Adventures BooksZine, Two Year Anniversary Issue

By Offbeatreads, Darryle Purcell and TK Howell

Because of readers, ADVENTURES BookZine continues to deliver a potpourri of reading entertainment every quarter. In the first 2 years we delivered: 8 Quarterly Issues, 14 New Stories, 20 Never-Forget Stories, Author Interviews, Poetry, Nostalgia and More. In this Anniversary Issue, catch up on each new original story fr

• Language: English
• Publisher: OffBeatReads
• Release date: Jan 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781950464630

Book preview

ADVENTURES

Two Year Anniversary Special Issue

TK Howell, Kyle Owens, , Darryle Purcell, Michael Brian, Miranda Maples

Copyright © 2023, OffBeat Publishing

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-950464-62-3

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-950464-63-0

This publication includes works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

image-placeholder

Contents

Thank You!

Black Dahlia, English Rose

The Journal of eye Collector D.R. Melvin

The Good Guy

Detective Wolfram Gets a Case

RACHEL

Ghosts and Heartbeats in the Rain

Paradise Lite

Illusions of Evidence

The Artifact

The Incident In Galloway’s Quarter

For Addison

Just Passing Through

Treasure

THANOS

Tapping at the Door

Thank You!

image-placeholder

Dear Readers,

While two years is not a huge milestone, we wanted to celebrate this anniversary because Adventures is very unique, and is still here.

We press on with our goals of bringing you, the discerning reader, delightful surprise in every issue. In each issue you can find new, original stories by talented authors, to older stories (even classics) that should never be forgotten. Snapshots of time, comics, nostalgia, opinion, and more embellish the pages. Not only do we want you to have a variety of stories in your hands, we want it to be a lightweight, convenient grab out the door that you can rely on. We thank you for your support!

With much thanks,

Robert Kimbrell, Editor-in-Chief

Black Dahlia, English Rose

A New Original Story by T.K Howell

***

The bitter man rots heart first. After that’s gone, he’s capable of almost anything. Just ask Elizabeth Short.

I hadn’t come to Hollywood to hunt murderers. Mainly I’d come for an easy gig: twiddling with the minds of airheaded starlets and vain leading men with no one shooting at me? Child's play. A good change of pace from the war and working for the Service. I was headhunted by McCarthy, who got word about my unique set of skills. He put me in a room with Louis B. Mayer—cigar-chomping supremo of MGM—ostensibly to flush out Reds. Mayer wanted to book me as a 'consultant' to MGM on the spot. Headshrinker to the stars and assistant to one Eddie Mannix. The Hollywood fixer.

Mayer's sell was a soft one... glitz, glamour, red carpets. It flopped hard. A lady doesn't like to look like a pushover. But bless the ruthless old bear, he got the measure of me quick enough for a second run.

The old warhorse is slowing down, Mayer said. You'll help Eddie keep our secrets, bury the bodies, or dig them up, as required. It won't be easy work, and no one will thank you for it. But if you do a good job, you'll know you have contributed to this great institution. The Motion Pictures...

He proceeded to unwind some spiel about storytelling and I stared ahead blankly at a point just past his left ear. Normally, that's the kind of shtick that drives a power-play guy like Mayer to distraction, but he just kept laying it on thick enough to spread.

But I was already sold well enough. It won't be easy work. Ha!

Mayer made a phone call and a few minutes later in walked a broad-shouldered old sourpuss with a barrel chest and a glass of Rye on ice.

Eddie, this is Anna Loveridge, Mayer said. She's come over on the Senator's recommendation. Miss Loveridge, this is Eddie Mannix.

Pleasure to meet you, Mr Mannix.

"Oh God, we don't need another one, Louis! Mannix rolled his eyes. We've already got Leigh, de Havilland, Fontaine, the Taylor girl. We don't need another Limey starlet. We can’t sell another damned English Rose."

Ha, I snorted. English rose! If only he knew. My roots grew a little wilder than that.

And she's not exactly top league in the looks department-

Choose your next words very carefully, Mr Mannix, I said.

