The Last Embrace Read online

  Dragna’s eyes bugged out in disbelief. “Naw, it’s natural. Cuz she’s got the spitfire personality to go with it.” He swigged his beer. “There’s only one way to find out if it’s a dye job.”

  “What do you hear about Kitty Hayden’s murder?” Pico asked.

  With great effort, Dragna wrenched his attention away from hair color.

  “I hear exactly nothing,” he said. “If Mickey’s men want to kill girls and each other, that’s not my problem.”

  His eyes lingered over a framed publicity still on the wall: To Jack, with fond regards, Lucille Ball.

  Pico wanted to snatch it and snap it over his knee. Instead, he said, “Some British nutcase named Taunton took dirty photos of the victim. Tied up. Probably fake blood.”

  “Really?” Dragna sounded intrigued.

  “Have you heard anything about that?”

  “No, Detective, I have not.”

  “But you’ll let us know if you do? They may come up for sale.”

  “Of course, Detective.”

  “Who else might have wanted her dead?”

  “I hear nothing. But the way that Meyer Cohen conducts his business, I am not surprised.”

  “Where were you the night of October seventh?”

  Dragna gave him a shrewd, appraising look and Pico realized that even if he’d ordered the hit, he hadn’t carried it out.

  “I attended the Inside U.S.A. with Chevrolet taping at KTTV in the afternoon. Then I was here, having dinner with my wife. Then I was at Largo until three a.m., all facts to which dozens of people can attest.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I visited the apartment of a young lady, a very talented dancer. Would you like her name?”

  When Pico nodded, Dragna scrawled a name and number on paper, folded it, and gave it to the detective.

  “She’s a redhead too,” Dragna said. “Natural.”

  “What does your wife think of that?”

  “She thinks what I tell her to think.” Dragna grew contemplative. “I’m hoping it won’t be too long until Miss Ball is free. I told her at the taping that I’m her number one fan.”

  Harry and Gadge were eating dinner at the drugstore when Lily Kessler walked in. She sat down and began reading the paper.

  With all the excitement, Harry had forgotten to call her. After finishing his meal, he ambled over to renew their acquaintance.

  “I remember you,” Lily said. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Walked into a pole,” Harry mumbled. He glanced at her paper and saw she was reading about the Scarlet Sandal. “It’s a damn shame when something like that happens.”

  Lily blinked and looked away. “I knew her. Actually, I knew her mother and her brother. He was my—”

  Harry’s mouth dropped. “You knew Kitty Hayden?”

  Lily drew back. “I forgot that you’re with the press.”

  She crumpled her napkin and threw it onto her half-eaten chicken potpie.

  “You’ve got the wrong idea about me, miss. I’m a photographer, not a reporter. Why, I took the snap that ran on the front of the Daily Mirror when they found the body. I was there when they brought the stretcher up.”

  Lily breathed fast. “Really? Was there anything that hasn’t been reported? Markings on the body? A note?”

  Harry wanted to give her an honest answer, but he figured the longer he talked, the better chance he had.

  “My cop source says they’re working every possible angle.”

  “Well,” said Lily, seeing through his bluster, “I’d better go.”

  “Could Gadge and I walk you out?” Harry motioned to the boy. “A young woman can’t be too careful after what’s happened.” Harry paused. “Especially if she’s on her own.”

  “I’m not scared,” Lily said. “There are six girls at the rooming house, plus Mrs. Potter. Safety in numbers.”

  “Mrs. Potter? Kitty’s landlady? You’re living there?”

  A vision came to him suddenly, of the dead girl’s room, the clothes slung over a chair, the knickknacks. The photo layout it might make.

  “Kitty’s mother asked me to stay and take care of the arrangements. So thanks, but you and your little brother don’t have to accompany me.”

  Harry and Gadge followed her out. “He’s not my brother, he’s my friend,” Gadge piped up. “Even if he did steal my red sandal.”

  Lily froze. “What?”

  Harry lowered his voice as they walked. “Gadge found Kitty Hayden’s missing shoe on Morton Street in Hollywood.”

