Chapter 24

The Dahlia's Demise

I saw a cluster of rundown shacks that had once been Cliffside bungalows with a decent view of Hollywood. Bill led me through scrub brush and down a dirt trail with dense foliage on both sides.

"Seems no one's been here since I left," he said, more to himself than to me, as I followed along behind him, struggling to free my trousers from the scrub bushes that kept snagging them every few feet.

Then we came to a small, pillbox-style cinderblock hut, the door standing open as if awaiting our arrival. Bill started to laugh as I followed him in. a medicinal stench greeted me as I stepped inside. The sidewalls were papered with pornographic photographs of disfigured women. Mongoloid faces sucking dildos, nude women wearing braces on their withered legs which were spread wide in invitation while they leered at the camera lens. A mattress lay on the floor, caked with layer upon layer of blood. Bugs and flies were stuck in the crust looking as if they'd feasted themselves to death.

Bill was laughing louder, his personal amusement more macabre that the scene before me. I tried to ignore him and turned my attention back to the wreckage in front of me. The back wall held tacked up color photos that looked as if they'd come from anatomy texts: close up shots of diseased organs oozing blood and pus. There were spray and splatter marks on the floor, and blood-stained books rested in on corner, the most meaningful being Gray's Advanced Anatomy.

There was no doubt that this was where Elizabeth Short had been butchered. Unable to take any more of this charnel house I walked outside, my ears ringing with Bill's laughter. A strange flash of color next to a willow tree caught my eye and I walked over to it. A baseball bat – the business end stained dark maroon. I picked it up and waited for Bill to join me.

He remained inside for another ten minutes or so, before strolling out into the garish sunlight.

"What do you think, Roy? Is this the place?"

"Probably more than one person ended up here is what I think, Bill."

"That's true, but only one wuz made a fuss about. There wuz three of them all told, no one cared about the first two. I don't think one wuz ever found.

Probably some animals got to her. The other one wuz thought to have fallen down the cliff ... well in fact she did, I threw her off a cliff about seventy yards from here. The scrub brush is so thick you can't see it any more ... that wuz maybe ten years ago. But after Lizzie I stopped using the shack. I figured the cops would be all over it. It's funny how they didn't tumble to it the way they wuz looking all over for clues and such."

I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry and I wound up coughing. When I thought I could speak, I faced Bill and asked if he recalled the event.

"Course I do. Like it wuz yesterday."

"I found the Dahlia coming out of the Crown Jewel Cocktail Lounge, on 8^th and Olive. I saw her for what she wuz and made the necessary conversation to get her into my car. We drove off to my little hide-a-way here beneath the Hollywoodland sign. It kinda went like this: "So you'll come back to my place?"

"Sure, sir, I don't mind."

"That's very obliging of you."

"They say the customer is always right."

"A noble attitude, my dear."

"It works."

"And you don't mind if things get ... a trifle unusual?"

"Believe me, Mister; I've seen it all before."

"Well," I said, "you never know."

"It was perfection itself. Why kidnap someone when you could persuade them to come with you voluntarily; and certainly there wuz less chance of any witnesses; or being caught red-handed." Bill paused gave me a reflective look, and asked, "Ever thought about that expression's origins, Roy?"

"Not until now," I said. Bill laughed; it had a scornful, almost visual sneer in it. "Anyway," Bill said, "it made everything so much simpler, to travel unnoticed, back to my little hide-away where I could do as I wished."

"Well, this is a hairy joint, Lizzie commented, indicating she found the place a bit outdated for her taste. "Does anyone live here?"

"Not anymore."

"That's a shame. Pardon me for askin' but ain't you a little classy to be bringin' me here?"

"Appearances can be deceiving," I told her, as she began undressing. "I bet you'll like my tits," she chirped, as I handed her a drink.

The Dahlia sampled it and said, "Hey, Jack, this is Killer-Diller stuff!" [1]

I was busy removing a plank in the flooring, and didn't bother answering her. I took out my ropes, holding them in my hand until she finished most of her drink.

"Were you in the military?" Dahlia asked as if it wuz important to her.

"Yes, I wuz a Major in the Air Force," I lied. "Well, Roy, I could have been, I wuz many military men at one time or another. I could have told her I wuz with Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, but I doubt she'd have believed me," he cackled evilly.

"I moved toward her, the rope in my left hand."

"Hey, what's this about?"

"Just a harmless ritual, I'm ... complicated."

"I get it. You like a girl to seem helpless, showing you're in control."

"Something like that." I began tying her up. She didn't resist me, except when nearly finished, she protested, "But, hey, can you loosen the knots a little? I can't move at all."

"I don't want you moving." Then I shoved her forward across the table. Her hands were tied behind her back; her legs were tied together. Her torso was flattened across the length of the table while her head dangled off the edge.

"Hey, this is getting weird!" For the first time, her voice contained a trace of apprehension.

"You said you were ready for anything," and secured her to the table with another coil of rope.

"Well now you're cookin' with gas, Jack, You want to take me that way, just do it. These ropes are chaffing."

"That isn't what I had in mind."

"You ain't gonna fuck me?"

"Not the way you mean."

"You're the craziest customer."

"I'm a man of science."

"Really, so ... this is kind of an experiment?"

"You could say that."

"Hey ... what the..." I shoved a gag in her mouth.

"Mmmfff!"

"Well, Roy, those were her last words. Oh, there wuz screams a-plenty. She was clearly terrified and pissed herself. Then I began to play with her in my special way. It wuzn't long before shit herself, but she didn't lose consciousness ... not for some time thereafter."

"Jesus Christ, Bill!"

"Oh there's so much devil in the details, Roy. So much..."

"Leave it out ... cut to the chase, for Christ's sake!"

"When she woke up the next day I knew she couldn't take much more. I recalled how proud she wuz of her titties even when I took the Lucky Strikes to them the day before. I decided to cut them off slowly.

"She wuz still in a stupor, or maybe it wuz shock, when I showed her the Louisville slugger, it wuz the one you're holding there; a Jimmy Foxx model, his autograph is burned in near the top, if you look closely you can still make it out. I had used it on her previously and she probably remembered 'cause when I began teasing her with it she started shaking. I shoved it up her cunt and she almost swallowed her gag."

He met my eyes and grinned, "I recall wishing I had put some nails in it. Boy she'd have remembered that for sure. Anyway, I held the bat under her nose while I opened up a cigarette burn on her left tittie with my knife. She bit on the gag and blood from where I'd smacked her in the mouth with the bat came out from her biting down so hard. I stuck the knife down to a little bone I felt then twisted it. She tried to scream and the gag slipped deeper into her throat. I pulled it out for a second and she screamed for her mother. I rammed it back in and sliced her right tittie with the knife to give her something to holler about.