"Mr. Fire versus Mr. Ice." "For everything people were making it out to be you'd think it was our first fight." "It wasn't." "And it wouldn't be our last." "And, in local news, violence between servicemen and zoot-suiters reached a new level tonight after the wives of two sailors were criminally attacked." "An order listing Los Angeles as a restricted area has not deterred the fighting, but the Los Angeles Police Department assures the public that it has the situation completely under control." "Hey, sawbuck on the private chasing that skinny one over there!" "Come on, private!" "Come on, private!" "That spic's quick!" "Jesus Christ!" "Double or nothing on that greaser!" "You're on!" "Bleichert!" "I already knew him by reputation, record down pat." "A regular attraction at the Hollywood Legion Stadium." "Lee Blanchard." "Bleichert!" "43-4-2 as a heavyweight." "Shit!" "And he knew me," "Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert." "Light heavy, 36-0-0." "Ranked tenth by Ring Magazine." "Fighting no-name opponents in a no-man's-land division." "Get out of here!" "Hey, get back there." "In our first year at Central Division Station we never spoke." "To the Halls of Tripoli, shitbirds." "Who's this?" "Officer Bleichert, meet Señor Tomas Dos Santos." "You came all the way down here just to roust some Class B felon?" "Came down here, same as you, to keep from getting killed." "Happened to see some jarheads beating on a good collar." "I'll take him in the morning." "This is nuts." "We'll never get him booked tonight." "That's a nice left hook you got." "Mmm." "Well, you know, old habits." "Yeah." "My girlfriend saw you fight a couple of times over at the Olympic." "Said you were good." "Said you were somebody." "Big fish, small pond." "Never made it up to the big boys' division like you." "My first 20 fights were stumblebums handpicked by my manager." "Lucky to survive." "There's a Jew-boy Deputy D.A. over in Central Warrants, wets his pants for fighters, and he promised me the next spot he can wangle." "Warrants was local celebrity as a cop." "Warrants was chasing real criminals not rousting winos and wienie waggers in front of some Midnight Mission." "Hey, Bleichert." "Bleichert." "They want to see you upstairs." "The D.A.'s office." "Jew-boy D.A.'s with hard-ons for fighters." "Transfers, promotions..." "Officer Bleichert." "Back then, I told myself I didn't care." "Gentlemen, Bucky Bleichert." "Bucky, this is Chief Ted Green." "Nice to meet you." "Deputy District Attorney Ellis Loew." "Read that out loud, Dwight." "That's running in the Sunday Times." ""Before the war, the City of Angels" ""was graced with two local fighters," ""pugilists with styles as different as fire and ice." ""Lee Blanchard..."" "Excuse me." ""Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice never fought each other" ""but duty brought them to the Los Angeles Police Department." ""Blanchard cracked the Boulevard-Citizens Bank robbery case in 1939" ""and captured thrill-killer, Tomas Dos Santos." ""Bleichert served with distinction during the Zoot Suit Wars."" "Jump to the end." "Right, boss." ""On Election Day, voters are going to be asked to vote on a bond proposal" ""to upgrade the LAPD's equipment" ""and provide for an 8% pay raise for all personnel." ""Keep in mind the examples of Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice." ""Vote 'Yes' on Proposition B."" "What do you think?" "Subtle." "Prop B's a loser right now, but I think if we can drum up some publicity we can get it passed in next month's election." " Yes, sir." " Fire and Ice." "Ten rounds, Academy Gym, three weeks from now, before the election, all gate to charity." "After that, we bring back the boxing team." "What do you say, Bucky?" "You in?" "I got to get back in shape." "Bucky." "Lee." "I'd like you to meet Kay Lake." " Hello." " Hello." "You beefing up?" "You know." "I was just telling Kay here about our new hobby." "Are you a fight fan, Miss Lake?" "No, Lee used to drag me." "I was taking art classes, so I'd sketch." "She made me quit fighting the smokers." "Didn't want me doing the "Vegetable Shuffle."" "I promise not to hurt you." "That won't make Loew very happy." "Oh, he's got money on me?" "Seems that way." "You win, you get Warrants." "What's in it for you?" "Well, betting works both ways." "My girl's got a taste for nice things and I can't afford to let her down." "Right, babe?" "Keep talking about me in third person." "It sends me." "What do you think of all this, Miss Lake?" "Well, for civic reasons, I hope the LAPD is ridiculed for perpetrating this farce." "For personal reasons, I hope Lee wins." "And, for aesthetic reasons, I hope you both look good with your shirts off." "Papa?" "Guten Tag, Dwight." "English, Papa." "Hey, you haven't finished this plane yet." "Can you finish that?" "Here, sit down." "If you could just come by and clean the place up, keep an eye on him for a week or so." "I know I still owe you." "Guess what I hear is right." "You'll want to place this with Mickey Cohen's indie." "He's got Blanchard, 2-1." "That confident, huh?" "You done your homework?" "Yeah." "I've done my homework." "I'm not betting on me, Pete." "Blanchard's the hero here." "That's the way the story's supposed to go." "I'm just the other guy." "Well, at least he looks good with his shirt off." "Where's your sketchpad?" "I was never any good." "Ended up with a Master's in History." "Education's an expensive habit." "Lee paid for it." "He shouldn't have quit fighting." "I asked him to." "Besides, police work gives him a sense of order." "Do you have a girlfriend, Dwight?" "I'm saving myself for Rita Hayworth." "So he quits fighting for you, puts you through school." "Quite a guy." "Quite a pair." "Why aren't you married?" "You know, shacking's against regs." "Probably cost him a stripe." "So where's the diamonds and the bassinets, huh?" "Well, you'd have to sleep together for that, Dwight." "The gym was packed to the rafters." "A wild crowd hungry to see what was in us." "I already knew what was in us." "Ambition, pride, dissatisfaction at a life turned just the wrong way." "Luck, Dwight." "Come on." "Keep it clean!" "I feel it's my duty as a friend to tell you this, make it look good." "One!" "Two!" "Three!" "Four!" "Five!" "Six!" "I lost a lot of things in life..." "Seven!" "...but never a fight for money." "Eight!" "I