No, no, no, Louis said. You misunderstand, Eddie. This is Miss Loveridge. McCarthy sent her. About the Commie 'problem'.

I swear I heard the inverted commas

Mannix gave me a long, appraising look. He didn't seem to like what he saw. You expect me to work with a broad? She looks barely outta diapers. How's she supposed to help? She a honeytrap?

I'm twenty-eight, I replied.

"Miss Loveridge really does come with the highest recommendations. In fact, Senator McCarthy went as far as to insist."

What's so special about her? Apart from the hair, I mean.

It was a cheap shot, but I let it pass. And I'd be the first to admit, the hair was alarming. Hair clips, bobbles, ties, dye, I'd tried everything. It ate them up and spat them out again and went right back to looking like someone had run an electric current through a giant ball of cotton wool and glued it to my head. It used to be black as tar until a run-in with a Nazi warlock scared the colour out of it. Yes. Nazi warlock. I know how it sounds, but there it is.

"She's... a-hem. Well, she's British Intelligence-"

Nuh-uh. I'm freelance, Mr Mayer.

Is that so? I'd assumed... never mind. She has experience of espionage and all that covert spy business at the highest level.

And they tell me I have no discretion, I said.

Oh. Sorry. Shit, was I not supposed to mention that? Ah, this whole business gives me a headache. Damn McCarthy. I didn't want to... no offence to you, Miss Loveridge, but I didn't really want to go down this root of spying on our own-

Eddie Mannix gave out a short, sharp bark. Ha. Can it, Louis! Who are you kidding? What do you think I've been doing for the last twenty years? For a moment, it seemed like Mannix was warming to the idea of me. "McCarthy is right, if you want to catch out these Red bastards, then we gotta get our hands dirty. I'm just not sure what Miss Loveridge here is going to do that my boys can't."

"Well, the thing is, she is, um, she's..." Mayer fumbled, as they always do. I helped him out.

Christ. I'm psychic, alright. I'm a witch.

There was a long, long silence. Finally, Mannix chuckled like a schoolgirl, turned on his heels and walked out.

I told McCarthy he wouldn't go for it. I'm afraid I can't force Mr Mannix to- Louis Mayer grumbled, reaching for a cigar. I cut him off.

Allow me, Mr Mayer.

Ten seconds later, Eddie Mannix walked back into the office, pulled out a chair, sat down and started talking.

"I'm sorry about that, doll. I mean Miss. That was unkind. I really am a very unkind man, I know that. I'll die all old and alone and everyone I've ever crossed paths with will breathe a sigh of relief and talk about what a bastard I was. Of course, you are psychic. Of course, you are a witch. And I'd go as far as to say that Leigh, Taylor, de Havilland... they've got nothing on you. It'd be an absolute honour to work with you. Hell, it'd be an honour to work for you. Sure. Yeah. You should be giving the orders around here. I'll tell you what, how about I kick out that old tub of grease Mayer and we'll put you in the big chair, huh?"

Eddie Mannix grinned at me like a simpleton engrossed by a French Drop trick. Mayer's cigar dangled from his lips until it dropped on his desk, bounced and rolled into a pile of contract papers. I raised an eyebrow at him. He gawked back at me. The pile of papers started to smoke. Mayer patted at them frantically with a wet napkin.

A few moments later, Mannix blinked hard, looked at me, looked back at Mayer and then looked around the office and back at me again.

Helluva... helluva thing. Thought I'd...

His eyebrows hung heavy over his eyes, which fixed on me and didn't let go.

Whaddya do to my drink, you damn-

That's quite enough of that, Mr Mannix, I said. Behave. That's my advice to you.

I'd probably do as she says, Eddie! You any idea what you said just now?

Um. Something about... I don't say as I can recall.

"Well, ya called me an old tub of grease for starters and then threatened to kick me out of my office. But more importantly, you apologised. I don't believe I've ever heard you apologise, Eddie. Ever."

