No one wanted to say it to me, that the girls were dead. But I knew.
Maybe the desperation showed on my face. No one wants to disappoint a zealot when he’s coming at you, demanding answers and looking for a sign that his search isn’t futile. The ninth day since they went missing, and every street rat and lowlife I could collar told me just enough to get me off their back: no clue/they probably split town/I’ll ask around. Walked out thinking they’d soaped me and that I didn’t know how this would end, the same as ever – two broken bodies in a funeral home or some godforsaken alley in this bullshit City of Angels.
Sunlight came at me between two buildings; late afternoon, already low in the sky – winter’s touch on an otherwise bright day. I bought a newspaper from a vendor, leaned against the wall and pretended to skim the headlines, front and back. I’d already been through it for real that morning, found no mention of them. Now it was just cover to scope the diner across the street. The joint was a corner dive on North La Brea, name of Wilt’s, nothing going for it save for the pretty broad dressed in Mexican getup out front, peddling the brisket special and looking like she’d sooner be someplace else.
Most everything I’d done so far was conducted in the hours of darkness; this was the first daylight meet I’d risked. Not my choice, but short notice was Whitey’s condition when we’d arranged it that morning. Whitey Lufkins – a lifetime losing gambler who stemmed his losses turning snitch for anyone with enough green. I knew him from my stint at the LA Times when he was a bottom-rung stop for every legman looking for street talk. Now that same street talk held that he was in over his head with his bookmaker – and his readiness to meet suggested it was true. He didn’t know it’d be me on the other side of the table, though; caution came first. Whitey thought he was seeing a private dick on the missing girls’ trail; I had to ask Lizzie to make the calls to set it up, and she played the dispassionate secretary without much call for pretence.
I was early but I spotted Whitey through the window, already inside. I stayed where I was, waiting and watching, looking for anything out of place. It was automatic now, had been since we returned to LA three weeks before.
I’d felt it as soon as we set foot back in the county, and Lizzie the same. It’d taken less than a day to confirm that Bugsy Siegel was searching for us. Buck Acheson, my editor at the Pacific Journal, was the one to break the news; a rushed call from a payphone on Wilshire the day we got back, Buck saying he’d picked up on it a week before, while Lizzie and I were still upstate. His voice, his words – he played it all as low key as he could in the circumstance, but his sign off was resounding: ‘I’m pleased you’re back and your job’s still yours if you want it, but Charlie, it’s best if you stay away from the offices for now.’ Buck wasn’t one to worry for himself, so the meaning was clear: don’t make it easy for him to find me.
The city that used to be mine, and now I couldn’t move for looking over my shoulder.
I let five minutes go by. Whitey fidgeted with his cup and checked his watch twice. Two men left the diner but no one else went in. About half the tables were occupied, more seated along the counter. No one that worried me on first glance, but who the hell knew any more? After Hot Springs. After Texarkana—
Whitey checked his watch again, looked ready to bail. I cracked my knuckles and crossed the street, went inside. He was facing the door, saw me as soon as I did. He had a pallor about him, where the name came from, but worse than I remembered and accentuated now by pockmarks on his cheeks. He made to get up then stopped himself halfway, caught in two minds. I slid in opposite him.
‘Charlie?’
‘Have a seat.’
He glanced around as if looking for his real guest, then slid down the backrest, realisation dawning. ‘You a gumshoe now, or am I a mark?’
‘How’ve you been, Whitey?’
‘Better than you, what I hear.’
I sat back, a glance over his shoulder, wrong-footed by the remark. ‘And what’s that?’
‘You don’t need me to tell you. It’s on your face.’
‘Make like I’m dumb.’
‘You must be. Being in town when he’s looking for you.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not a hard man to find.’
‘You ought to reconsider that.’
I traced a line across the table. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about Bugsy Siegel.’
‘No?’ He showed real surprise. ‘Hard to believe you got bigger troubles.’
‘How’s your luck with the horses?’
He set his cup down on the Formica. ‘Some days are better than others.’
I took my money clip out – two tens and a twenty wrapped around a wad of ones to pad the roll. ‘I’m looking for information on a couple women. Hollywood-dreamer types.’