was trading Warrants for a close-out on old bad debts." "The eight grand I was going to clear was enough to maintain the old man in a good, clean rest home for three years." "The late-round tank job, enough to convince myself I wasn't a complete coward." "Box!" "Finish the fight!" "Where's that hook?" "You're out!" "Give me a smile." "It's nice, isn't it, Papa?" "What do you think?" "Hey!" "Canvasback!" "Canvasback!" "You going to hide in there another week?" "Ain't you bored yet?" "Nice chompers." "So, you want to work Warrants?" "I lost." "What about Loew's deal?" "Don't you read the papers?" "The bond passed yesterday." "You want the job?" "Atta boy, Mr. Ice." "Champ!" "Show them what's under the lip, boss." "Right over here." "Officer Bleichert, the men of Central Dicks." "Homicide, Ad Vice, Bunco, et cetera." "I'm Captain John Tierney." "You and Lee are the white men of the hour, so I hope you enjoyed your ovation." "You won't get another one till you retire." "Enough horse shit!" "Listen!" "This is the felony summary report for the week ending November 14, 1946." "First, two liquor store stickups" "Broadway and Seventh, and Hill Liquor in Chinatown." "That one comes with a pistol whipping, my personal favorite." "Russ Millard, Homicides." "Hi." "How are you?" "My wife and kids thank you for the raise, Officer." "Officer Bleichert, I'm Bill Koenig." "This is Fritz Vogel." "Welcome aboard." "Pleasure to meet you." "Lee, I heard something you ought to know." "I was over at County Parole, and Bobby DeWitt got an "A" number." "He'll be released to L.A. in late January." "Thanks, Russ." "Who's Bobby DeWitt?" "Old beef." "Pot roast tonight?" "Don't say anything about DeWitt." "It'll upset Kay." "Sure." "Nice place." "Fight stash." "Hello." "Dwight." "Glad you could make it." "How was your first day?" "Mostly backslaps and paperwork if I know those boys." "And look at that smile now." "Well, this is nice, isn't it?" "What?" "You and Lee partners." "It's nice." "It couldn't have worked out better if you'd planned it, could it, Dwight?" "Well, I could've beat him." "Except you didn't." "I don't know, sweetheart." "Bucky was somebody back in the day." "And here we all are..." "It's nice." "It's more than nice." "Might even be worth those front teeth of yours, Dwight." "A toast to Proposition B." "To the Bleichert-Blanchard rematch, bigger than Louis-Schmeling." "To my supercops!" "To us!" "From November through the New Year," "Lee and I captured 11 hard felons, 18 traffic warrantees and three parole and probation absconders." "After tours of duty, Lee and I would go to the house and find Kay." "Sometimes she'd make dinner for us." "Other times, the three of us would go out on the town." "Always she'd be there never between us, always in the middle." "For New Year's, we headed downtown to a dinner club owned by Morrie Friedman, a friend of Mickey Cohen's who sometimes clued Lee in to L.A. drug traffic." "Happy New Year!" "It was the best time of my life." "Listen up!" "Gentlemen, thank you." ""Raymond 'Junior' Nash." ""Statutory rape, armed robbery, felony mayhem." ""Texas State Prison." "Alcatraz."" "Mr. Nash pistol-whipped a little old lady at a stickup near Leimert Park, Tuesday morning." "She died last night." "Anything common in the sex beefs?" "Negro girls." "Young ones." "All the complainants have been coloreds." "Junior Nash was an inbred Okie shit-kicker who came west and took all us locals for easy marks just because we prefer our cowboys to look like Gene Autry." "Of course, I didn't care if he was a hard man or what he thought about anything." "He raped children and beat senior citizens to death." "He was a coward and I wanted to put him down." "I got a tip for the hophead who's going to be at Norton and Coliseum tonight." "Hey, partner, everything good to go?" "Yeah." "Nash just got a fuck pad on Norton and Coliseum." "Scram!" "Get out of here!" "Okay!" "Fine." " Don't make me say it twice!" " All right!" "We're going!" "Make some money, man." "Oh, my!" "Oh, help!" "Help me!" "Help, somebody!" "Please!" "Help!" "Stop!" "Stop the car!" "Please stop!" "Stop!" "Stop!" "Listen." "I'm broke." "Baby, he's gonna cut us a real good deal on this." "I have been knowing him for a long time." "You ain't got to worry about a thing, okay?" "You ain't got to worry." "I got this dirty cop." "Mmm-hmm." "He's going to take care of me real soon." "And I mean real soon." "Dirty cop?" "I haven't heard of a clean cop, Baxter." "I just want to go home." "Why do you do this to me, huh?" "Why?" "Why this?" "Why?" "Why?" "Same reason why you do this to me." "You know why I do this to you." "Where is this guy?" "He's right there." "We almost there." "Come on." "Come on, baby!" "Come on." "Oh, God, I got to follow you now?" "Come on." "Listen, this is the last time." "Bucky, wake up." "Bucky, look out!" "Get down!" "I was half-asleep, but Lee had his boxer's wits about him." "He felt the blow coming." "He saved my life." "Get your motherfucking hands off me, man." "I ain't done nothing!" "Yeah, what do you call that shooting gallery back there?" "Fuck you, man!" "Lee!" "Lee!" "Well, that's about it." "Thank you for your time, Detective, and for the good police work." "Blanchard knew the white guy, I guess." "Busted him once." "He snitched for Lee a couple of times." "Baxter Fitch." "It's a busy neighborhood." "Take a look at top billing." "All right, easy." "Guys, guys." "Please." "Don't trample over everything, please." "Easy." "Secure the area." "All right, listen up." "No reporters view the body." "You photo men, finish taking your pictures now." "Coroner's men, put a sheet on the body as soon as they are done." "We set up a perimeter six feet back." "Any reporter crosses it, arrest him." "Now, gentlemen, before this gets out of hand, let's put the kibosh on something." "With publicity, you get confessions." "With confessions, you get crazies, liars and false leads." "So, we keep some things quiet." "The ear-to-ear facial lacerations, disembowelment, you keep this information to yourselves." "Not your wives, not your girlfriends, no other officers, and I mean no..." "Bleichert, what the hell are you doing here?" "Where the hell's Blanchard?" "He's right here." "Nash might be renting a room in that building over there." "I heard something on the radio about a shooting." "Was that Nash?" "No." "We had some