coming-from-hunger cop whose life was built on a foundation of lies. Which was the only good reason I could think of to pursue the ghost of a chance. Without the case, I had nothing.

I borrowed Harry Sears’ civilian car and ran rolling stakeouts on the Spragues for three days and nights. Martha drove to work and back home; Ramona stayed in; Emmett and Madeleine shopped and did other daytime errands. All four stuck to the manse on evenings one and two; on the third night Madeleine prowled as the Dahlia.

I tailed her to the 8th Street bar strip, to the Zimba Room, to a cadre of sailors and flyboys and ultimately the 9th and Irolo fuck pad with a navy ensign. I felt no jealously, no sex pull this time. I listened outside room twelve and heard KMPC; the venetian blinds were down, no visual access. The only departure from Madeleine’s previous MO was when she ditched her paramour at 2:00 A.M. and drove home — the light going on in Emmett’s bedroom a few moments after she walked in the door.

I gave day four a pass, and returned to my surveillance spot on Muirfield Road shortly after dark that night. I was getting out of the car to give my cramped legs a breather when I heard, “Bucky? Is that you?”

It was Jane Chambers, walking a brown and white spaniel. I felt like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. “Hello, Jane.”

“Hello, yourself. What are you doing? Spying? Torching for Madeleine?”

I remembered our conversation on the Spragues, “Enjoying the crisp night air. How’s that sound?”

“Like a lie. Want to enjoy a crisp drink at my place?”

I looked over at the Tudor fortress; Jane said, “Boy, have you got a bee in your bonnet with that family.”

I laughed — and felt little aches in my bite wounds. “Boy, have you got my number. Let’s go get that drink.”

We walked around the corner to June Street. Jane unhooked the dog’s leash; he trotted ahead of us, down the sidewalk and up the steps to the front door of the Chambers’ colonial. We caught up with him a moment later; Jane opened the door. And there was my nightmare buddy — the scar mouth clown.

I shuddered. “That goddamn thing.”

Jane smiled. “Shall I wrap it up for you?”

“Please don’t.”

“You know, after that first time we talked about it, I looked into its history. I’ve been getting rid of a lot of Eldridge’s things, and I was thinking about giving it to charity. It’s too valuable to give away, though. It’s a Frederick Yannantuono original, and it’s inspired by an old classic novel — The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. The book is about—”

There was a copy of The Man Who Laughs in the shack where Betty Short was killed. I was buzzing so hard I could hardly hear what Jane was saying.

“—a group of Spaniards back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were called the Comprachicos, and they kidnapped and tortured children, then mutilated them and sold them to the aristocracy so that they could be used as court jesters. Isn’t that hideous? The clown in the painting is the book’s main character, Gwynplain. When he was a child he had his mouth slashed ear to ear. Bucky, are you all right?”