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.
FRIEDMAN: Excuse me?
Nothing.
Just do it quick.
What happened? What happened?
BUCKY: 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.
MAN: 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-Ioving gal.
You got any special guys that you, you know...
I have a fiance.
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.
(MAN LAUGHING)
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.
(ELIZABETH LAUGHING)
Okay. Should I read into the camera?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm told that I'm very photogenic.
(PHONE RINGING)
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.
Havert 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.
(HAMMERING)
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.
BUCKY: 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.
KAY: 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!
BUCKY: 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.
MARTHA: Have you met Balto in the hallway?
EMMETT: 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.
BUCKY: 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.
(CAR DOOR CLOSING)
(CAR ENGINE STARTING)
KAY: She looks like that dead girl! How sick are you?
You're going to end up like Lee.
BUCKY: 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.
EMMETT: Georgie introduced me to Mack Sennett.
I helped him build that housing project he was putting up
underneath that god-awful sign.
MARTHA: Hollywoodland.
BUCKY: Lorna Mertz said it was shot out of town.
People lie.
CORONER: Oh, a puncture wound in the palm of the hand.
(WATER FLOWING)
I say then he drained the blood from the body and washed it clean.
MADELEINE: I don't want to go to Europe.
EMMETT: 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.
(MADELEINE SCREAMS)
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.
RAMONA: Liar!
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!
BUCKY: 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.
BUCKY: What did you do, Ramona?
RAMONA: I was
waiting up in Hollywoodland.
Oh, gosh.
(CREAKING)
It was the second swing,
woke her up.
She looked so like my Maddy.
It was
the cruelest joke of all.
(RAMONA CHUCKLING)
We'll ruin you in court. You know that.
Over what? Some little slut?
(RAMONA GROANS)
BUCKY: 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 werert 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.
BUCKY: 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.
(CROW CAWING)
Come inside.