  Harry explained how he’d met Gadge, taken him in, and found the sandal in his knapsack. By now they’d stopped in front of a two-story house with an overgrown lawn. The door opened and a tall leggy girl walked out.

  “Yoo-hoo, Lily, see you later.” She waved, striding off. “Red just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

  Lily sighed. “So now you know. This is where Kitty lived.”

  “Every reporter in town worth his salt has had Kitty’s address for two days now,” Harry said, pointing to several parked cars whose dashboard placards said PRESS.

  “Too bad you have to go so soon,” he added. “We’re off to Gadge’s hideout now to get the rest of his belongings.”

  Lily wondered whether Harry had turned Kitty’s shoe over to the police. Pico hadn’t mentioned it. But then, he probably wouldn’t.

  “Mr. Jack? Maybe I’ve been hasty. I’d like to hear more about the red shoe your little friend found.”

  “Be happy to, if we could go somewhere private.” He inclined his head to the newshounds.

  “I can hardly invite you up to my room.”

  “Why don’t you come with us and we’ll talk in the car.”

  “Didn’t you just warn me about being careful?” Lily huffed. “Now you want me to get in a car with two strangers? At night?”

  Harry laughed. “Gadge is a kid, and I’m a harmless shutterbug. Dozens of people will vouch for me.”

  “In seamy bars throughout Los Angeles, I’m sure.”

  He shrugged. “It’s your loss.”

  Lily hesitated. It was dark. It could be dangerous. There were two of them. She’d be at their mercy. They seemed like regular Joes, but so had some of the most genocidal Nazis she’d interrogated after the war. Was she being too trusting?

  Lily took a deep breath. “I’ll go.”

  They followed Gadge’s instructions into the hills above Sunset, and Harry told her about the button.

  “You’ve got to call the police,” Lily said when he finished.

  Harry gave a nervous laugh. “First I’m going to photograph everything. Then I’ll sit down with a reporter I trust and tell him the whole story so the cops can’t pin it on me.”

  Lily considered Detectives Magruder and Pico. She could easily imagine Magruder being dirty, but she had a harder time with Pico. She thought of that car ride home, and a fizzy anticipation gripped her at seeing him again. And yet the two men were partners.

  The night was pitch-black, the moon not yet up as they parked and hiked up into the hills with only a flashlight to illuminate the way. Lily’s fears bloomed anew. Where were they taking her? Could she trust them? By the flickering beam, Gadge led them to an abandoned stable where the ancient warm smell of animals lingered.

  Harry said he’d be right back, and from the purposeful way he hiked off, Lily hoped it was nature calling, not a prelude to an ambush.

  “You’re going to have to come in here with me and hold the flashlight so I can see,” Gadge said.

  With a quick glance over her shoulder, Lily took one hesitant step.

  “Over here,” Gadge called from inside.

  Lily bit the inside of her mouth. She didn’t want to get trapped.

  “Hurry up, I can’t see anything,” the boy complained.

  Lily played the flashlight along the barn and saw nothing ominous, though the light didn’t penetrate the deepest shadows. Slowly, she advanced, keeping the beam focused on Gadge,
who pulled a U.S. Army duffel bag from a horse stall piled with moth-eaten blankets. The barn smelled of fermenting hay.

  Gadge seemed twitchy, and she wondered why. A shaft of moonlight appeared, slanting in from a high window. Finally, it was up! She’d take every scrap of light she could get tonight. Lily heard a rustling and froze, ready to run. She turned the light in the direction of the noise.

  “Hey!” Gadge shouted. “Bring back the light.”

  An orange tomcat padded into the flashlight’s beam, trilling and rubbing his back against the boy’s legs. Lily’s knees almost buckled with relief. Gadge squatted down to scratch the cat under the chin. Lily noticed two chipped bowls against the wall, one empty, one with water.

  “What’s his name?” she asked, still keeping an eye on the barn door.

  “Trouble.” Gadge gathered the cat in his arms and his pinched face softened.