trouble." "Stand back!" "Get back of the line!" "Move back." "Come on, boys." "Get them back!" "Hey, Raymond Nash, remember?" "We need to go check out that room." "Nash didn't do this." "No." "But he beat a woman to death." "That's why he's our priority warrantee." "All right!" "I need everybody right now!" "Baby." "What happened?" "Nothing." "I don't want to talk about it." "Lee, Baxter Fitch just happened to be there?" "What happened, Lee?" "What do you know about it?" "I know you, Lee." "I know you, Lee." "Lee..." "He knew one of the guys, so..." "Dwight, was it you or them?" "He saved my life." "Hey, Kay, who's Bobby DeWitt?" "I know he's an old beef of Lee's." "But he doesn't want to talk about it and he gets out in a week." "You know who he is?" "I'm scared, Dwight." "I'll take care of it." "You don't know Bobby." "Bobby DeWitt." "Who are these men who feed on others?" "What do they feel when they cut their names into somebody else's life?" "It was the case that made Lee's career." "He'd never said a word about it and I'd never asked." "One of Lee's snitches fingered Bobby DeWitt, a small-time pimp with a yard-long rap, as the brains behind the job." "DeWitt never spoke the entire trial, never coughing up the dough even after damning character testimony from some of his girls including one Katherine Lake, formerly of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and looking to go straight." "DeWitt got 10 to life in San Quentin." "Lee got Kay or maybe it was the other way around." "We're supposed to be looking for Nash." "Priority." "Yeah, priority for Homicide Division, not us." "Nice white girl gets snuffed." "Got to show the voters they did the right thing passing the bond issue." "It's A-plus, Buck." "We don't miss this." "Maybe she wasn't such a nice girl." "Maybe that old lady that Nash snuffed was somebody's loving granny." "Maybe we let the Bureau handle this and we get back to our job before Nash snuffs somebody else." "Got any other maybes?" "Yeah, maybe we've had enough headlines." "With or without you, Buck." "With or without you." "Therefore, we have created a special unit which will include a number of highly trained officers including Detective Russell Millard, our very own Mr. Fire and his partner, Mr. Ice." "Mr. Loew, can you assure the public that you will find the murderer before he strikes again?" "I can guarantee you this killer will be caught." "You got us detached?" "Slow and easy, Buck." "I gave Loew a memo saying Nash blew our jurisdiction." "You did what?" "Are you fucking nuts?" "It's all right." "The APB still stands." "He's covered." "This is the main event." "Nash is pure undercard." "Just give me another week with this girl." "What's your problem with this?" "Letting Nash slip." "On gross pathology, we have a female Caucasian between 16 and 30." "The cadaver is presented in two halves with bisection level with the umbilicus." "Through and through lacerations of both mouth corners." "No visible bruising on the neck." "Rectangular abrasions on the wing tips of the sphenoid bones." "And, oh!" "A puncture wound, here, in the palm." "On the palm of the right hand." "There." "Investigation of upper half abdominal cavity reveals no free-flowing blood." "Intestines, stomach, spleen, liver, all removed." "Is it all right to smoke, Doctor?" "She won't mind." "Lower half of cadaver reveals removal of all reproductive organs." "Both legs broken at the knee." "Questions." "What's your best guess?" "Well, here's what she wasn't, she wasn't raped and she wasn't pregnant." "In terms of the nitty-gritty, the cause of death is either the mouth wound here or she was beaten to death with something like a baseball bat." "What about her insides?" "They came out posthumously." "I say then he drained the blood from the body and washed it clean, probably in a bathtub." "Have you got a name yet?" ""Elizabeth Ann Short." ""Date of birth, July 29, 1924," ""Medford, Massachusetts."" "Cops popped her in '43." "Santa Barbara." "Underage drinking." "Other than that, she's clean." "Four sisters, parents divorced, her father's here in L.A." "Oh, and I hear he sold some old photos of her to the Herald." "I got an alibi just in case you think I did it." "Tighter than a crab's ass, and that is airtight." "Detective Bleichert, Mr. Short." "This is Detective Blanchard." "We would like to express our condolences for the loss of your daughter." "Yeah, I know who you are." "Neither of you'd have lasted a round against Jim Jeffries." "And as for Betty, she called the tune, she paid the piper." "You want to hear my alibi?" "Yeah, since you're so anxious to tell it." "Johnny on the spot here at the diner." "Twenty-seven straight hours at that grill." "Twenty-seven straight, last 17 overtime." "You ask anybody here." "They'll alibi me up tighter than a popcorn fart and that's pretty fucking tight." "When was the last time you saw your daughter, Mr. Short?" "Betty came west in '43, stars in her eyes." "I promised her three squares and a five-spot, she kept the house tidy." "She live with you then?" "I gave her the boot in July." "Moved to Santa Barbara." "Sent me a postcard a couple weeks later." "Some soldier beat her up pretty bad." "That's the last I heard from her." "I need three pigs in a blanket." "Keep your fucking panties on." "Was that soldier her boyfriend, Mr. Short?" "Boyfriend?" "They were all her boyfriends." "As long as they wore a uniform." "See, Betty believed in quantity before quality." "You calling your own daughter a tramp?" "I got five daughters." "One rotten apple ain't so bad." "Well, maybe this time she had a boyfriend." "Maybe." "Any names, Mr. Short?" "Look, Tom, Dick, Harry, it don't matter." "She said she was looking for movie work, but she just paraded Hollywood Boulevard in those black get-ups of hers." "I mean, who wouldn't get herself killed doing that, huh?" "Who wouldn't?" "We just got handed the entire U.S. armed forces as suspects." "Flip to see who writes it up?" "I'm staking Nash's pad tonight." "See if we get any strange drive-bys at the murder scene." "Do me a favor." "Stop by and check on Kay, will you?" "Yeah, sure." "Hello, Dwight." "How'd you know it was me?" "Lee stomps." "Is Lee working late?" "Mmm." "What's wrong?" "He's all bent out of shape on this dead girl." "He's going a little squirrelly." "Benzedrine, I think." "Did you read the papers?" "She's