He put his hands up without being asked. His hair was a tousle of red curls, his face pale except where it was shadowed from not having shaved since morning. “Listen, I knew Beth Short.” His voice was youthful, breathy. “I turned sick inside when I read the paper in San Francisco, this morning.”
“You just hadn’t got around to calling the cops about what you knew.”
“Are you kidding? Think of the publicity! I got a beautiful wife and four-month-old son! What would you have done?”
“Kept my pecker in my pants,” I said, and yanked him back toward the house.
Manley’s boss professed to know nothing about Red’s connection to the already notorious “Werewolf” slaying, and generously-if nervously-turned over his kitchen for the questioning of his employee. I got a glimpse into the living room of the Spanish-appointed home, through a dining room archway, where Manley’s balding boss was hurriedly explaining the situation to his wife, a pleasant if distressed-looking fortyish brunette in a house robe, then herding her off, away from the “police” who had taken Robert Manley into their custody.
Like the one in Manley’s home, the Palmer kitchen was streamlined and white and modern-but about three times the size, and touched with two tones of green, not blue. We sat at a green-and-white chrome-and-steel dinette, one of us on either side of Manley, who we allowed to smoke. He had taken off his brown sportjacket, slinging it over the back of his chair, and sat in his shirtsleeves, suspenders, and a green-and-brown tie that, oddly, seemed perfectly coordinated with the kitchen around us.
“I’m just sick to my stomach,” he said, and he did look pale enough to puke. “My poor wife. What have I done to her? Jesus, my wife.”
Again, Fowley took notes and I took the lead, where the questioning was concerned.
“Where and when did you meet Elizabeth Short?”
“It was a late afternoon in December-couple weeks before Christmas. She was just this pretty black-haired dish, standing on the corner near the Western Airlines office. Just standing there, not crossing with the light or anything, kind of… distracted. I went around the block, and she was still there, so I pulled over and offered her a lift. She played hard to get awhile, and I told her I was in town on business, could use a little help getting to know my way around San Diego, and… finally she let me give her a ride home.”
“Home.”
He nodded, breathing smoke out his nostrils. “To Pacific Beach, those people she was staying with, the Frenches. We went out a couple times-nothing happened. Kissed her a few times.”
“Did she know you were married?”
“Yeah. But I told her my wife and me were at a sort of crossroads, that it didn’t look like it was gonna work out. And, anyway, I thought at first Beth was married, too, ’cause she wore what looked like a wedding band. But then later she said her husband, this Matt she talked about all the time, was killed in the war. Officer in the Army Air Corps. I think she liked that I had been in the Air Corps, too.”
“You didn’t tell her you were discharged on a Section Eight.”
He winced, flicked ash into a green Bakelite tray. “You know that? How do you know that?… Anyway, it was an honorable discharge. Lot of guys got out on a Section Eight.”
“I know. Me, too.”
That perked him up; I’d made myself a little more likable. “You, too? You’re a vet?”
“Yeah. Marines. I understand you were in the Army Air Corps band.”
“Yeah, yeah, I was. Loved it-I mean, I couldn’t fit in with the Army ways, you know? All that discipline, regimentation.”
“You’re a free spirit.”
“Well, I’m a musician. Sax man.”
“Still?”
“Weekends and such. It’s pretty hard to do as a profession, music-you’ve got to have something special. I’m good, but… not special, not really.”
“What were you doin’, Red, running around on that pretty little wife of yours?”
“How do you know she’s pretty? She’s pretty, all right, but… how do you know?”
“We spoke with her.”
He hung his head, shook it. “Oh, Christ. Oh, Jesus.” Now he looked up. “Is she all right?”
“She didn’t break down on us or anything.”
“No… no, she wouldn’t.”
“But, Red-do you figure she’s ‘all right’ with her husband chippying on her?”
He sighed smoke, gestured with the cigarette. “Look… I don’t expect you to understand, but… I was just trying to give myself a little test.”
“A test?”
“Yeah-see if I could resist a good-looking dame like Beth Short. See if I still loved my wife.”
“How did you do?”
He twitched a grimace. “I said you wouldn’t understand. We just had a baby. You married?”
“Yes.”
“Any kids?”
“One on the way.”
“You’ll see, you’ll see. Nobody talks about it-nobody ever talks about it… your wife won’t want to have relations, you know, after she has the baby. Not for a while.”
“It’s called recuperation, Red. Giving birth to a kid is no picnic.”
“I know, I know… and then… when your wife does want to have… relations again… you may find you don’t feel the same.”
“The same?”
“She just didn’t seem… like the same person. Harriet was a real sexy baby, when we dated. But now she’s a… she’s a mom
… A kid came out of her, down there. And the baby, crying all the time, up all night, baby made me… nervous. I got nervous trouble anyway, you know-that’s why I got Sectioned Eight. Don’t think I don’t feel guilty about it. You think I don’t feel like a rat?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I do. I talked to doctors over at the veterans hospital, a couple times, and they gave me some pills, for my nerves. I told them that putting my… you know, putting it into my wife, after a baby came out of her, made me feel queasy, and they-Aw, shit. I sound like a fucking creep, don’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, fuck you, Charley. You’ll see. There’s a readjustment period, for a guy, after his wife gives birth. And Beth Short…” He shrugged, drew on the cigarette. “… she was just part of my readjustment.”
“She was the test you gave yourself.”
“Yeah. And I didn’t have relations with her, understand? Never! I took her out for dancing and drinks and a few meals, and that was it. Usually this place called the Hacienda Club. This was during about a week when I was in San Diego, seeing my accounts. I’m a hardware salesman-did I tell you that?”
“Palmer’s your boss. You deal in pipe.”
He studied me, trying to find the sarcasm in that; he didn’t look hard enough.
“Anyway,” he said, “I was going back and forth about my marriage-mentally, I mean. Loving my little son, not attracted to my wife anymore. I told the doc at the veterans hospital I thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and he said I was doing fine and gave me some more pills. And also I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl.”
“Beth Short.”
“She was so damn pretty. So different from Harriet… Oh, Harriet’s pretty, real pretty, but Beth was sort of… I don’t know, exotic, with those spooky clear blue eyes and all that black hair and those black clothes and stockings and white flowers in her hair and all. Did you know she was called ‘the Black Dahlia’?”
“I heard that.”
“And Beth seemed so… worldly. So much older than her years. You know, she was in the movies, had all these big friends, like that famous director that was gonna give her a screen test.”
“Did she mention his name? This director?”
“No. She just smiled and laughed and said I’d be amazed, like as if it was gonna turn out to be Alfred