Mannix slouched, making grumbling noises in the back of his throat. I enjoyed these moments, watching the brain as it tries to rationalise what’s just happened. Like someone trying to piece a bomb back together after it's exploded; they've scraped together lots of bits—some large, some small—things they can look at and say I know this. I trust that this is what it is. But for some reason, none of it fits back as it was before. All is warped and altered.

Don't worry Mr Mayer. I'm sure we'll get on like a house on fire. Tell me, Mr Mannix, have you ever been stuck inside a burning building?

***

Mannix ignored me for the first month. They'd given me a small little back office down the corridor from his plush corner suite. I didn’t complain. I hadn’t planned on spending much time there. But I'd been given unfettered access to the great and good of Hollywood and you could bet your backside I was going to make the most of it.

With Mannix giving me the cold shoulder, I didn't really have any guidance, so I took the only avenue open to me: tricking my way into exclusive Hollywood shindigs, flirting with Cary Grant and trying to sense any latent Commie tendencies in anyone I met.

As a way to pass my time, it was damn good fun. But for once in my life, I was perturbed by a lack of job fulfilment and overcome by ennui. In my experience, if you have your heart set on being overcome by something, ennui beats the usual seven candidates. It’s much more manageable.

I shouldn’t have worried. Something was just around the corner. It usually was.

The note arrived on a Thursday morning tucked under a bottle of scotch. I admired the sentiment, but I was trying to chase a mild hangover out of the door with a cigarette and a basket full of pastries. I couldn’t even look at scotch. I’d take it in a pinch. But whoever had sent the message clearly wasn’t in Accounts, where there were already concerns about the Studio’s escalating expenditure on brandy.

It was a concise note. Find the Black Dahlia Avenger

That was all. Who or what in the hell the Black Dahlia Avenger was, I had no idea. But it was short and cryptic, the way I liked it. If Mannix wasn’t going to give me anything, then I’d have to find my own entertainment.

I took a stroll around the Studio lot and worked my way through three cigarettes. It took me about an hour to complete the circuit. Eventually, I found myself swinging back past Eddie’s office. The door was pointedly closed, but I barged straight in regardless and started talking as soon as I set foot inside.

"So Eddie, I’ve been thinking, wouldn’t you say it’s about time someone got around to finding out who the Black Dahlia Avenger is?"

His face went through a range of emotions; anger, confusion, irritation, shock and lastly mock ignorance.

"Hey, look, I don’t know how broads like you do it back in Jolly Blighty, but round here we knock before we enter a room."

"The Black Dahlia Avenger, Eddie. Who is he? Or they? Or what?"

Sounds like you don’t know a thing, Miss Loveridge. That’d be about right, I guess. You don’t look like you know much about anything.

Oh I get it, I said. "You need to hurt someone. Well cut away, chum. If you hit a nerve, I’ll let you know. You’re a trumped-up bouncer Eddie Mannix, and I’ve dealt with chumps like you plenty. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, so you better get used to me. Use me, let me help. Or I could always make you tell Louis what you really think of him."

Eddie watched me from under a hooded brow about four-tenths scar tissue. His eyes were some interesting colour, I’m sure, but mainly what they were was bloodshot.

I swear, if you go in my head one more time lady, I’ll make you regret it.

That’s no way to ask. You’ll find I respond better to the carrot than the stick.

Eddie reached for the crystal glass and tumbler set on his desk and poured himself something thick and gloopy. He took a delicate sip, paused for a moment with the glass still touching his lip and then gestured at the tumbler. He wasn’t serving, but he was offering. It was as good as I was going to get. I took a drink, even though it was Rye. I wasn’t one to spurn hospitality, especially when it was hard-won.

Well alright, then Miss Loveridge. How’s about you stay outta my head? Please?

Deal.

Deal? Really? Just like that?

Sure. There’s nothing much in there anyway. I smiled. Mannix almost did.

But how can I be sure?

Ah, there’s the rub. You can’t. Not really. I could tell you my word is my bond, but there’s a dozen British agents and an ex-husband who’ll testify that’s cobblers—sorry, bullshit. The best I can give you is that I don’t look inside the heads of people I like, from experience you don’t find anything good.

Ha, and this is your way of telling me you like me?