being played up as the hottest number since the atom bomb." "Ellis Loew's looking to make a career on it." "I think Lee's not far behind." "What about you?" "What about me?" "What's going to happen to us, Dwight?" "The three of us, I don't know." "No, us." "Just the two of us." "Us." "Kay," "there is no two of us." "He's my partner." "And that's everything." "He's done a lot for me." "He's done even more for me." "There's food in the fridge." "Good night." "Thank our friend Bevo Means at the Examiner." "See, Bevo's painting Betty in a black dress like some actress in that Alan Ladd movie, Blue Dahlia." "Should triple our confessions." "Great." "Hollywood will fuck you when no one else will." "Hey, Johnson, go get a smoke." "What do you want to do?" "I want to go back to Warrants." "No dice." "You're a bright penny, Bleichert, and I need you here." "These are Betty's last known residences and associates." "You go to University Station, pick up Bill Koenig." "Fritzie's sick." "Lieutenant..." "No." "You call me Russ and you get out of here." "So, how do you want to play this, Sarge?" "Fritzie usually does the talking." "Muscle job?" "Why don't you let me try and talk to her?" "All right, first question, does a Lorna Mertz live here?" "She used to." "She skipped town this morning." "But I'm holding this suitcase till she ponies up the back rent." "Is this it?" "Miss Short moved around quite a bit, too, didn't she?" "Was anybody threatening her?" "Poor Betty." "Her problem wasn't too many enemies." "It was too many friends." "I gathered that." "Okay, let's change the subject." "All right." "How about the world of high finance?" "How about the movies?" "You girls are all trying to break in, right?" "Darling, I'm in." "Congratulations." "How about Betty?" "Maybe once." "Maybe not at all." "She came around last Christmas, bragging about getting her big break." "Guess after all those screen tests, she finally got a part." "But, she had a tendency to..." "Stretch the truth?" "No." "She fucking lied." "Do you know the names of any of her boyfriends?" "What is it?" "You can tell me." "Well," "I do remember, before she split, her and Lorna..." "Mertz?" "Yeah." "Her and Lorna Mertz." "I mean I don't want to tell any tales out of school but I do remember them being up on Hollywood Boulevard speaking to this older woman." "And she, she was wearing a man's suit and had a man's short haircut." "But it was just that once." "Miss Saddon, are you saying they were talking to a lesbian?" "Your driver's here." "Yeah." "I got to go." "We're not done yet." "Well, then, how about you arrest me?" "Because the truck don't wait!" "Why don't we take a look inside Lorna's bag, and then maybe you can go." "That's her." "Christ, she's 15." "Do you know what studios Betty tested at?" "They weren't exactly studios." "Screen test, Elizabeth Short." "So, where are you from?" "Boston." "How long you've lived here?" "Two years." "Lost your accent." "Yeah." "You know, when in Rome." "Why?" "Are you looking for a girl with an accent?" "No, no." "That's all right." "Because I can just bring it back like that." "Because I'm a whiz with accents and I basically do every accent in the world." "We don't really need an accent, thank you." "'Cause I can be from anywhere." "Okay." "Let's hear that Boston accent." "Now?" "Yes." "No, I can't do it now." "I would have to meet with my dialect coach, Milton Perl, who was introduced to me by David Selznick." "You know David O. Selznick?" "I do." "He's been very, very, very kind to me." "He's taken me out to such beautiful dinners in fancy restaurants." "And he's treated me like a lady and with respect and guess what." "He was very, very, very impressed when I did my Scarlett for him." "You auditioned for Scarlett O'Hara?" "No, I didn't audition for Gone With The Wind, but, the thing is..." "Gosh, I just love that movie so much that I decided that I had to memorize all of Scarlett's dialog." "Well..." "And I want to do it for you because I think you're handsome." "No, no, I don't think we need that..." "But I think you're handsome and I'm going to do it for you right now." ""As God is my witness" ""As God is my witness" ""I will never go hungry again." ""Even if I have to lie" ""or cheat" ""or steal." ""I'll never go hungry again."" "He hated her." "Bad, and he wanted the whole world to know it." "Lee, you got to eat something." "Get this off the table!" "God damn it!" "Dwight, you got to do something." "He's been like this since last night." "Get some air." "I'll take care of him." "Bucky, this ain't a random job." "He knew what he was doing every single step of the way." "You learn anything about our girl today?" "Nothing worth you doing this to yourself." "Come on." "Let's get out of here." "No, I'm staying here with her." "Come on." "Go learn something about our girl!" "Love" "For sale" "Advertising young love for sale" "Beverage Control?" "LAPD Homicide." "Who got snuffed?" "Seen either of them?" "The Dahlia's a sister?" "I don't know." "You tell me." "Never seen her except in the papers." "And the schoolgirl twist, I've never seen." "We don't truck with underage stuff, capisci?" "Never seen her, man." "Don't fucking lie to me." "She's 15 fucking years old." "Come clean or I'll slap a contributing beef on you and you'll spend the next five years serving raisinjack to bull dykes in Tehachapi." "A couple of times." "Two or three months ago." "She used to get drinks off the sisters, though, she liked boys." "I'm sure, man." "Not the Dahlia." "Never." "For a trip to paradise" "Love" "For sale" "Let the poets pipe of love" "In their childish way" "I know every type of love" "Better far than they" "If you want the thrill of love" "I've been through" "Excuse me, ladies." "I'm sorry." "I was wondering if you've seen this girl." "Have you?" "No." "Everything but true love" "Haven't seen her." "This girl?" "Advertising young love" "For sale" "If you want to try my wares" "Come with me and climb the stairs" "Love" "For sale" "She wasn't the first Dahlia wanna-be I'd seen but she was the best." "Was she the les that Betty and Lorna knew?" "Or was she just some rich bitch with a taste for the low life?" "I will not have these in my house anymore." "No!" "It is insane!" "After everything that's happened to us, Lee." "I will nail this guy, Kay!" "I'll do this, I will do this!" "Talk to her, Bucky." "Reason with