Sunset People. Herbert Kastle

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      Physically, there was much to be said for men.

      The doorbell tinkled. She closed her book, checking the time. Four-ten. Seven customers since midnight, which was busier than usual for this shift. Of course, it was Friday night, Saturday morning.

      She looked at the man in the doorway: in his thirties. Tall and hard-looking in his work-a-day gray suit. Faded blond hair cut medium-short; less-faded mustache worn medium-full.

      She couldn’t be wrong about this one. She’d seen them come in flashing badges too often.

      She didn’t have to ask the question.

      “I’m a police officer. Are you Diana Searls?”

      She was surprised. Unlike some of the other girls, she had no record to speak of, and wasn’t known by sight. “Yes.”

      “Did you have a sister named Carla Woodruff?”

      Woodruff was their real name, which she’d dropped in order to keep it out of the parlors.

      “Yes. Is there anything wrong?” (And he’d spoken of Carla in the past tense and she began to fear . . . but most cops were such illiterates.)

      He came inside. He didn’t answer her.

      “I haven’t seen any credentials,” she said, fear for Carla growing. She knew what this world was. She knew what it could do.

      He showed her a badge and card. She read the card aloud: “Lawrence Admer, lieutenant. What about my sister?”

      “She was in the same business as you, right?” His eyes flickered over her body.

      (The past tense again.) “Wrong. She works in a dress shop.”

      “Only she lost the job and was looking for new employment, on the street maybe eleven, maybe twelve tonight, right?”

      “Not right. She didn’t work weekends. You can check with her employer. Did you bust her for prostitution because she was walking along the street? Did she give me as a reference?” (She hoped, hoped, and didn’t believe.)

      “Why? Has it happened before?”

      “Never!” She sat down, knees suddenly weak. “Is she outside in your car?”

      “No.”

      “Then why all the questions, the implications that she’s a hooker?”

      “Because someone killed her and it fits the pattern of pimp justice or hooker haters.”

      He was looking around.

      “What?” she whispered.

      He moved to the small plaster Venus near the rear curtain and began examining it closely. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She was found dead, gunshot wound, on a side street off Sunset, not far from here.”

      He lifted his eyes to the curtain and reached out as if to pull it aside; then turned and met her stunned gaze. He said, “It’ll help us find whoever did it if we get the nonsense about her profession out of the way. Get us talking to the right people . . .”

      “Goddam you!” And having nowhere to go with her agony but at his bland, blond, uncaring face, she lunged up and around the desk, reaching with her nails.

      “Take it easy,” he said, grabbing her wrists, finally showing some emotion. He was angry.

      “You asshole!” she shouted, hating him.

      “What the hell, lady! I’m not responsible.”

      She stopped struggling. “Oh yes you are. God, are you ever.”

      “Now how do you figure that?”

      She tugged her wrists, and he freed them. She went to the closet, got her clothes, and turned to the curtain.

      “You’re not going to run out the back, are you?”

      She was thinking of Carla and trying not to cry and she kept going.

      He followed her. He examined the toilet before allowing her to enter.

      When she came out, he was using the desk phone. “Local call,” he said.

      She released the automatic snap-lock on the door, and went out to the parking lot. She saw the other cop leaning against a dark, four-door sedan, the only car there besides her Fiat. She walked over, and he nodded, and she opened the door and got in back.

      He was a short, powerfully built man, older than the other, and he got in front and turned to her, smiling. “Hey, honey, you’re pretty. You gonna help us?”

      She looked out the side window, away from him.

      Which was when his attitude changed radically. He lunged over the seat, grabbed her arm, and jerked her toward him. “I’m speaking to you, cunt!”

      She kept her face turned away.

      And the other detective was there, looking in at them. “Marv, it’s the deceased’s sister.”

      “So the dead whore’s got a live whore for a sister. So when I speak to her I expect an answer.” He shook her savagely.

      “And when I speak to you,” Admer said, opening the driver’s door, “I expect you to remember who’s the lieutenant and who’s the sergeant.”

      “Shit,” the short detective muttered, but he flung her arm away and turned in his seat.

      Admer got behind the wheel.

      Diana didn’t cry. Not until she had to identify her baby sister at the morgue.

      THREE: Saturday, July 29, p.m.

      Frank Berdon slept as late as Lila and his mother would allow him to, which was a little past noon and better than usual for recent weekends.

      The two women had “discussions,” as Lila called them. Though his mother was partially deaf and partially senile at seventy years of age and how Lila could discuss anything with her was beyond him. He certainly couldn’t do anything with his mother but nod at her constant instructions, lectures, diatribes which no one could interrupt. Except Lila. Her powerful soprano got through even those dulled ears to that dull brain.

      And through to him in the master bedroom. The stucco California cottage south of Sunset, a few blocks east of La Cienega, was small, and there was no place to hide but under the covers.

      He tried it, and Lila opened the door. “She’s impossible! It gets worse every day!”

      He stuck his head out. “I know.”

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