"Not by a long way. But there’s time. We can work on it. You can start by telling me about the Black Dahlia Avenger."

Eddie pushed back his seat and stood up with some effort. He topped up his glass and walked over to the open window and stared out. I hadn’t pegged him as a man who went in for theatrics, but I guessed the industry had rubbed off on him. He swirled his drink and stared at it and for a split second, I wanted to brain him with the tumbler.

Elizabeth Short, he said, as though he was dragging the name out with hot pincers. Prostitute… maybe. Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Two years back, she went missing. They found her a week later in a side street cut in two. Cut in two! Through the waist. Surgical. Freshly done. PD said some sick bastard had put her out on display to be found like that. She’d been kept alive for a week... Eddie tailed off. I didn’t need to look in his head to know that this wasn’t the first time he’d thought about Elizabeth Short in the last two years.

"And she was the Black Dahlia Avenger?"

"No… no. That was the name some kook gave to the papers. They called Short the Black Dahlia. No one quite knows why."

So what’s this got to do with MGM? I asked. Eddie looked pained for a second and then re-took his seat.

Not a God-damn thing, he said.

You don’t ever win much at poker, do you Eddie?

Not a God-damn thing, he repeated, quieter this time.

You better tell me, Eddie.

The girl had been seen on the lot. But what of it? Plenty’a girls get seen on the lot.

That it?

Eddie stalled. Come on, Eddie. You just made me promise not to go looking in your head. Don’t make me regret it straight away.

"She was known if you get what I mean. By a couple of guys we got on the roster here. Might have heard of one of ‘em. But it weren’t those boys, you can take me at my word on that. I checked ‘em out. Thoroughly. These boys are too pretty to be getting their hands dirty cutting a broad up. They’d shriek if they ever saw real blood and not corn syrup."

Names.

It ain’t them, lady.

Names, I repeated.

"Alright. Alright. Montalban. This spic we brought over from Mexico about six months before the girl went missing. Don’t worry, I gave him a real working over. Not our guy."

"And?"

Mannix looked sheepish for a moment. Gable, he said with an effort.

"Clark Gable?"

Oh, you’ve heard of him?

Very funny. Clark Gable was boffing this Short girl?

"Boffing? Well, yeah. Gable ‘boffs’ anything in sight. Short was a little old for his usual tastes, though. Let me warn you sweetheart, in case you haven’t cottoned on yet. For the most part, folks who get into this business either start off as bastards or turn into bastards somewhere along the way. Something about this place sends people wrong."

Let me guess, it takes being the biggest bastard of the lot to keep them in order?

You’re damn right, sugar. You’re damn right. Eddie unconsciously reached up and rubbed his chest.

What does your doctor say about your line of work?

Eddie got to his feet with a start. Hey, I told you to stay outta my head. Why I-

For God’s sake, man. I don’t have to look in your head to see you’re one loud surprise away from having a heart attack. Let me guess, you should have given up the booze, the cigarettes, the fatty foods and the stressful environment? And let me guess, you’ve done none of those?

Eddie took his seat again, grumbling. He had the resigned air of someone who was used to being lectured and used to ignoring it. Heart-attacks? Pah. I’m on my second already. Toni’ll kill me if she knew I was still smoking.

Well, if you want me to noodle in your noggin’ and switch off all those triggers that make you reach for that tumbler, it’d be my pleasure.

That’s a hard pass.

No problem. Now, how’s about we work on your stress levels and you take me to see one of the biggest stars in town and I’ll take a look in his brain and tell you if he has a penchant for cutting young women in two.

***

Gable didn’t leave his mansion much on account of his health, and more accurately, what would happen to it if the fathers of several young girls got wind that he’d stepped outside. He was in the middle of another failed marriage and his career was finally hitting the skids after a handful of post-war flops. Female audiences weren’t going for the suave tough guy act so much anymore. They’d seen what those guys came back as, if they came back at all.

"He won’t let you set foot on the place, you know. He might deign to speak to me. Through the intercom. For thirty seconds. But he won’t talk to you. You’re a nobody. Why would he care?"

