The Last Embrace (36 page)

When she’d left in ’44, there had been blackouts, the beaches closed and battened down for fear of Japanese invasion. Now electric lights glinted wetly off the rides. She heard the rackety clack of the wooden roller coaster, the screams of the riders, the asthmatic wheeze of the diving bell plunging people to the sea bottom, the carnival barkers and touts.

The damp wood splintered under her black heels.
Please, Lord, don’t let me become the Black Sandal,
she prayed. There were people fishing off the pier, raggedy hobo men and tiny Asians, bent as commas. A sailor with his arm around a girl lurched out of an arcade, their laughter emerging in puffy white clouds on the sea air. She saw crabs and lobsters scrabbling desperately against the glass walls of their tanks, knew exactly how they felt. But she was confused. There were two stands advertising oysters, one close by, another past the carousel.

Lily looked at her watch. In her clandestine days she’d never waited more than five minutes for a rendezvous. After that, you became a target for anyone watching. She hurried toward the first oyster bar. She felt vulnerable out here in public, where anyone could see her.

Someone called her name. Lily froze.

She turned, cringing as she recognized the voice.

It was Magruder. With two more cops behind him, blocking the mouth of the pier and any possible exit back onto the streets.

“Lily,” Magruder called. “Over here.”

Lily’s eyes widened. She shook her head and took a step back. “No,” she said.

“It’s all right, Lily,” Magruder said. “I spoke to Pico. How do you think we knew where to find you?”

He spread his arms, palms up, to show he had nothing to hide. His voice was patient, encouraging, the way you’d coax a stray dog to shelter.

Her thoughts went around and around. It was a trap. Pico didn’t trust Magruder. This wasn’t in the plan. He wouldn’t have told Magruder where to find her. But then how had he learned? How else could he have gotten here so fast? Around and around her thoughts went, like the carousel on the pier. She couldn’t think straight. She had to. She struggled to reach a decision. She’d do what Pico told her. She trusted him. He wouldn’t betray her.

“You must be chilled, this damp night air,” Magruder said, taking off his coat, holding it out to her. “Come in out of the cold, Lily. Put this on. It’ll keep you warm.”

His solicitous attitude chilled her even more than the clammy night.

“No,” she screamed, running toward the nearest oyster bar a mere ten feet away. That way lay safety. Not toward Magruder and into the arms of a corrupt cop. “Dear God,” she cried. “Will no one help me?”

Just then another figure stepped out from behind the oyster stand. He was tall, wearing a suit and a black overcoat. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“Lily,” he said, extending a hand.

She froze, hoping beyond hope.

“Who are you? Are you Car—” She stopped, realizing she had to let him identify himself. For all she knew, Magruder had men all over the pier.

The man gave a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Lily. You’re safe now. You’d better come with me quickly.”

She looked from him back to Magruder forty feet away, whose men had bunched around him now, the three of them pushing through the crowd toward her.

The man in the coat was holding something up. It was a badge. She couldn’t read it properly, but she made out an embossed shield.

Magruder and his men drew nearer. Thirty feet. Twenty-five.

“Lily, get away from him,” Magruder called.

“Are you Carlson?” Lily asked, desperate now.

“He’s not a cop, Lily,” Magruder screamed. “It’s a trick. Run.”

The black-coated man looked steadily at the beefy cop. “You’re making a big mistake, Magruder. The debt must be paid. It’s time. Now back off.”

“I don’t care. I’m not going to stand by and let you kill this innocent girl. Run, Lily, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

“Lily,” the other man said. “I’m Carlson. You need to trust me, not that pathetic excuse of a cop over there. He’s dirty, Lily, and more than that, he’s a murderer. He killed Kitty Hayden. You’re lucky I found you before he killed you too.”

Magruder’s mouth was moving, foam gathering at the corners as he fought to speak.

“Whatever he says, don’t believe him, Lily,” the man who called himself Carlson said. “Your only chance is to come with me.”

Magruder was fifteen feet away now. He reached for his gun. The men behind him did too. The older cop looked at the revelers thronging all around. He wouldn’t get a clean shot.

“Let’s go,” the man with the badge said urgently. “Before they shoot.”