He made a point of not looking at the cash, a stool pigeon in a fraying suit clinging to the remnants of his pride. ‘I don’t know Hollywood from dirt.’
‘They were fresh off the bus. They were living in a boarding house in Leimert Park. Nancy Hill and Julie Desjardins.’
He half-smiled. ‘Julie Desjardins from Kansas – sure. Real names?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘These are the missing dames your woman called me about?’
I nodded. ‘They’ve been gone more than a week.’
‘Were they turning tricks?’
My arms tensed.
‘What?’ he said. ‘How else would I hear anything about a couple starlets?’
I closed my eyes and flattened my free hand on the table again. The question was a fair one. ‘The names mean anything to you or not?’
‘Not. But you must’ve figured that, so my guess is you want me to ask around.’
I peeled a ten off.
He shook his head, held up two fingers. I breathed out through my nose and peeled the other one off.
He rolled them tight and pocketed them. ‘What are they to you anyway?’
It was Lizzie’s question to me, word for word. I gave him the easy answer. ‘It’s for a story.’
‘Still working that side of the street. On whose dime?’
I didn’t like the question and on reflex I checked the window. A Packard with blue trim cruised by. The vendor across the way hawked his papers. Nothing to see. Whitey picked up on it.
‘Would you quit it?’ He was snapping his fingers to get my attention back. ‘Harder to come by a paycheck these days is all; one of you’s got green to spend, I want to know who else does.’ He pocketed my money. ‘You have photographs of them?’
I shook my head, not sure what made me lie. Something about wanting to protect innocents from the likes of him. If that’s what they were.
‘How do you know they didn’t just pack up for home?’ he said.
‘You ever hear of any that did?’
He stuck his bottom lip out, thinking. ‘Give me something to go on at least.’
I drummed the tabletop absently, weighing what to share. ‘December third was the last time their landlady saw them. Alice told her they were—’
‘Who’s Alice?’
I looked away. My wife’s murdered sister; one of the trio of dead that seldom left my thoughts. Blood on my conscience. ‘Nancy. Slip of the tongue.’
He kept staring at me, his face a question, but I ignored it. It irritated me that Alice’s name meant nothing to him – even knowing there was no reason it should.
‘Nancy told their landlady they were headed for an audition at TPK Studios. They never made it. I can’t find any trace of them since.’ Not the full story, but enough for him.
He thought for a moment. ‘They owe the landlady?’
‘Two weeks’ worth.’
He nodded along as I said it. ‘Sounds to me like they didn’t get the gig and they ran out on the rent.’
I opened my hands. ‘Maybe. Doesn’t mean they left the city, though. I’d still like to know.’ It came off weak even as I said it, such optimism long since dissipated.
He pushed his cup aside. ‘I’ll see what I can do. How do I contact you?’
‘You’ll hear from me.’
He stood up and straightened his jacket, taking his time and surveying the diner and the people along the counter. Then he looked down at me, setting his finger on the table. ‘You’re right to be scared, you know.’ He tapped it as he spoke. ‘Do yourself a solid and don’t be calling him Bugsy no more. He favours Benjamin.’
As he walked away, a sick feeling came over me. It was the way he said it, the regret in his voice. The question about who I was working for suddenly haunted me; it’d spiked me because I was worried he was looking for dirt on me to sell. It came to me the other way now, exactly as he’d said it: he wanted to know who else he could tap for coin – if I wasn’t around.
A black coupe pulled up outside – slow, as if it’d been waiting nearby. On the street, Whitey glanced at it and kept walking, head down, and I realised for sure what was happening. I closed my eyes and damned myself, wished it all away, couldn’t figure how I’d slipped up. I looked again and saw two heavies climb out, one I recognised as a Gilardino brother, long-time Siegel foot soldiers.
I ran to the payphone on the wall, shoved a dime in and dialled Buck Acheson’s number.
The other hood waited on the kerb while Gilardino came through the door, drawing sideways looks from the counter staff, eyes to the floor when they recognised him. He started towards me.
Acheson answered. ‘Buck – get hold of Lizzie, tell her to run right now.’
‘Charlie? What’s …’ He cottoned. ‘Hell, he’s found you—’