Page 9 of Nocturne

8

CALLAHAN

E lizabeth Short’s room at the Barclay is exactly as she left it—a testament to death’s sudden arrival, or perhaps to the LAPD’s indifference to a dead girl’s meager possessions.

I flash my credentials to Mrs. Rossi, the tired-eyed landlady who seems caught between macabre interest in her infamous former tenant and fear that the association might drive away future business. She unlocks the door with shaking hands before retreating back to her first-floor apartment, leaving me alone in the small, tidy space.

The room is impersonal, the way temporary lodgings often are. A twin bed with a worn floral quilt. A vanity with a cracked mirror. A small desk beneath the room’s single window. The LAPD has already been through it, of course, but cops miss things. They’re looking for sensational evidence—bloody clothes, threatening letters, murder weapons. I’m looking for the quiet details, the whispers between facts.

I begin with the vanity, methodically examining each item. Makeup, bobby pins, a brush with dark strands of hair still caught in the bristles. Elizabeth Short cultivated a certain image —the dark hair, pale skin, and bright lipstick that became her trademark. I wonder what she’d think of her nickname that is now outliving her.

The desk drawers yield more: unpaid bills, postcards from her sister, rejection letters from casting agents, a half-used book of bus tickets. In the bottom drawer, I find a small metal box containing several photographs. Elizabeth wearing bunny ears with a baby chick in her hands. Elizabeth posing in a swimsuit on the beach. Elizabeth with Lena Reid, seems the same day as the other photo Virginia had given me.

I examine this photo more closely. The two women are laughing, arms linked, standing outside what looks like a diner. Casual, genuine happiness—not the posed glamour of Elizabeth’s other photographs. I pocket it, telling myself it’s evidence.

The closet contains a modest collection of mostly black dresses, a suitcase, and several shoeboxes. Nothing unusual. I continue searching, finally finding what I’m looking for tucked inside a copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice —a small address book. I flip through, noting names, most unfamiliar. Lena Reid’s name has a star beside it. Several entries are marked only with initials.

And on the back page, a single address with no name attached. The same warehouse district location Lena and I visited yesterday.

I pocket the address book alongside the photograph and continue my methodical search, looking for anything that might connect to the Europeans Lena mentioned. Nothing obvious presents itself, though I do find several matchbooks from high-end establishments—places a struggling actress shouldn’t have been able to afford. I wonder how often she was cadging at those places, trying to get a free meal or drinks from a generous—or not-so generous—soul.

As I prepare to leave, a wave of dizziness hits me without warning. I grab the edge of the desk, waiting for it to pass.

Stress and lack of sleep , I tell myself. Nothing more.

Can’t be anything more.

Grief has funny ways of haunting you , my doctor had once said.

But I’d done my grieving.

I check my watch. Just past three. Plenty of time to follow up on a few more leads before darkness falls.

The darkness is what wakes me.

I open my eyes to find myself in my car, engine off, parked on a street I don’t immediately recognize. My watch reads 1:17 a.m.

What the fuck?

Nearly ten hours unaccounted for now.

Panic rises in my throat as I orient myself. North Ivar Avenue. I’m parked across from the Alto Nido apartments.

Lena’s building.

I have no memory of driving here. No memory of anything after leaving Elizabeth’s boarding house. Just a blank space where hours should be.

Jesus Christ.

My hands grip the steering wheel, knuckles white in the dim glow of the streetlamp. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost hours, but it’s the longest blackout yet. And the first time I’ve woken somewhere with no recollection of why I came.

I check myself for injuries, for blood—anything to explain this episode. Nothing. Just the lingering metallic taste in my mouth that always accompanies these blackouts.

A light comes on in a third-floor window of the apartment building. Through the thin curtains, I can make out a silhouette—a woman’s form, her hair loose around her shoulders.

Lena.

Something stirs in me, a hunger that feels both foreign and familiar. I watch as she moves across the window, unaware of being observed. The distance should make details impossible to discern, yet somehow I can see the curve of her neck, the graceful arc of her arm as she reaches up to pull the curtain closed.

What am I doing here? Am I investigating Elizabeth Short’s murder, or am I stalking Lena Reid? The line between professional interest and personal obsession has blurred dangerously.

I start the car and pull away from the curb, forcing myself to focus on the road rather than the window that now glows like a beacon behind me. The darkness wraps around me, comfortable, almost sentient. I’ve always been a creature of the night, working better after the sun sets. Lately, though, light has become increasingly difficult to tolerate, the California sun too bright, the noises too loud—another oddity to add to my growing list of concerns.