Lily saw the homicidal rage on Magruder’s face as he strode forward, the crowd parting at the guns. Ten feet. Who could she trust? If she chose wrong, she’d die.

Lily turned and ran with the man across the pier. They ducked behind a ring-toss booth, hurrying along the backs of tents. The man steered her toward a set of stairs that materialized out of the fog and led down the side of the pier.

Lily balked. “This isn’t what Pico said to do.”

“Change of plans,” the man who called himself Carlson said. “We didn’t expect Magruder to show up either.”

Magruder’s shouts rang in her ears. He was coming closer. With a last look behind her, she started down the stairs, seeing the parking lot below where a car waited, idling.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Hurry,” the man said, bundling her roughly toward the car. He wore a signet ring and it pressed unpleasantly against her bare arm.

From inside the car, Lily heard a strange sound.

It was the sound of laughter.

And then she knew she’d made a horrible mistake.

As the car door opened, she turned and kicked the man between the legs as hard as she could. His grip loosened and she broke free.

“Help,” she screamed.

And then she ran.

Pico kept his foot on the gas pedal the whole way up Highway 1, running stop signs, passing the occasional car, veering into oncoming traffic, cursing and crying. The fog was so thick in places that he couldn’t see. The world had narrowed down to one overriding goal and one person, and as the car raced toward Ocean Park Pier, Pico’s thoughts raced as well, arguing and making deals with God.

Let her be alive, and I promise I’ll never take another free meal or drink again. I’ll be righteous and set an example and do anything you want.

But as he flew toward his rendezvous with Lily, Stephen Pico knew the real bargain God wanted. What he’d only danced around until now. There was only one sacrifice God would accept and he’d always known it. Saving Lily meant destroying his father. His father, who had used blood money linked to Kitty Hayden’s murder to buy his son’s promotion into Homicide, where his very first assignment had been to find the girl’s murderer. With the tacit understanding that maybe he and his partner wouldn’t look too far or ask too many questions. So he cursed as he drove, at the impossible circularity of it, and how inevitable it all seemed. And he vowed to break the chain.

Lily wove through parked cars, trying to escape her pursuers. She screamed, but her cries were muffled by the thickening fog and obscured by the shrieks of roller coaster riders, the general cacophony from the pier. Soon the parking lot ended and she was running on the sand.
Damn these shoes,
she thought. She’d never wear heels again. She wanted to stop and bend down, shuck them off, but her pursuers were gaining on her, they were right behind her. With each step she sank in sand to her ankles. She was going to die, just like Kitty, just like Louise Dobbs and Florence Kwitney. But these weren’t the same men who had chased her downtown. She still believed in Pico. But something had gone wrong, just when she’d been so close to safety. More than anything, she wanted to feel Pico’s arms around her right now, to escape this nightmare and crawl into his warm embrace forever. But five years in Europe should have taught her that she couldn’t depend on anyone else to save her. She was on her own.

She heard shouts now. Footsteps pounding nearby.

“My wife,” the man yelled. “Please, sir, help me. She’s not well.”

“He’s not my husband,” Lily screamed. “I’m being attacked. Help.”

But her words were muffled in the cotton-batting fog, lost on the wind.

“Come back, dearest,” the man’s voice called. “You know you’ve had too much to drink.”

Lily’s heels sunk too deep and she fell. She scrabbled to stand up, and found herself jerked roughly to her feet. The man with the badge, and another one, larger, with a bandage on his nose, and eyes that reflected back emptiness. She smelled black rubber.

“Gotcha,” the bandaged man said, holding her in a vise-like grip.

Lily let herself go limp as they hustled her back to the parking lot, where a car pulled up, the driver shrouded in shadow, his face hidden behind a hat. Above them the pier was alive with echoing cries, police sirens, lights. Why hadn’t it been that way fifteen minutes ago? She wanted to weep.

They shoved her into the backseat and got in, one on either side, a gun pressed against her ribs. The driver took off. She studied the men from the corners of her eyes, memorizing their features in the flicker of the streetlights so she’d be able to pick them out of a lineup. If she lived. The big one on the left with the bashed-in nose, a black eye that was healing purple and yellow. The one on the right fleshy and rugged, almost handsome, like a bit actor. No wonder she’d fallen for his cop impersonation. Again it nagged at her. Impersonators. Actors. Movies. Studios. She remembered the artist she’d glimpsed painting a landscape in the RKO special effects hangar the night she’d met Max. His curious interest. She was almost sure it was the same guy. Was this Roy DiCicco? But Harry had said he was a stuntman, not a prop guy. Could he be both? Were these Dragna’s men?