  The ragged-earred cat began to purr like a jet engine. Lily moved toward him and tripped, putting out her arms to brace her fall. The flashlight fell, going out, and she cursed as she landed against a stack of hay bales. She groped frantically. Nothing.

  “Gadge?”

  Silence greeted her.

  A shriek of fear rose in Lily’s chest and she tamped it down and pushed herself upright. She pressed her back to the hay, scanning the dark. Instead of soft straw, something hard poked into her back. Lily flinched, then felt behind her. She wondered if Gadge kept a knife at the ready for trouble. Her fingers closed around a sharp corner. She dug out more straw, saw a darker shadow amid the bale. She pulled. One last tug and it gave, Lily stumbled. Just then the flashlight went back on and Lily saw Gadge close by, training it on the thing she held in her hands. His face was awash in fear.

  “No,” he said, and yanked it from her hands. The cat stood to one side, tail twitching.

  Gadge darted toward the door, only to collide with Harry.

  “Whoa.” Harry grabbed the boy. They stood in the shaft of moonlight, staring at the red leather purse in the kid’s hands. It had a broken strap.

  “What have you got there?” Harry asked.

  “It’s mine,” said the kid. “I found it.” He crouched, guarding it like a dog with a bone.

  Lily’s brain was buzzing. The purse was red. The shoes had been red. Women liked matching accessories. “Where did you find it?”

  “Just…on the street.”

  “The same street where you found the shoe?” Lily asked in even tones.

  “A half block up.”

  “What was inside?”

  “I spent the money,” the kid said. “How did I know?”

  “How much was there?”

  “Twelve dollars and forty-three cents.”

  “And what else?” Harry asked.

  “Makeup. A mirror. A change purse. I traded everything to a girl for a bag of pears.”

  Was it really Kitty’s purse? The leather was stained in one corner. Blood?

  “How about identification?” Lily asked.

  Gadge shook his head.

  “So that was it?”

  “There was a note.”

  “Let’s see.”

  Reluctantly, Gadge surrendered the purse. Harry unclasped it and looked inside. He took out a folded piece of paper, opened it, and read it aloud:

  Dear Kirk,

  I’m going to see the doctor next week. I think it’s for the best.

  Love,

  Kitty.

  Bits of straw clinging to their clothes, they reread the letter once, twice, ten times by the weakening beam of the flashlight, the questions roiling in their brains.

  “Kirk,” Harry said. “The only Kirk I know in Hollywood is…this letter couldn’t be meant for Kirk Armstrong, could it?”

  “The movie star?” Lily said, thinking about the virile young actor with the leonine mane of hair, the patrician good looks. The vast gulf that separated such a famous Hollywood player from a struggling fifty-dollar-contract starlet. “I wonder if she knew him?”

  Lily slid the note out of Harry’s hand and into her own purse.

  Gadge had gathered up the cat again. He knew they were angry. “What does it mean?” he asked.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Lily said.

  “When we find out, maybe we’ll know who killed Kitty Hayden,” Harry said. “All right, Gadge, you got everything?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Put the cat down and let’s go.”

  Gadge gripped the animal tighter. “I can’t leave Trouble. He’s my friend.”

  Harry’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I’ll say trouble’s your friend.”

  “Please, Harry. He won’t bother anyone.”

  “The cat’ll be fine. Plenty of mice here.”

  Gadge sat down. His lower lip thrust out. “I’m not going without him. He needs me.”

  Lily considered that Gadge needed the cat even more.

  “To hell with all of you.” Harry made a dismissive motion and clomped off.

  Gadge buried his nose in Trouble’s fur and sniffled.

  “C’mon,” Lily said, pulling Gadge up. “Let’s just go. We’ll work it out later.”

  The cat didn’t flinch when Harry started the car, just hunched into a bread-loaf position on the boy’s lap, the two of them watching warily. No one spoke as they drove down to the stretch of Morton Street where Gadge had found the purse. Harry had already canvassed the block. Now he and Lily walked it once more, but didn’t find anything new.

  “Maybe the murderer tossed Kitty’s purse out of a moving car,” Harry said.