We had schlepped out to Gable’s mansion in Beverley Hills in a pea-green Packard, a Studio pool vehicle. Eddie had taken some convincing, but I could tell there was something about the ‘Dahlia’ that still nagged at him. It was a thread he couldn’t help pulling at. The man was part-shamus, even if he didn’t know it. There was a hard moral core at the centre of Eddie Mannix. And not just the morals the Studio asked him to enforce (or whitewash, or manufacture, or cover-up or whatever else was required to make MGM seem squeaky clean in a post-Hays world).

Eddie Mannix, righter of wrongs. After a little digging, I’d finally found the Mannix I could partner with. I just had to make him believe it was the Eddie Mannix he wanted to be in his twilight years.

I won’t have to speak to him, I said. Won’t even need to see him. Park up here. Go take in the fresh air, and if you come back and I look asleep, don’t try and wake me.

Eddie huffed but didn’t ask any follow-up questions. I waited for the door to close behind him before I began to reach out and mentally wander the many rooms of Gable’s house, searching.

Threads wound their way through the building—bright threads of busy industry, maids going from room to room. Threads that cloyed in the throat with over-ripe perfume that went straight from the front door to a rear bedroom and back out again; naive threads that came in smelling of milk, honey and giddiness and left with a veneer of grease and sweat.

But all the time, one thread moved only between three rooms. It was a thread of pomade and decay, bourbon and shadows. Clark Gable. He couldn’t remember what was act and what was truth anymore. He didn’t know where Clark Gable the man and Clark Gable the myth separated.

For years he’d been playing swarthy exemplars of rugged masculinity. Barrel-chested images of American strength and potency that expected women to submit to his wiles. And boy, did they submit. In droves. Both on-screen and off. I could practically feel the pheromones smouldering from three hundred feet away.

I latched on to Gable. I latched on and dug around in his head good and proper. I took a shovel to it, digging around for all his dirtiest, darkest secrets. I did not much like what I found.

Underneath all that sex and charm was an ‘aw shucks’ Mid-West boy who loved his ma and just wanted to settle down and work on a farm. Problem was, that ‘aw shucks’ kid had been told by all and sundry just how special he was from day one and now the kid could turn vicious like only kids could when he didn’t get his way.

A pair of huge, gorilla knuckles rapped on the door and Mannix leered in the window at me.

It’s been an hour, he said.

Gah… I told you not to- I rolled my bleary eyes on him.

Yeah, well, I don’t take orders from you, do I? he said, opening the door and sliding in.

I was in the middle of something.

And?

And what? You’re right, Clark Gable is a lot of things, but he didn’t kill Elizabeth Short. He could have been boffing her, but even he doesn’t remember. The man has...

Boffed a lot? Yeah, tell me about it.

Eddie, just how much shit have you had to bury for Mr. Gable?

Mannix looked sheepish for a second, and then his face set hard. More than I care to remember, sister. But nobody's all bad.

"If that's true, there's a few men I've misjudged in my time. When this is over, I think I’d like to come back here and have a little chat with Mr Gable. There’s a few changes I’d like to suggest."

Mannix seemed to think about this, then he turned the key and rolled the Packard back down the hill.

Yeah, he said simply. Yeah.

***

Mannix kept me company for another hour. He took me to a diner and, after some persuading, I covered pancakes with crispy bacon and maple syrup. It was as close as I’d ever come to a spiritual awakening.

It wasn’t a reward, it wasn’t a pat on the back, we weren’t bonding. I just happened to be there and Mannix wanted a very late breakfast. If he could have got away with leaving me in the car like a dog, then I honestly think he would have. But the frost in the big lummox’s demeanour was starting to shake loose, bit by bit.

So that’s how it works, is it? You sit there and go all sleepy and I have to take you at your word you’ve been looking in someone’s head?

Don’t believe me? Do you want another parlour trick?

Eddie grimaced and changed the subject. You wanna talk to the spic? he said. He’s on the lot right now, shooting. The boy sure does work hard for a wetback, I’ll give him that.

