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.
Excuse me?
Nothing.
Just do it quick.
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 fianc�.
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.
He saved my life.
He saved my life, and I saw him there and I couldn't...
Dwight.
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.
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!
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.