thing in.” She shivered. “They were outside our door, on our front stoop.”
“One of them threatened our baby,” Savarino said.
“Yeah,” the blonde said, “one said on the phone he had a baseball bat all picked out for Patsy’s belly.”
Still shivering, Mrs. Savarino cuddled close to her husband, who slipped an arm around her. That arm stiffened when I broached my next topic.
“Which brings us to Elizabeth Short,” I said, wondering if that name would create fireworks between the Savarinos.
“She was a friend of Helen’s,” Mrs. Savarino said.
“Real good friend of mine,” Helen chimed in.
All right-so that was the party line.
“So,” I said to them all, “you figure Jack Dragna had this girl killed and her mouth slashed… informer-style… because by striking somebody within your circle, that would quiet Bobby, here.”
“I have to admit,” Savarino said, “hearing about these phone calls and that threatening note, that didn’t mean shit to me. I didn’t think they’d come near me or my family, with what I had on ’em. And, the spot I was in… still am in… I figured my best shot was, try to deal my way out…”
“Then the next day the Short girl turns up cut in half in that vacant lot.”
Everybody but me looked at the floor.
“Yeah,” Savarino sighed, nodding, “and that’s when I fucking zipped it-haven’t said a word since… and Dragna hasn’t bothered us. Not at all.”
The former stripper hugged her husband’s arm. “That’s all we know, Mr. Heller. You got the rest of our money?”
“It’s risky talking to me,” I said, bothered. “Even without being quoted, if this gets in the papers, Dragna will put two and two together-”
Mrs. Savarino interrupted: “I think that gangster will have the sense to lay low, now that the woman he killed is the biggest story since the war.”
Her chin was high and her eyes narrow and glimmering. She was a tough cookie, Mrs. Savarino-and a beauty. I had to know what kind of idiot would cheat on a woman this gorgeous, and this strong.
“I’ll give you your second fifty, Mrs. Savarino, but only after I have a few minutes in private with Bobby.”
“There are no secrets between us,” she said.
But her husband was sitting there with a whipped-puppy look that told me otherwise.
“I met your terms, Mrs. Savarino-now, meet mine, or you’re gonna have to settle for fifty bucks.”
The ex-stripper said nothing, staring coldly at me for several seconds, then studying her husband, the same way. Then she shook her head.
I shrugged, and stood. “Your choice.”
Savarino patted his wife’s hand, which was gripping his arm. “Baby, let me talk to Mr. Heller, alone, for a minute. We really can use that extra fifty bucks.”
She sighed and watching that impressive chest rise and fall was the second most fun I’d had today. Then she pouted, folded her arms, and gave her husband one quick nod.
We talked on the porch-sitting out on the cement steps in the cool evening, the sounds of Hollywood Boulevard wafting their muffled way across the quiet neighborhood. The little stucco bungalows had a quaint look, a very Hollywood look, like maybe Snow White’s dwarfs lived inside.
“So was Beth Short really Helen Hassau’s friend?” I asked him. “No bullshit, now.”
“They were friends. I mean, I knew Beth first… met her at the cafe. She lived in the neighborhood, you know. I gave her the war hero routine, and she melted like butter-couldn’t keep her hands off me. Anyway, when I started seeing a lot of Beth, that’s when her and Helen really got to be pals-Beth and my wife barely knew each other, and, frankly, my wife don’t really care for Helen that much… thinks she’s a lush and a bossy little bitch, which is true, but we both put up with her ’cause Henry’s my buddy and, well, partner in crime.”
He said that last archly, like it was a joke and not a fact.
I asked, “Had Beth been here to the house?”
“Yes… no… not our apartment, except a few times when Pasty wasn’t home-you know how it is… but Helen invited Beth over, now and then… Beth even stayed here, there, upstairs with the Hassaus I mean, till about the time she got, you know… killed.”
“Beth was your girl friend.”
“Yeah. You could say that.”
“What were you doing with a girl friend, Bobby? You got a wife. A beautiful one. Pregnant with your kid.”
He shook his head, dark curls bouncing. “I know, I know, you think I don’t spend half my time kicking myself?”
“Just half?”
“Hey, you’re a good-looking guy. Are you telling me that dames don’t give you the come-on? And that you don’t do something about it?”
“Not since I got married I don’t.”
“How long you been married?”
“Little over a month.”
“Yeah, just wait! Your wife gets pregnant, and she’s got a belly out to here, wait and see if you don’t get tempted. Wait and see, then fucking judge.”
“Is it true you gave Beth an engagement ring?”
“Yeah… that was stupid. But jewelry, half the time we’re swimmin’ in it, and Patsy and me, we’d had a bad fight and I really was thinkin’ of leaving her, and… yeah, I gave her a ring, and it was stupid.”
“Didn’t Beth eventually find out you were married?”
“Yeah, of course. She took it surprisingly good, like she expected men to do bad, stupid shit in her life. Besides, I told her I was gonna break up with Patsy-though, you know, I told her I was gonna wait till after the baby came.”
“Sure. You wouldn’t walk out on your wife till after the baby came.”
The pretty face frowned. “Hey, fuck you, what’s your name? Heller? I’m trying to level with you. I was in love with Beth Short.”
I managed not to laugh. “You weren’t in love with your wife anymore?”
He shrugged. “I loved her, too. When I was with the one, I loved her; when I was with the other, I loved that one. Haven’t you ever been in that situation?”
“Was Beth pregnant, too, Bobby?”
“I think maybe she was.”
“You think?”
“It wasn’t mine, if so.”
“No?”
“No. I never fucked her.”
“You never fucked her.”
“No-she said she wanted to wait till after we were married.”
“So that’s why you got ‘engaged’ to her… thought she’d give it up that way…”
“Fuck you! Anyway, it didn’t work. She was still ‘saving herself’ for our friggin’ wedding night.”
I drew a breath, looked up at the sky where Grauman’s searchlights were streaking across like a prisoner had escaped. “Let me get this straight. Your wife can’t service you sexually because she’s too far along… so you start dating a girl who’s saving herself for marriage? And this girl, who talks like a virgin, also happens to be pregnant, just not very pregnant? Am I missing anything here?”
He sighed, shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, and I forgot-you loved her.”
“No… no, I’m talking about, you know… the blow jobs.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You can’t imagine the mouth that girl had,” he said, shaking his head, woozy with erotic nostalgia, “and what she could do with it.”