I glared at him, but it bounced right off. If he knew my roots, I wondered what he’d call me. Nothing new, I’d imagine. Nothing that had ever managed to leave a bruise before.

Just show me where then you can go about your day. I don’t need a babysitter.

He chewed this over with a piece of bacon for a long time, then took a glug of black coffee.

Nothing much doing right now, I figure I’ll tag along.

Montalban was a bust, no matter how much Eddie wanted him not to be. We found him out back shooting some low-rent thing about the Mexican border. This week he was a Mexican cop, next week he might be a Mexican crook, and the week after that, maybe a Mexican farmer. If he really showed some versatility, they might let him play an Apache. Unlike Gable, I simply walked right up to him while he was taking a glass of water between shoots and said hello. He was a sweet guy but clammed up as soon as I started asking about Short. Naturally.

He remembered Eddie alright, and he wasn’t keen on going another round of questioning. He knew the drill. Eddie had kept the cops off his trail, and he was grateful for that—those boys would have loved to have taken a run at him—but he wasn’t saying no more. He didn’t have squat to do with it.

And he didn’t. Montalban was serious about his work, even if the Studio wasn’t. He was going to turn in the best he could, no matter the part. That’s all there was in his head. There was nothing there about slicing up young women.

You better ask her girlfriend, was all he’d say.

Name? Eddie barked, but Montalban shrugged.

Search me. Blonde thing, works around here. She’s a scary puta, that one.

It was the only lead we had, but it didn’t get us anywhere. Eddie and I chewed on it for another forty-eight hours, but eventually, Eddie gave up and then I chewed on it alone.

Find the Black Dahlia Avenger

The note. I hadn’t really given the thing a thought, but I was sure now that it must have come from Montalban’s ‘blonde thing’, whoever she was.

I was laying odds on the fact she was working in the Studio somewhere. Easiest way she could have slipped the note through to me, I figured. I listened in on the typing pool scuttlebutt, but nothing raised its head. Seamstresses, secretaries, starlets… props, sets, accounts, advertising… she could have been anywhere.

If I couldn’t find her, I decided, she could find me.

I put out the mental equivalent of a full-page centre spread in the LA Times. I sat in my office, drank and projected a beacon shining from the top of the Studio office block. The image of a black dahlia, the scent of blood, the queer, undefinable quality of a hidden terror that makes you laugh out loud in a self-conscious effort to chase it away. It gave me a headache like the sky breaking in two. I drank a little more to compensate. And then I waited.

It was two hours before someone broke cover.

I watched her streak out of a building across the courtyard from my office. A redhead now. No longer blonde. She ran, her flats slapping on the cobbled gangways until she stopped abruptly and brought up her lunch. I thought I’d better go and say hello.

***

It started to rain as I took the back stairs out. I lit a cigarette before I stepped into the clean, wet air. One big plume of smoke then the thing caught a stray droplet and sputtered out. I scotched it against the metal stairwell and let it drop. The girl was bent double, one hand holding on to a wall for dear life.

Eat something that disagreed with you? I asked in my friendliest voice, which, in truth, wasn’t all that friendly.

The girl looked up. You, she said, and then back-peddled. I mean, yeah, I think. Or drank something, more likely. God knows what they cut their liquor with at Gino’s.

Tsk. Here, I handed her a cigarette. It’ll calm your stomach.

She took it and straightened herself up. She was petite, not quite scrapping five feet, and there was real prettiness in her face. Like a doll. Big, wide eyes and porcelain skin. Small nose, a small mouth. Face set in an expression of permanent, simple-minded happiness. It was a sham.

The note, I said pointedly. Her face set firm and all the prettiness went out of it at once. Her face took on the fleeting quality of a startled deer, her cheeks burned rouge. She looked like she wanted to scream. After a while, the prettiness came back into her face.

They told me you fix things, she said.

"Who? No, it doesn’t matter who. You want me to find the Black Dahlia Avenger? You want me to find Elizabeth Short’s killer? Is that it? Well, what was she to you?"

Someone. Her voice was as dead as mayflies in September. Someone who mattered. There ain’t too many of them around, I know.