her." "Jesus." "Lee, she's right." "There's at least three misdemeanors here." "You can't..." "I promised him a week on this." "Four more days, and it's over." "Dwight, you can be so gutless sometimes, you know that?" "Three days since we killed four men." "Three days until Bobby DeWitt got out." "I tried to tell myself I was the sturdy leg in our little triangle." "I was worried it was true." "Slumming, Miss Linscott?" "I am now." "Daddy spying on me again?" ""Maddy, girl, you shouldn't be congregating" ""in such unsuitable places."" "I'm a policeman." "That's a new one." "Homicide." "Let's try Elizabeth Short and Lorna Mertz." "I know you knew them, so don't jerk me off." "Otherwise, it's downtown and a whole lot of publicity." "This is all a fluke." "I met them at LaVerne's last fall." "Betty, maybe one time." "Lorna, a couple." "They'd come in to cadge a drink or a meal off a sister." "So why'd you rabbit last night?" "Mister, my father is Emmett Linscott." "The Emmett Linscott?" "He built half of Hollywood and Long Beach." "Imagine the headlines," ""Construction Tycoon's Daughter Questioned in Dahlia Case." ""Footsie at Lesbian Nightclub."" "Get the picture?" "Technicolor." "So what'd you talk about?" "When?" "When you were playing footsie." "Lorna talked about her stupid boyfriend back in Hicktown, Nebraska, or wherever." "Betty talked about the latest issue of Screen World." "Starlets, Hollywood dreams, the whole sad nine yards." "So, did Betty ever tell you about a movie she was in?" "On a conversational level, they were right up there with you." "Cute." "Answer the question." "Look, I'm tired." "Do you want my alibi so I can go home?" "Sure." "My family and I were in Laguna from Sunday through Thursday, along with the servants." "If you want verification, call Daddy, but please be discreet." "So, what do I have to do to keep my name out of the papers?" "What do you mean?" "That's not very convincing." "I don't need your Daddy's money, if that's what you're saying." "You know it's not what I'm saying." "I might be convinced." "Tomorrow night, 8:00." "My address is 482 South Muirfield, Hancock Park." "I know the address." "Not surprised." "Pick me up." "Like a gentleman, not like a cop." "Oh, one more thing." "What's your name?" "Bucky Bleichert." "Bucky?" "I'll try to remember." "I can hear you just fine." "Look, ma'am, you mind?" "I've just learned to type." "Yes, I understand." "A werewolf and Red Sheridan." "What if the werewolf is Red Sheridan?" "Yes, that would be more efficient." "I love tip duty." "How's Kay?" "Not good." "You mind if I bunk out at your pop's place for a few days?" "Sure." "Thanks." "DeWitt gets out tomorrow, Lee." "I was thinking maybe I should talk to him." "Blanchard, Homicide." "Lee." "All right, people, let's get back to work here." "Yeah, it's an earthquake." "I heard it." "Look, I didn't know you were a boxer." "Daddy's heard of you and he insists you stay for dinner." "I told him we met at that art exhibit at Stanley Rose's Book Shop." "So, if you have to pump everybody for my alibi, be subtle." "Who's this?" "Balto." "The paper is the L.A. Times for August 1, 1926." "Balto was bringing in the paper when Daddy found out he made his first million." "He wanted to consecrate the moment, so he shot him." "Here we go." "Mother, Father, this is my friend, Bucky." "Bucky, this is my mother, Ramona Cathcart Linscott." "Nice to meet you." "My father, Emmett Linscott." "Pleasure to meet you, sir." "And my sister, Martha McConville Linscott." "Hi." "Saw you fight Mondo Sanchez." "Boxed the pants off him." "Another Billy Conn you might have been." "Thanks." "Can I get you something?" "Sure." "I'll get it, Daddy." "Okay, darling." "Mondo gave a good show." "Whatever happened to him?" "Heroin overdose." "Too bad." "He shamed his family." "And speaking of families," "Ramona, Martha." "That's our best Glenlivet, laddie." "Madeleine says nice things about you." "Daddy, can we eat?" "Bucky and I want to catch a 9:30 show." "Of course, darling." "Dig in, lad." "Hearty fare breeds hearty people." "Haute cuisine breeds degenerates." "I want to draw Mr. Bleichert, Daddy." "You're in for a cruel caricaturing, Bucky." "Maddy's my pretty one, but Martha's my certified genius." "What kind of a name is Bleichert?" "Dutch?" "German." "A great people, the Germans." "Hitler was a bit excessive." "But mark my words that someday we'll regret not joining forces with him to fight the Reds." "You know, I killed a lot of your countrymen during the war." "Mr. Bleichert, have you met Balto in the hallway?" "Yes." "Very realistic." "An old friend stuffed him." "We were in the Scots Regiment together." "Georgie Tilden." "He wanted to work in the flickers." "When did you move here?" "1920." "Hollywood was a cow pasture but the silent flickers were booming." "Georgie got work as a lighting man, me building houses." "Georgie introduced me to Mack Sennett." "I helped him build that housing project he was putting up underneath that god-awful sign." "Hollywoodland." "I used to love the Keystone Kops." "Me, too." "Old Mack knew how to squeeze a dollar dry." "He had extras moonlighting as laborers and vice versa." "Georgie and I used to drive them over to Hollywoodland after 12 hours on a silent flicker." "Then put in another six hours by torchlight." "He even gave us movie credits a couple of times." "Mother." "Are you feeling well?" "Would you like to contribute to the conversation?" "Did you know, Mr. Bleichert, that Ramona Boulevard is named after me?" "I didn't." "When Emmett married me, for my father's money," "he promised my family that he would use his influence with the City Zoning Board to have a street named after me." "But all he could manage was a dead-end block in a red-light district" "in Lincoln Heights." "Are you familiar with the neighborhood, Mr. Bleichert?" "I grew up there." "Yes, well, then you'll know that Mexican prostitutes" "expose themselves in windows." "I hear many of them know Mr. Linscott by name." "That's enough!" "I will sing for my supper when Mayor Bowron comes to dinner, but not for Madeleine's male whores." "He's a common policeman." "My God, Emmett!" "How little you think of me." "I'm sorry." "I'm really so sorry." "Mr. Bleichert." "You kept your name out of the papers." "Until the wedding." "Your mother would love that." "She's a snob." "The kind who takes pills