I turned around to find Millard watching me. He said, “Off the top of your head, what do you think?”

I fingered my ripped pocket. “Is she worth it, Lieutenant?” Millard smiled; I noticed that rumpled clothes and a razor stubble didn’t dent his aura of class. “I think so. Your partner thinks so.”

“Lee’s chasing bogeymen, Lieutenant.”

“You can call me Russ, you know.”

“Okay, Russ.”

“What did you and Blanchard get from the father?”

I handed Millard my report. “Nothing specific, just more dope on the girl as a tramp. What’s with this Black Dahlia stuff?”

Millard slapped the arms of his chair. “We can thank Bevo Means for that. He went down to Long Beach and talked to the desk clerk at the hotel where the girl stayed last summer. The clerk told him Betty Short always wore tight black dresses. Bevo thought of that movie with Alan Ladd, The Blue Dahlia, and took it from there. I figure the image is good for at least another dozen confessions a day. As Harry says when he’s had a few, ‘Hollywood will fuck you when no one else will.’ You’re a smart bad penny, Bucky. What do you think?”

“I think I want to go back to Warrants. Will you grease it with Loew?”

Millard shook his head. “No. Will you answer my question?” I choked down the urge to smash or beg. “She said yes or no to the wrong guy, at the wrong time, at the wrong place. And since she’s had more rubber burned on her than the San Berdoo Highway, and doesn’t know how to tell the truth, I’d say that finding that wrong guy is going to be a hell of a job.”

Millard stood up and stretched. “Bright penny, you go up to Hollywood Station and meet Bill Koenig, then you two go question the tenants at the Hollywood addresses on my summary. Stress the boyfriend angle. Keep Koenig on a tight leash if you can, and you write the report, because Billy’s practically illiterate. Report back here when you’re finished.”

My headache going migraine, I obeyed. The last thing I heard before hitting the street was a group of cops chortling over Betty Short’s love letters.

I picked up Koenig at Hollywood Station and drove with him to the Carlos Avenue address. Parking in front of 6024, I said, “You’re ranking, Sarge. How do you want to play this?”

Koenig cleared his throat loudly, then swallowed the wad of phlegm he brought up. “Fritzie does the talking, but he’s home sick. How about you talk, I stand backup?” He opened his jacket to show me a leather sap stuck into the waistband. “You think it’s a muscle job?”

I said, “Talk job,” and got out of the car. There was an old lady sitting on the porch of 6024, a three-story brown clap-board house with a ROOMS FOR RENT sign staked on the lawn. She saw me walking over, closed her Bible and said, “I’m sorry, young man, but I only rent to career girls with references.”

I flashed my shield. “We’re police officers, ma’am. We came to talk to you about Betty Short.”

The old woman said, “I knew her as Beth,” then shot a look at Koenig, standing on the lawn surreptitiously picking his nose.

I said, “He’s looking for clues.”

The woman snorted, “He won’t find them inside that big beak of his. Who killed Beth Short, Officer?”

I got out pen and notepad. “That’s what we’re here to find out. Could I have your name, please?”

“I’m Miss Loretta Janeway. I called the police when I heard Beth’s name on the radio.”

“Miss Janeway, when did Elizabeth Short live at this address?”

“I checked my records right after I heard that news broadcast. Beth stayed in my third-floor right-rear room from last September fourteenth to October nineteenth.”

“Was she referred to you?”

“No. I remember it very well, because Beth was such a pretty girl. She knocked on the door and said she was walking up Gower when she saw my sign. She said she was an aspiring actress and needed an inexpensive room until she got her big break. I said I’d heard that one before, and told her she’d do well to lose that awful Boston accent of hers. Well, Beth just smiled and said, ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party’ with no accent at all. Then she said, ‘See! See how I take direction! She was so eager to please that I rented her the room, even though my policy is not to rent to movie types.”

I wrote the pertinent info down, then asked, “Was Beth a good tenant?”

Miss Janeway shook her head. “God rest her soul, but she was an awful tenant, and she made me regret bending my policy on movie picture types. She was always late on her rent, always hocking her jewelry for food money and trying to get me to let her pay by the day instead of the week. A dollar a day she wanted to pay! Can you imagine how much space my ledgers would take up if I let all my tenants do that?”

“Did Beth socialize with the other tenants?”

“Good lord, no. The third-floor right-rear room has got private steps, so Beth didn’t have to come in through the front door like the other girls, and she never attended any of the coffee klatches I put on for the girls after church on Sunday. Beth never went to church herself, and she told me, ‘Girls are good for chitchat once in a blue moon, but give me boys any day.”

“Here’s my most important question, Miss Janeway. Did Beth have any boyfriends while she was living here?”

The old woman picked up the Bible and hugged it to herself. “Officer, if they’d come in the front door like the other girls’ beaus, I would have seen them. I don’t want to blaspheme the dead, so let’s just say I heard lots of footsteps on Beth’s stairs at the most ungodly hours.”

“Did Beth ever mention any enemies? Anybody she was afraid of?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Late October, the day she moved out. She said, ‘I’ve found more simpatico digs’ in her best California girl voice.”

“Did she say where she was moving to?”

Miss Janeway said “No,” then leaned toward me confidingly and pointed to Koenig, loping back to the car tugging at his crotch. “You should talk to that man about his hygiene. Frankly, it’s disgusting.”

I said, “Thank you, Miss Janeway,” walked to the car and got in behind the wheel.

Koenig grunted, “What did the cooze say about me?”

“She said you’re cute.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What else did she say?”

“That a man like you could make her feel young again.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I told her to forget it, that you’re married.”

“I ain’t married.”

“I know.”

“Then why’d you tell her that?”

I pulled out into traffic. “You want her sending you mash notes at the Bureau?”

“Oh, I get it. What did she say about Fritzie?”

“Does she know Fritzie?”

Koenig looked at me like I was mentally defective. “Lots of people talk about Fritzie behind his back.”

“What do they say?”

“Lies.”

“What kind of lies?”

“Bad lies.”

“For instance?”

“Lies like he got the syph fucking hooers when he worked Ad Vice. Like he got docked off a month from duty to take the mercury cure. Like he got bounced to Central dicks for it. Bad lies, even worse stuff than that.”

Chills were tickling my spine. I turned onto Cherokee and said, “Such as?”

Koenig slid closer to me. “You pumping me, Bleichert? You looking for bad things to say about Fritzie?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the kitty cat. You remember that.”

“I will. What did you get on the Sergeant’s Exam, Bill?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Fritzie took it for me. Remember the kitty cat, Bleichert. I don’t want nobody saying nothing bad about my partner.”

1842, a big stucco apartment house, came into view. I pulled over and parked, muttered, “Talk job,” then headed straight for the lobby.