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Stupid bitch,” the prop painter muttered, hand at his crotch. “I oughta kill you right now.”

Lily sat very still. What did they have in store, then?

“Are you Roy DiCicco?” she asked.

“We’re God’s avenging angels,” said the painter. “Putting the world to rights.”

Again, she thought of the men who’d killed Max. They must be connected with these thugs, somehow. Which meant…mobsters?

“Why did you kill Max Vranizan?” she asked.

There was a low chuckle from the front. The driver spoke for the first time. She still couldn’t see his face. His voice was familiar, but in the utter blankness of her terror, she couldn’t place it.

“There’s animation, and there’s puppetry,” the voice said. “We prefer invisible strings. And actors like Rhett Taylor with great tragic timing.”

O
cean Park Pier was a melee of police and lights and people running madly when Pico screeched to a halt. Magruder was briefing two uniforms.

“He got her,” the older cop said as Pico raced up. “Some guy flashing a badge, pretending he was Carlson. I pleaded with her, but she wouldn’t come with me. They had a getaway car down below in the parking lot, and one of my men got a description of the car and a partial plate. We’ve radioed—”

“You scumbag piece of shit,” screamed Pico. “I should have listened to my instincts. I swear to God, Magruder, if anything’s happened to her, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”

“Get a grip, Stephen. Didn’t you hear what I just said? We’re on the same side. I want her found safe and alive as much as you do and I’ve got an APB out and all prowlers in the area on red alert. She didn’t trust me. I’m sorry, Stephen.”

The older cop placed a hand on Pico’s arm, but he threw it off.

“What have you ever done in your entire sorry life that should make anyone trust you?”

Even now, Pico wasn’t sure whether Magruder was telling him the truth. But the other policeman nodded in solemn agreement. And the prowlers would be on the lookout…

“Which way did they go?” Pico asked.

“They peeled out of the lot and one of our guys chased the car but lost it six blocks inland. Far as we know, though, she was alive.”

Pico stood still, forcing his brain to work. They hadn’t killed her yet. Where were they taking her? He put himself in the killers’ mind-set. And then it hit him.

“Get in the car, Magruder, and pray we’re on time. I know where they’ll be.”

When the car carrying Lily reached Hollywood, it turned north toward the hills.

“Where are you taking me?” Lily repeated, beginning to fear that she knew.

“Up to the Hollywood sign,” the RKO prop painter said. “It’s a popular place these days.”

An evil chorus of laughter ricocheted around the car.

“You’re going to kill me and dump my body. To make it look like it’s connected to the other murders.”

“It
is
connected. We should have stopped you a long time ago. We thought we had, but Taunton steered us wrong about the coat.”

“Louise,” Lily cried. “You thought she was me.”

“That’s right. And the Kwitney gal, she was just to throw everyone off the track. Now the Hollywood Strangler claims his fourth victim.”

“I’ve got sand in my hair. In my shoes. They’ll know you abducted me from the beach.”

“Thank you, Miss Kessler. Louie, take off one of her shoes.” He gave a sadistic smile as the thug with the smashed face bent down to unstrap it. “Bye-bye, Black Sandal.”

Lily noticed a scabrous model of Mighty Joe Young shoved halfway under the seat. It looked like someone had yanked off a patch of fur.

“It’ll never work,” Lily said. “Magruder was there. He saw what happened.”

“Magruder will be taken care of,” the man up front said. “He and his men will recall nothing. Magruder loves his son, and has hefty medical bills.”

Lily fell silent, wondering when she might have a chance to escape. The odds weren’t good. An idea came to her. But she’d have to plan carefully. Timing was crucial.

She turned to the prop painter. “You raped Kitty Hayden,” she said.

“I didn’t rape anybody,” he said angrily. “I get all the girls I want, giving it away.”

“You stole Roy DiCicco’s car off the lot and used it to abduct Kitty. But Rhett Taylor saw you. He gave police a detailed description of you and your pal”—she glanced at the man with the bandaged nose—“who chased her through Hollywood.”