the doctor gives her so she doesn't have to admit to being a hophead." "Do you want to know a secret?" "Sure." "Daddy bought rotten lumber and old movie sets from Mack Sennett and built houses out of them." "That's how he really made his money." "He's got firetraps all over L.A." "His good friend Georgie, maimed in a car crash, while running Daddy some errands." "And now he throws him scraps, odd jobs, tending Daddy's rental properties." "You don't have to tell me this." "I like you, Bucky." "I didn't tell you all about Betty." "You didn't?" "Don't be mad at me." "Last summer, I heard about a girl who looked like me." "I got curious." "I left notes at a couple of places," ""Your look-alike wants to meet you," things like that." "I left my number." "She called." "That's how I met her at LaVerne's with Lorna." "And that's all of it?" "Yes." "Tell me something." "Why'd you want to meet Betty Short anyway?" "I've worked hard to be loose" "but the way people described Betty it was like she was a natural." ""Don't walk out on me, Richard." ""Say you care." "Say that you..."" "Miss Short." "There is a pause after "care"." "Are you familiar with the English language?" "I try to be." "Okay." "Let's try it again." "And remember, go back to the beginning, you're begging him." "Begging." "He's walking out on you." "You're begging him." "So, come on, let's do it." "We're running out of film here." "Let's go." "Richard, don't walk out on me." "Please say that you care." "Say that you think that I'm beautiful, and that you love me." "Miss Short, you know, this is a very sad scene." "Do you think you're capable of playing sadness?" "Sure." "I can do that." "Miss!" "Get your hands off her!" "I'm an emancipated minor and if you touch me without a matron present I'll sue you!" " Leave her alone." " No!" "I'm a policeman." "Policeman." "You and Betty made the casting rounds together, right?" "Did you ever get any movie work?" "No." "Well, then, what about the film can?" "It's a movie." "What kind of movie?" "Something tells me it's not David O. Selznick." "Now, you have to tell us the whole thing, sweetheart, so think it through." "I was cadging at a bar in Gardena." "This man started talking to me." "I thought I was pregnant and I was desperate wicked bad for money." "He said he'd give me $200 to act in a nudie film." "He said he needed another girl, so I called Betty." "We made..." "Thank you." "...the movie at this big house a couple of hours outside town." "Then he drove us back to L.A." "Where was this house, exactly?" "I was pretty out of it, if you know what I mean." "What do you think, Russ?" "This got anything to do with the girl's murder?" "Long shot, Chief." "What's that about, gentlemen?" "Your boy can't hold his water?" "I got you Warrants." "You're my men and you made me look like a fool in front of the most powerful man in the department." "And you..." "Yeah, you." "Look at me." "Blanchard?" "Look at me!" "If you weren't Mr. Fire, you would be suspended from duty already." "You're a punch-drunk, washed-up fighter..." "Stay out of this, Bleichert!" "You're back on Warrants as of tomorrow." "I want you to report to me at 0800 with a letter of apology for Chief Green." "You are a political animal, and for the sake of your pension," "I suggest that you grovel." "It is now 8:15 in the morning." "Where's your partner?" "I don't know." "I was hoping he'd be here." "Well, it is 8:15 and he is not here and neither are his letters of apology." "Bleichert, get out of my sight." "Try and be a police officer." "Attention all units in the vicinity of Crenshaw and Stocker." "Code four." "Two dead." "Suspect, dead." "Raymond "Junior" Nash." "Warrant number 5-6-0-9." "Repeat." "Code four." "We forgot about Junior Nash." "Here he is, dead in the middle of a stickup." "He was trash and a killer and I'd been right from the beginning." "We let him slip and the innocent died." "Blanchard!" "He's in the men's." "No." "I beat up a wall." "For messing up Nash..." "Not good enough." "I'm sorry, Bucky." "Not good enough." "I'm sorry." "Oh, fuck, Lee!" "Fuck!" "Losing the first Bleichert-Blanchard fight got me local celebrity Warrants and close to nine grand in cash." "Winning the rematch got me a sprained wrist, two dislocated knuckles and the rest of the day off." "Smile at me." "Look soft and sweet." "I picked up Lorna Mertz yesterday." "She had a copy of a stag film, her and Betty Short playing les." "Pretty spooky stuff." "Did she mention me?" "No." "And I checked the case file." "No mention of that number-leaving note thing that you did." "Listen," "I'm withholding evidence for you." "It's a fair trade but it shakes me." "Are you sure there isn't anything you haven't told me about you and Betty?" "Betty and I made love once, that one time last summer." "I just did it to see what it would be like to do it with someone who looked like me." "Jesus Christ." "Bucky, that's it." "I swear." "Bucky, please stay." "You stupid slut." "Stay." "Sugar, stay!" "Hey." "We're famous, Dwight." "Notorious." "Where's Lee?" "Bobby DeWitt's probably in L.A. by now." "Lee always said I'd be safe." "You will be." "You will be." "He had a sister." "What?" "He had a little sister." "She was killed when Lee was 15, and they never caught the guy." "Why..." "Why didn't you tell me this before?" "He made me promise never to tell you." "He thought it made him too easy to figure." "Well, it sure explains some things." "No, it doesn't." "Kay, where's Lee?" "If you know, you should tell me." "Kay, Bobby DeWitt just got out." "Lee's all hopped up on Benzedrine, so what do you think is going to happen?" "Where is he?" "Morrie Friedman called a couple of hours ago." "The guy from New Year's?" "Bobby's got a drug deal somewhere in a building Friedman owns, the Olympic, I think." "When?" "Now." "Jesus." "Dwight." "Bobby DeWitt?" "Get your hands up." "Get up against that wall over there." "Keep your hands where I can see them." "Jesus." "I ain't out one week, and..." "You're here for a drug deal with Morrie Friedman." "I know that." "Look, I'm just looking for a place to take a piss." "Lee Blanchard's here." "Did you know that?" "Blanchard?" "Man-oh-Manischewitz, I ain't seen Blanchard since my fucking trial." "Yeah, but he's been on your mind." "And you've been on his mind." "I'm thinking that you let the word out there knowing he'd come down here." "Look, maybe