  “Wouldn’t he have removed anything incriminating first?” Lily asked. “What if she threw it out herself, in hopes that someone would find it?”

  The street held no answers.

  Back in the car, Harry said, “Why did you hide the purse, Gadge?”

  The boy shrank back in his seat. “If you don’t hide beautiful things, somebody comes along and steals them.”

  On the radio, a sultry female voice was singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

  “Did you see it happen?” Lily made her voice soothing. “Maybe you were scared and you hid, but you watched. Please don’t be afraid to tell us.”

  “I didn’t see anything. Honest.”

  Harry took some photos out of the glove compartment and handed them to the kid. “Look closely. This is the girl whose shoe and purse you found. Ever see her before?”

  “No.” The boy pushed them away.

  “Did somebody give you the purse, maybe?”

  “I told you, I found it.”

  Lily looked at Harry. “We need to call those detectives.”

  “No,” Gadge said, his voice muffled. “They’ll send me back. And they’ll take Trouble. He’ll die without me.”

  Harry sucked his teeth. “How about a milkshake down in Beverly?” He made his voice jovial. “And a burger for your feline friend?”

  Gadge stirred. “Okay.”

  They drove to a Beverly Hills drive-in, where a waitress in a red cap and tight slacks attached metal plates to the car doors and took their orders, smiling as she caught sight of the cat. When the burger came, Gadge fed morsels of meat to Trouble, drank his shake, and fell asleep in the back, arms curled around the cat.

  Lily took the note out of her purse and they read it again:

  Dear Kirk,

  I’m going to see the doctor next week. I think it’s for the best.

  Love,

  Kitty.

  The RKO makeup artist had said Kitty was dating someone she called the Big K. Finally Lily had a name. Kitty’s roommates hadn’t mentioned anyone named Kirk. Maybe the romance was clandestine because Kirk was married. Kirk Armstrong certainly was married.

  Beside her in the car, Harry shifted, and Lily considered how odd it was to be sitting here with this practical stranger. Neither of them had known Kitty in life, but her murder had created a strange bond. Lily sensed from the gruff but kind way Harry dealt with Gadge
that there was no bad in him. And she needed a confidant. Under the bright glare of the drive-in’s sodium lights, Lily recounted everything she’d learned at RKO, her unsettling visit to Dr. Lafferty, Freddy Taunton’s dirty pictures.

  “You think this Kirk got her knocked up and she had to get an abortion?” Harry said.

  “Maybe she tried to blackmail him into marriage and it didn’t work.”

  “She signed her letter love,” Harry pointed out. “That doesn’t sound like a blackmail letter.”

  “The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Lily said dryly. “She must have been terrified. Pregnant and unmarried? That would have ended her career. She’d have to go home in shame.”

  “The letter’s awfully cryptic. Maybe it’s a red herring to throw us off the scent. Is this even her writing?”

  “I can check at the rooming house.”

  “But what if someone forced her to write it at gunpoint?”

  “Kirk is the key,” Lily said. “If we can find out who he is.”

  “You’ve got the note. Take it to the cops. You didn’t make the kid any promises, I did.”

  Lily glanced into the backseat.

  “All of a sudden you’re worried about him?” Harry said. “You want to adopt him?”

  “Me?” Lily said. “They don’t let single people adopt children.”

  The photographer examined her steadily. “They don’t, do they? We’d have to get married.”

  Lily felt a flush rise up her throat.

  “I’m just kidding,” Harry said. “But I’m serious about the cops, Lily. This is some very sensitive stuff we’ve uncovered. Dangerous, even. I’d hate for you to get hurt.”

  Lily shrugged off a twinge of fear. “I promise to be careful. So. Have you canvassed the shopkeepers along Morton?”

  “There’s one place I need to go back to, they were closed for a private party today. The Crow’s Nest. It’s a strange joint. Piano player—god, he was horrible—started playing “God Save the Queen” as soon as I walked in. Maybe he thought I was British.”

  Harry photographed the note and gave it to Lily. He kept the purse so he could shoot Gadge later, holding it with the red sandal. “The Mirror’s going to be on its knees,” he said.