The RKO painter smirked. “She almost got away too. But not quite. My stepfather was very relieved.”

“Who’s your stepfather?”

The gun jabbed her ribs painfully. “None of your business.”

They wound through the Hollywood Hills, the lights of the city sparkling like jewels on black velvet. The car pulled over. The driver turned around. He wore a gloating smile. Lily saw the face of RKO Security Chief Frank Rhodes.

And then she understood.

“It was you…behind everything. You’re the one who raped her.”

The expression on Rhodes’s face grew pinched and mean. “Why should the stars and the moguls be the only ones to enjoy the spoils of Hollywood?”

“How did you learn about her and Kirk?”

“Mrs. Potter told us. So I called up my old friend Bernie Jones at Warner’s and warned him that his golden boy was about to get hit by a major scandal. I owed him a favor, so I promised him I’d take care of it. So what if things got a little out of hand? She should have just shut up about it and done as I told her.”

Joseph’s words echoed in Lily’s head:
She’s absolutely fearless, and she hates like hell to see people get pushed around.

“But Kitty defied you,” Lily said. “She fought back and took her complaint to the police. And when they sat on it she went to Bernard Keck. So you killed her. And you sent your stepson to steal her diary. It might have ended there, but Bernard Keck was an honest man and he’d started asking questions. So you had to kill him too. Then you killed two more girls to make it look like there was a Hollywood Strangler killing girls at random.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Frank Rhodes said. “Did I, Stanley?” His eyes went to the fleshy, handsome prop painter who held a gun to Lily’s side.

“You’re disgusting,” Lily said. “Forcing your stepson to do your dirty work.”

“He’s well paid for his troubles.”

“I hope everything’s ready in TJ,” Stanley said.

“Five hours from now you’ll be in the penthouse suite of the Tijuana Palace Hotel with a bottle of tequila, two hookers, and a twenty-thousand-dollar stake at the casino,” Rhodes said.

“No, he won’t, because Detective Pico knows all about you,” Lily lied in desperation. “He’ll be here any moment.”

Rhodes laughed. “Your Detective Pico was born in thrall to us. He’s second-generation. His father was one of the best bagmen in the business.”

“Stephen is different.”

“Don’t delude yourself.”

Rhodes handed his stepson a pen and a cocktail napkin with the word
Largo
inscribed in fancy script.

“Write
HELP
on the napkin,” Rhodes ordered Lily.

“Why?”

“You want to die now or later?”

Lily wrote, the letters coming out shaky, the napkin tearing.

“Perfect,” Frank Rhodes said. “Stuff it in her purse, Stanley. A little mash note for the detectives.”

“What’s Largo?” Lily asked.

“Jack Dragna’s nightclub,” Frank Rhodes said.

“You’re trying to set them up for my murder,” Lily said. “To make it look like one of their guys is the Hollywood Strangler. But it won’t work.”

“Shut up,” said Stanley.

Frank Rhodes reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of wire.

“It’s time for you to join your gal pals on the sacrificial altar of Hollywood,” he said. “Get her out of the car,” he told Stanley, “and keep that gun on her.”

Lily prayed a car would drive by, but the hillside was deserted, no one around for miles. It would be useless to scream.

They hustled her out so fast that her purse tumbled into the dirt.

Rhodes approached, smiling and pulling the wire taut. It made a little metallic
ping
that jangled her bones.

“We gonna do it right here?” Stanley asked.

“I don’t see any reason to wait,” his stepfather snapped.

“And we dump her by the side of the road?”

“It should be like the others. Below the Hollywood sign.”

Stanley shuffled, then squinted at the giant white letters rising high above them.

“How are we gonna get her up there?”

Rhodes sighed in exasperation. “You and Louie are going to carry her.”

“Dead bodies are dead weight,” Louie said.

“Couldn’t we kill her when we get up there?” Stanley whined.

Rhodes drew closer, still holding his wire. Lily stood between the thugs, unable to move, a gun jammed into her ribs. The security chief’s eyes flickered over her, as if assessing her weight versus the likelihood of her somehow making a break for it and running away.

“Give me the gun,” he told his stepson.