I flapped my trap at trial." "Maybe I was thinking revenge, maybe talking trash to my cellies, but all I know is what I read in the papers, and when that fucker killed them niggers..." "Finish up." "I don't know what his version is." "What's your version?" "Sir, all this between me and Blanchard is that I fucked this big-tittied Dakota cunt named Kay Lake..." "Hold it, pal." "Blanchard, behind you!" "Blanchard!" "No!" "Here." "My apologies, Officer Bleichert." "My men are instructed not to take any chances, and you did have a gun." "The guy with the choke rope," "I assume DeWitt brought him for muscle." "No identification, nothing left of his face after he hit the fountain." "You understand why we must handle things like this, huh?" "It's your building." "Uh-huh." "Come on." "Bring him in." "Get him in here." "Officer?" "See what we got here?" "I can't think of another way, can you?" "Come here." "Come on." "Come." "Want to say something?" "Fire and Ice." "Fire and Ice." "Excuse me?" "Nothing." "Just do it quick." "What happened?" "What happened?" "What happened?" "What happened?" "Stolen witness reports, medical records, autopsy photos." "Lee had turned his life inside out and my dad's apartment into the Black Dahlia's House of Horrors." "I confessed to the only priest I needed." "How long have you known about this?" "I don't know." "Why show me now?" "I don't know." "He's not coming back, is he, Buck?" "Stupid son of a bitch, getting himself killed over a little mope like Bobby DeWitt." "Damn." "Did you tell Kay?" "Well, that's as far as it goes, then." "Mo Friedman was right." "Our boy doesn't need any more headlines." "Neither does Kay." "This..." "I want you to stick with me here." "We are going to make something of this." "What's a sexy girl like you so sad about?" "Nothing." "You've got tears running down your face." "What's the matter with you?" "Just a bad day." "It's all right." "You must have a lot of fun." "You look like you have a hell of a lot of fun." "Oh, I sure do." "I'm a fun-loving gal." "You got any special guys that you, you know..." "I have a fiancé." "Yeah, I met him in Florida." "And it was one of those things that was..." "Gosh, I don't know if you've experienced this before, but it was love at first sight." "Yeah, I get it about five times a night." "That's what it was." "He asked me to marry him that night." "And then, the next day, he was just gone." "Well, that "ask you to marry him" always works." "No, he promised he'd come back." "He was an Air Force captain, which is why he had to leave." "He went overseas." "And you know what he used to do?" "He used to write me such beautiful, florid, romantic love letters." "Oh, a poet." "Just a decent guy." "So, what happened to Prince Charming?" "Well, the night that he was supposed to come back, he was called to do one last mission and his plane crashed" "over India." "And now he's dead." "Boy, you sure know how to tell a funny story." "Yeah, I sure do." "Okay." "Should I read into the camera?" "Yeah." "Okay." "I'm told that I'm very photogenic." "I'm collating the KA update sheets for tomorrow." "Anything new you need him to add?" "No." "Dolph's tonight?" "I'm going to Kay's." "Wednesday nights were the nights she'd make Lee and me a big dinner, so..." "We haven't done it since." "We're going to try." "Should we say something?" "We haven't said anything." "To my supercops." "I feel like I haven't said anything right." "Haven't done anything right." "There's nothing to say." "There is." "There is." "He saved my life." "He saved my life, and I saw him there and I couldn't..." "Dwight." "I couldn't move." "I couldn't move." "I didn't move." "I never move." "I'm sorry." "I'm so sorry." "I'm sorry." "Kay, I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." "I could've saved him." "I could've saved him." ""Shoddy home construction?"" "I cut my foot on a bathroom tile." "You got it in you to replace a few?" "Yeah, of course." "Dwight." "Dwight." "I'd always wondered where he kept it." "Were you ever going to tell me?" "He'd given all his money to Ben Siegel and he..." "He wanted to buy us a home." "I didn't know there was any left." "Were you ever going to tell me?" "Something's burning." "Bobby did do the bank job, Dwight." "Don't get the wrong idea." "I don't know what kind of idea I got right now." "Things were getting really bad between me and Bobby, and I had to get out." "I knew this guy that Bobby made me be with once." "He was a hophead who let it slip that he sometimes snitched to the cops for dope money." "And that's how you met Lee?" "I told him what Bobby was doing to me, how he cut me and pimped me to his friends and I told him about the bank job and where Bobby was hiding the money." "And then last year, the guy..." "The hophead?" "Yeah." "Lee had given him $1,000 for introducing us." "He found out that Bobby was getting out, and he threatened to tell him that we stole from him." "He wanted money that we didn't have, Dwight." "He wanted $10,000." "What were we going to do?" "Promise me, promise me you'll forgive him for DeWitt." "Forgive him for the bank." "Please." "It doesn't matter to us." "What was the guy's name?" "It doesn't matter." "Kay, tell me the guy's name." "It was Baxter Fitch." "Baxter Fitch, and then DeWitt." "Lee killed them both and took the bank money, making me witness, stooge, weak point in a fairy tale triangle." "You're so good at some things." "Dwight, he loved you." "He loved both of us, Dwight, so much." "This had nothing to do with us, Dwight!" "Nothing!" "Don't run out on us!" "The basic rule of homicide applied:" "Nothing stays buried forever." "Corpses." "Ghosts." "Nothing stays buried forever." "Nothing." "Family's in Laguna." "But you know that." "You've been watching." "Lee and Kay had lived in sin, not because their shack job was against department regs but because the ghosts of their past had forced them to choose love over passion." "The veneer of a fairy tale, only a band-aid to cover a fractured life." "I didn't believe in fairy tales." "It was a reunion of avowed tramps, old rutters who knew they'd never have it as good with anybody else." "Have you met Balto in the hallway?" "An old friend stuffed him." "We were in the Scots Regiment together." "Georgie Tilden." "He wanted to work in the flickers." "What?" "Nothing." "You miss them?" "Mother's insults?" "Martha's