Back at my apartment, I pour three fingers of whiskey and down it in one swallow. The alcohol does nothing to dull the strange energy thrumming through me. Sleep seems impossible, though exhaustion pulls at my limbs.

I think of Lena—her dark eyes holding secrets, her voice like smoke and velvet, the electricity that passed between us at the warehouse. The memory of her body pressed against mine in that shadowed alleyway as we hid from Cohen’s men sends heat coursing through me.

I lean back in my chair, my fingers unbuttoning my fly, my cock already straining against my pants, begging to be let loose. I pull it out, long, thick and hot, making a tight fist as I succumb to where my mind has been dying to go.

I imagine Lena on her knees, those fiery curls spilling over her shoulders, lips parted. Her fingers trace the length of me, teasing, tempting. I picture her straddling my lap, her dress slipping down to reveal full breasts that heave with each breath, the tiniest pink nipples that taste like heaven on my tongue. She kisses me hard, fierce and demanding, riding me like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do—like I’m the last man she’ll ever fuck.

The images flood my mind, dirty, lewd, making me groan. Her voice echoes in my ears, a breathless whisper of want and need. My own words go harder. “Take that cock, you dirty little slut,” I tell her as she moans and claws at my back. “You want it, don’t you, kitten? You fucking love it.”

I see her beneath me on silk sheets, dark eyes full of mischief and promise. It’s all so vivid; it overtakes me until I barely recognize my own fantasies. My hand moves faster as I imagine spreading her pink cunt wide open and taking everything she has to give.

My hand moves faster now and I imagine her nails digging into my skin, the heat of her breath against my neck. The whiskey burns in my veins and I pretend Lena’s body is face down beneath me now, supple ass pressed against me, taking every inch like she can’t get enough.

“That’s right,” I tell her. “You’re mine now.”

Mine.

The thought of owning her, claiming her, while burying myself deep inside her is enough to send me over the edge.

My hips buck off the chair and I come with her name on my lips, hot spurts streaking across my shirt as I gasp for air.

The release leaves me shaking, my breath ragged against the silence of the room. My cum drips down my knuckles, sticky and cooling as it smears across my stomach. I sag back in the chair, feeling empty and raw, like I’ve ripped something from deep inside myself and cast it to the floor.

Yet I can’t shed her yet. Her ghostly touch lingers on my skin. The whiskey bottle taunts me from across the room, but even that seems powerless against this new and dangerous hunger.

Afterward, shame and confusion war within me. This fixation isn’t like me. I’ve always prided myself on compartmentalizing, on keeping professional distance. Yet Lena Reid has somehow breached those carefully constructed walls without even trying.

I fall into a fitful sleep, dreams filled with shadowed figures and the scent of jasmine and blood.

The next day passes in a fog of investigation. I follow up with the coroner’s office, calling in a favor to access Elizabeth Short’s full autopsy report. The details are more gruesome than the newspapers reported—her body completely drained of blood, bisected with surgical precision, her internal organs removed with methodical care, everything from her liver to her uterus. Pieces of her body were cut off and inserted inside her vagina. Not the work of a frenzied killer, but someone with knowledge and patience.

“Anything unusual besides the obvious?” I ask Dr. Davidson, an old acquaintance who owes me for keeping his gambling habits quiet.

“Blood type was rare,” he says, lighting a cigarette despite hospital regulations. “AB negative. Made identifying her a bit easier—we had her blood type on file from a donation drive last year, along with her fingerprints from her DUI in Santa Barbara.”

“Anything else?”

Davidson hesitates, glancing around the morgue. There’s another technician standing in the corner, back to us but out of earshot. “There were…inconsistencies in the wound patterns. Some looked older than others. We think the killer took his time, torturing her over days.”

My stomach turns. “She was kept alive during part of it?”

“Seems to suggest that.” He shrugs. “She was killed maybe 14 hours before we found her. What’s even weirder is some of the incisions seemed almost ritualistic. Not your standard sadist’s work. This was a sick freak.”

Ritualistic. Coleman had used that word before, Lena said the same thing about the drawings in the diary and the symbol on the warehouse wall—faded outlines beneath a hasty coat of paint. What kind of ritual involves draining someone’s blood? I’m not sure I want to know.

I spend the afternoon tracing Elizabeth’s movements in the days before her disappearance. The Biltmore Hotel confirms she was seen in the lobby on January ninth speaking with an unidentified man just outside but they can’t give me any more info than that.