When Stanley handed it over, he belted her in the jaw with it. Lily staggered and fell to her knees.

“All right, we’ll walk,” he said, hiking off. “But no funny stuff.”

And then she was stumbling uphill in the dark, the men surrounding her. At least she’d been able to grab her purse. The sign loomed above them, the letters huge and white and monstrous in the moonlight. She heard the scuttling of small nocturnal animals, the faraway screech of a hunting owl. Stanley Rhodes lobbed her high-heeled sandal far into the canyon. It cartwheeled and disappeared, landing in a ravine and startling some unseen animal that crashed through the undergrowth and was gone.

Then they were below the letter
D,
in a spot darker and colder, where even the moonlight didn’t reach. It felt like she was already in the grave. Lily stopped.

“How about a smoke, Stanley?” she said. “Even condemned prisoners get one final request.”

Without thinking, Stanley reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack. A cold breeze whipped at their clothes. Above them, where Frank Rhodes waited impatiently, the scaffolding swayed and creaked. Lily took the cigarette Stanley offered, stuck it between her lips, and waved away the match he offered. “My father gave me a lighter years ago,” she said. “I’d like to use it, for old times’ sake.”

“What’s she doing?” Frank Rhodes asked above her, his voice full of suspicion, the gun still covering her. He started down.

Lily rummaged in her purse, pulled out Bob’s lighter.

“Here it is. Oops, I dropped it.”

Pretending to hunt in her purse, she found the stick of dynamite.

“Dang,” she said, flicking the lighter several times inside her purse. “Must be low on fuel. Wait a minute, here we go.” The fuse caught, began to sizzle. Frank Rhodes had almost reached them. The men’s faces narrowed with puzzlement at the sound, then with suspicion.
One, two, three…

Screaming, “Catch!” she flung her purse at the security chief. Just then the dynamite exploded.

Rhodes shrieked and fell down.

Running helter-skelter down the hill, Lily didn’t dare turn around to see if he was dead. She heard them crashing behind her. She ran at an awkward gait, with one shoe on. Her remaining heel caught on the root of a bush and she went flying head over heels, her arms plowing a furrow in the earth. Skidding to a stop, she jumped back onto her feet, only to feel a large hand clamp down on her shoulder.

“Got you,” Stanley gloated.

“Bring her up here,” screamed Frank Rhodes, staggering to his feet. By the light of the moon, Lily saw that the side of his face was bleeding, the skin and hair singed black. But he was still alive. And he was enraged.

When she refused to stand, Stanley and Louie dragged her back uphill to the sign.

“Stand her on that promontory. Good. Step away from the edge now, boys, I don’t want to shoot you by mistake,” the RKO security chief said

“I thought we were going to strangle her,” Stanley said.

“Change of plans.”

There were three of them and only one of her. If she ran, she’d be dead before she took two steps. If only she could create a distraction.

Just then they heard the whine of a car moving uphill. Headlights raked the hillside and they heard shouts. From her vantage point, Lily saw that the car was still a good distance below, but on that silent, dark hill, it sounded a lot closer.

“Someone’s coming, boss,” said Louie, moving closer to the precipice to look down.

Lily edged toward him. Then, looking past Frank Rhodes and up the hillside, she waved her arms ecstatically and cried, “Pico, Magruder, over here. Watch out, he’s got a gun.”

Startled, Rhodes turned to look behind him.

At that moment, Lily body-slammed Louie. For a moment, he teetered, trying vainly to right himself. Lily planted her foot on his bottom and pushed hard. The man tilted and fell. Gravity did the rest. With a banshee wail, he plummeted down.

Rhodes turned, firing blindly. Lily ducked, zigging and zagging as she made for the opposite end of the sign, hoping the metal letters would offer some protection.

“Get her!” Rhodes cried. Stanley advanced, but Rhodes kept firing. Two bullets whizzed past Lily’s head. The third hit Stanley Rhodes just as he reached her. The prop painter dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach. In the confusion, Lily retreated behind the scaffolding and tried to shrink into the shadows. Rhodes still had the gun, and she was trapped here with him.

“Stanley! No!” Rhodes shouted, reaching his stepson. He probed the wound with one hand, holding his gun with the other, scanning for her, screaming that he would kill her.