pornography?" "I just never imagined Georgie so..." "The way your father described him." "Different." "They were young." "He died last year." "Angina." "Daddy paid to have him buried at the family plot in Scotland." "That's very nice of him." "I don't get modern art." "I doubt modern art gets you, either." "But I do." "Kay, what the hell are you doing here?" "What am I doing here?" "How could you?" "How could you?" "You follow me here, after what you've done?" "What have I done?" "Nothing!" "You lied to me!" "I lied for you!" "I lied for us!" "What could I do but lie, Dwight?" "You could have told me the truth." "She looks like that dead girl!" "How sick are you?" "You're going to end up like Lee." "You will." "But I will not." "She looks like that dead girl!" "How sick are you?" "You're going to end up like Lee." "The set was enough to tie Linscott to the porno movie, but not to the murder." "For that, I needed to stop worrying about who killed the Dahlia and focus on where." "Georgie introduced me to Mack Sennett." "I helped him build that housing project he was putting up underneath that god-awful sign." "Hollywoodland." "Lorna Mertz said it was shot out of town." "People lie." "Oh, a puncture wound in the palm of the hand." "I say then he drained the blood from the body and washed it clean." "I don't want to go to Europe." "One of my foremen said the goddamn pipes are spewing gas." "There'll be hell to pay." "It's about time I showed the three of you good old Scotland." "I don't want to go to Europe, Daddy." "You're always talking about how dreadful and provincial it is." "Yeah, but it's got what you need, lassie." "What is that, Emmett?" "Saps like me?" "Or is that what you needed?" "Oh, laddie." "You killed Elizabeth Short, and the two of you covered it up." "You made that stag film with Lorna and Betty." "I've seen the set." "I found it all." "Put that gun down, laddie." "You're not the shooting type and I'm not the dying type." "You might be half right." "Jesus Christ, Bleichert." "That's a Ming." "Great." "Let's talk art." "Let's talk The Man Who Laughs." "I've seen the movie." "I've got you." "So you don't like my taste in art." "I don't think that's a crime." "Stop!" "Georgie did it!" "Oh, that's rich." "Blame it on the poor, dead gardener." "No, Bucky." "It's true." "Believe him." "Georgie was always sneaking around Daddy's properties." "He saw them make the movie and he got crazy about Betty." "More." "There are so many pretty things here, Emmett." "All right." "Betty called, short of cash, as usual." "I put Daddy on and he offered her money to date a nice man he knew." "You must've known he was a sick fuck then." "Well, he was passive." "I mean, he liked to touch dead things." "I mean, his father was a surgeon." "Did you know that?" "Famous in Scotland." "We didn't know he'd go crazy like that." "Liar!" "Liar!" "You did him enough damage, Emmett." "Now you let him go!" "I would appreciate it if you just stopped shooting things, Officer, though." "The rich don't own art just for themselves." "We safe keep it for future generations." "How did Emmett damage Georgie?" "What did he do to make him go so crazy?" "Who made what made who crazy?" "It was Madeleine." "She was 11 years old, and she looked just like Georgie." "Ramona!" "Shut up, Emmett!" "That's right, Officer." "George and me." "Not that Emmett cared about that." "But he was her father." "And for that, he ruined George's face." "When he got out of hospital," "I gave him the Hugo book as a present." "He had worked construction on that movie with Emmett." "It was always one of his favorites." "That's right." "My book." "My picture." "My Gwynplaine." "What about Betty Short?" "Well, that was the cruelest joke of all." "He was obsessed with her, you know, that filthy film!" "And your husband bought her for Georgie." "He's a shy wee lad, but I..." "It'd make him very happy, I think, if you'd take him out on a wee date." "What did you do, Ramona?" "I was waiting up in Hollywoodland." "Oh, gosh." "It was the second swing, woke her up." "She looked so like my Maddy." "It was the cruelest joke of all." "We'll ruin you in court." "You know that." "Over what?" "Some little slut?" "It was neat enough for the papers, but that didn't make it clean." "The rich lived differently." "I guess they get to die differently, too." "Hello, Officer Bleichert." "Did you come to pay your respects or fuck my sister?" "I came to talk to you about Lee Blanchard." "He came here, didn't he?" "Asking about your sister and the Dahlia?" "Tell me." "Adios yourself back to the Halls of Tripoli, shitbird." "I've got business with the lady." "Bucky." "Lee knew everything about you and Elizabeth Short." "He knew everything, didn't he?" "I don't know what you're saying." "I went by your house today." "I talked to your sister, Martha." "She told me that a policeman named Lee Blanchard came by the house asking questions about you and Elizabeth Short." "She told him that the two of you were close." "Martha was always jealous of me." "He was blackmailing your father." "No." "I beat up a wall." "For messing up Nash..." "So," "on the night that he went to the Olympic to settle an old score you tracked him there." "Like a dog." "I've been pointing my gun at a lot of people this week." "I haven't had a chance to shoot anybody yet." "What do you think?" "I think you'd rather fuck me than kill me, but you don't have the guts to do either." "You're a boxer, not a fighter." "You're a murderer." "Of my partner." "A murderer?" "Of Lee Blanchard?" "You should thank me for Lee Blanchard." "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have had the balls to fuck your partner's girl." "You don't talk about them, okay?" "Wait." "I forgot." "You don't fuck her anymore" "because you'd rather fuck me." "You don't talk about them." "You chose me over her." "You'll choose me over him." "He was going to take Daddy's money and leave, leave all of you." "You'd never shoot me." "Don't forget who I look like." "Because that girl, that sad, dead bitch," "she's all you have." "No." "Madeleine was wrong." "I had others." "Ones I'd loved and ones who'd loved me." "People I'd betrayed and people I needed to protect." "And, for the first time in my life," "I had people that knew that, for the briefest of times, in the darkest of places," "I had been so, so good at some things." "Come inside."