By evening, I’m heading to The Emerald Room. I tell myself it’s purely business, even though I know better.

I arrive early, securing a corner table with a clear view of the stage. The club is already filling with the usual mix of gangsters, businessmen looking for thrills, and Hollywood types slumming it for the night. I order a whiskey this time and settle in to wait.

At nine, the house lights dim. The band begins a slow, smoky number, and she appears.

Lena Reid takes the stage like she owns it, a black strapless dress adorned with sequins catching the spotlight, red hair gleaming like fire. The crowd falls silent as she approaches the microphone, her presence commanding attention without demanding it.

When she begins to sing “You Go to My Head” something shifts inside me. Her voice bypasses my ears and goes straight to my blood, stirring it like a physical touch. I find myself leaning forward, drawn toward her like iron to a magnet.

Halfway through her first song, she notices me. Our eyes lock across the room, and for a moment, the rest of the club disappears. She doesn’t miss a note, doesn’t break her performance, but something passes between us.

Something real.

I remain through her entire set, nursing the same whiskey. When she finishes to enthusiastic applause, I wait. I don’t want to follow her backstage, that might call too much attention to myself. I put the next move in her hands.

Sure enough, after she goes backstage, she appears a few minutes later, making her way through the crowd, accepting compliments with practiced grace. She slows as she approaches my corner.

“Mr. Callahan,” she says, voice carrying just enough to be heard over the band’s interlude. “Becoming a regular, are we?”

“Just following leads, Ms. Reid,” I reply, though we both know it’s not entirely true.

“Find any worth pursuing?” A subtle challenge in her tone.

“One or two.” I meet her gaze steadily. “I’d like to discuss them with you.”

“I have another set in twenty minutes.”

“Tomorrow, then. I’ll pick you up at noon.”

It’s not a question, and she doesn’t treat it as one. She gives me a small, amused smile. “Presumptuous, Callahan,” she says, her voice extra throaty and bringing up the images I fantasized about earlier.

“Efficient,” I counter. “Dollface.”

She studies me for a long moment, then nods once. “Noon. Don’t be late.”

As she walks away, I feel eyes on me from across the room. A man at the bar—one of Marco Russo’s associates, I’m certain. Watching me watch Lena. I meet his stare until he looks away, message received. I’m not intimidated by Cohen’s enforcers.

I should be, perhaps. Men who cross Mickey Cohen have a habit of disappearing. But lately, I’ve found myself strangely unconcerned with ordinary dangers. As if something inside me knows I’m beyond them somehow.

Outside, the night embraces me like an old friend. I light a cigarette, considering my next move. The rational part of me says to go home, review my notes, prepare for tomorrow’s meeting with Lena. But another part—a part growing stronger each day—wants to follow her, to watch her from shadows, to understand what it is about her that calls to something primal within me.

I compromise, walking to my car but not immediately driving away. Instead, I wait, knowing she’ll emerge eventually. Not to approach her—just to see which way she goes, to ensure she gets home safely.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

When she appears an hour later, I sink lower in my seat. She pauses on the sidewalk, scanning the street with unusual alertness before starting in the direction of her apartment. I wait until she’s a block away before starting my car, following at a discreet distance.

This isn’t me, this borderline stalking. I’m a good ol’ Irish boy from Chicago, one who married young then went to fight the Nazis in the war. Yet I can’t seem to stop myself. Something about Lena has bypassed my carefully constructed self-control, tapping into instincts I didn’t know I possessed.

Instincts to want.

To need.

To possess.

I follow her for three blocks before she suddenly turns, staring directly at my parked car despite the darkness. It should be impossible for her to see me at this distance, yet I have the unsettling feeling that she knows exactly who’s following her.

Does she like it?

Does it thrill her to have me on her tail?

After a moment, she continues walking, her pace unhurried yet purposeful. I remain where I am, fighting the urge to continue the pursuit. This has gone far enough. I’m investigating a murder, not indulging whatever this obsession is.

Yet as I drive home, her image remains before me—proud posture, knowing eyes, secrets written in the curve of her lips. And beneath it all, the nagging sense that Lena Reid is somehow key to understanding not just Elizabeth Short’s murder, but something about myself.

Something about who I am.

Tomorrow , I tell myself. Tomorrow I’ll approach this professionally. Ask the right questions. Maintain appropriate distance.

But even as I form this resolution, I know it’s a lie. There’s nothing professional about what’s happening between us. Nothing appropriate about the raw hunger that rises when I think of her.

And nothing rational about the certainty that she feels it too.