She shifted uneasily, the collar of her blouse bobbing over the smooth, delicate line of her neck. I caught a glimpse of a bruise just where her neck met her clavicle.

Anna Loveridge, I said, taking her hand and shaking it. After a few moments, under the scrutiny of my pointed glare, she got the hint.

Coco. Coco de Vere.

And your real name?

Coco de Vere, she said, more severely. If you don’t like it, I got plenty of others they call me, but you look like a lady, and I ain’t sure you’d feel comfortable.

I’m not a lady, and I like it plenty, Coco. Now come up to my office and tell me what you know.

***

Gable. It was that bastard, I’m sure of it. I saw him with her. She went up to his house.

I poured us a drink as Coco watched on greedily. When I was done, I held her glass away from her while sipping at mine.

Start at the top, Coco. You and Elizabeth.

Her eyes darted back and forth. We worked together. We screen-tested. You know. We just sort of started knocking around. Ended up here, making up the numbers in scenes, doing secretarial work, you know. Whatever we could get. I raised an eyebrow at her. Her face set hard and her cheeks flushed again. "Not that. I know what they said about her, but we didn’t do that kind of work."

So you worked together? Is that all?

She looked at me, caught my eye, looked away again. I handed her the drink. Thought as much.

’s illegal, she said in a small voice.

Pish. Never let that stop me. I smiled. Some of the tension went out of her. She drank greedily.

But let me guess, Elizabeth still dated men. You were just a distraction.

"It was that way for both of us. I think we both always assumed we’d end up married. You know? But after her, I just haven’t been able to… something inside me died with her, I think."

I gave her a long, hard, appraising look. She shrank back a little, circling the glass in her hands. I knew that feeling. After everything that happened during the war, nothing worked for a long time. No emotion, no joy, just a great big hole at the centre of my life. But I kept trying. I married. It didn’t last. I tried some more. Eventually, you embrace it and let go simultaneously. You decide to take a devil-may-care approach, and you hope at least he does because you certainly don’t.

I see you’re still trying, though, I said. Coco looked confused. I gestured with the glass, pointing with my finger at her neck. The love bite.

Coco shrank back and fiddled with her collar.

Don’t cover it up on my account, dear. I couldn’t give a fig.

A silly little boy. It doesn’t help.

Then stop trying silly little boys, I said and smiled. I could feel the back of her neck goose-pimple and her thighs tingle.

Gable, I said, shifting the subject and re-crossing my legs. He’s not your guy, trust me.

"But I saw him with her. That night. She got into his car!"

You reported this to the Police?

Coco gave me a look, a delicate tilt of the head that told me in one deft movement that, yes, of course, she did, and yes, of course, they kicked her out of the Station and told her to stop wasting their time.

Eddie Mannix told me that I didn’t see Gable. He told me I didn’t see him because the new contract I was about to sign with the Studio caused temporary blindness when it came to things like seeing Clark Gable in uncompromising positions. I told him to shove it.

I smiled. I could just imagine Eddie’s face.

Gable wasn’t in the State when it happened. I checked. It wasn’t him.

I know what I saw!

Do you? Let’s find out.

Wha-

I didn’t wait for permission. I’d let her talk that one through with her lawyer at a later date, should she feel the need. I simply poked a great big hole through her brain and headed straight for the back. I tunnelled through memories, piling backwards from being spooked by some limey broad with bright white hair, to vomiting in the courtyard, to last night (she was right, the boy didn’t have a clue what he was doing), and back, and back, and back.

Everything was overlayed with images of Elizabeth Short, like re-used film. She’d seared through and imprinted herself on all that came afterwards. A double exposure. Elizabeth Short laid out naked in bed with her, right alongside all her other lovers, Elizabeth Short ordering a Manhattan at her side, Elizabeth Short in a thousand tortured imaginings of what she went through in that missing week—not memories, but no less vivid, no less real in her mind.

I was sitting in the editing suite of her memories, running them back and forth, searching for the start. Or the end. Perspective, I guess. She was tortured