James Ellroy - The Best American Crime Writing 2005

Arrogant, compassionate, and reckless, David Arndt seems incapable of living his life in anything but capital letters.

Not long after this piece was published, federal prosecutors swooped in and took over the county drug case against him. They alleged Arndt was a serious drug dealer, part of a wider ring, and that the undercover sting at the Chandler Inn exposed just a glimpse of his illegal activity.

To support their case, they produced testimony in court papers from several unnamed witnesses. The most sensational allegation: that Arndt was supplementing his income by practicing "back-alley medicine." This image of Arndt, the once-rising star in the dazzling constellation of Boston medicine, furtively sewing up bullet holes in drug-trade players unwilling to go to the hospital might be dismissed as too implausible by even immoderate screenwriters. But for people who lived through Arndt's real-life fall, nothing could be considered too over the top. Even the language attributed to Arndt fits the part. One witness said the former surgeon had boasted he would have no problem "disemboweling," with just a "quick swipe of the scalpel," anyone who "ratted" on him about his drug deals.

With the new federal charges, Arndt was ordered held without bail. In the Middlesex County case involving charges of statutory child rape, a trial date was set for the fall of 2005.

Meanwhile,Arndt's malpractice insurer agreed to pay $1.25 mil-ion to Charles Algeri, the former cab driver Arndt left anesthetized on the operating table while he ran out to the bank. Algeri says Arndt botched his surgery so badly that he was left with excruciating pain and had to undergo two additional operations to try to correct the damage.

Having battled his own drug addiction years ago, Algeri says he often finds himself replaying in his mind the fateful morning when he went under the knife with Arndt. "The day he showed up, I should have known better. I said to myself, 'There's something wrong with this guy.' Dark circles under his eyes, unshaven-he was a mess. But what am I supposed to do? Ask him to pee in a cup? Piss off the guy who's about to cut me open?"

On June 29, 2005, after spending nearly a year in jail, Arndt walked into a courtroom and pleaded guilty to a host of federal drug charges, including conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

He did so knowing that sentencing guidelines will require him to spend a minimum of ten years in prison. The prosecutor said she will recommend a sentence of fifteen to nineteen years.

In court, Arndt was unusually contrite, telling the judge he had been addicted to drugs. "I was out of my mind," Arndt said, "and being incarcerated probably saved my life."

Writers' debts accrue over time. You determine the origins of your craft. You look back. You chart books read, style and theme assimilated, the big hurts that made you vow payback on paper. Crime writers get wistful over gas-chamber ghouls and sex psychopaths. Middle-age makes you mark moments.You rematriculate your criminal education.

Mine was more street than most and puerile in the long run. It was snafu as lifestyle. It was idiot kicks. It was books read, books read, books read.

The books were strictly crime books. They transmogrified my childhood grief. They supplied narrative transfusion. They gave me my world heightened and eroticized. Writers came and went. A few turned escapism into near-formal study. One man served as moral rebuke and all-time teacher. This is for him.

Itwas fall '73. I was twenty-five. I ran circumspectly wild in L.A. I vibed grotesque. I ran six-three and one-forty. My upper body weight was all pustule. My diet was shoplifted luncheon meat, dine-and-dash restaurant food, Thunderbird wine, and dope. I slept in a Goodwill box behind a Mayfair Market. The fit was tight. Discarded clothes provided warmth and minor comfort. I stayed west of skid row and mass street bum encampments. I carried a razor and shaved with dry soap in gas-station men's rooms. I took garden-hose spritzes and minimized visible dirt and stink. I sold my blood plasma for five scoots a go. I roamed L.A. I did sporadic pops of county-jail time. I swiped skin mags and jacked off by flashlight in my Goodwill-box condo.

I was on a minor misanthrope on a mission. My mission was READ. I read in public libraries and my box. I read crime books exclusively. My crime-study mandate was fifteen years tenured. My mother was murdered in June '58. It remained an unsolved sex-snuff. I was ten years old then. My mother's death did not inflict standard childhood trauma. I hated and lusted for the woman. The killing instilled my mental curriculum and beckoned me to fulltime obsession. My field of study was CRIME.

Fall '73. Warm days undercut by smog. Cramped nights as a Goodwill-box dweller.

Joseph Wambaugh had a new book out. The title was The Onion Field. It was Wambaugh's first shot at nonfiction. Two punks kidnap two LAPD men. It goes way bad from there. I'd read a prepub magazine excerpt. I was half-bombed at the Hollywood library. The excerpt was brief. It slammed me and made me want more. Pub date approached. Two blood-bank jolts would glom me the cover price, with booze cash to spare. I sold my plasma. I got the coin. I blew said coin on T-bird, cigarettes, and kraut dogs. I raged to read that book. Inimical and more pressing urges interdicted it. Frustration reigned. Ambivalence grabbed me. My chemical/survival compulsions warred with my higher calling of reading. I got hammered and hitched up to Hollywood. I hit the Pickwick Bookstore. I wore my shirttail out and utilized my skinny physiogamy. I jammed a copy of The Onion Field down my pants and beat feet.

Fate interceded-in the form of LAPD.

I got eighty-odd pages in. Park bench reads by daylight, box reads by night. I met the two shanghaied cops and liked them. Ian Campbell-doomed to die young. A Scots-American bagpiper. Brainy, a bit mournful. Dislocated in '58 L.A. Become a policeman?-sure. Stand tall, touch the wild side, and rake in five yards a month. Karl Hettinger-Campbell's partner. A dry wit, surface cynicism, stretched nerves underneath. Gregory Powell and Jimmy Smith-a salt-and-pepper team. They're parolees. White man Powell's the alpha dog. He's a skinny-ass, long-necked stone pervert. Black man Smith's a hype. He's playing lapdog and pork-ing Powell's bitch on the side. They're out heisting liquor stores. Campbell and Hettinger are working felony-car nights. The four-man collision occurs. Character is fate. It goes shit-your-pants, all-the-way bad.

Knock, knock-nightstick raps on my Goodwill-box door.

It's Officer Dukeshearer and Officer McCabe-Wilshire Division, LAPD. They've popped me before. It's a plain-drunk roust this time. Someone saw me hop in my box and buzzed the fuzz. Dukeshearer and McCabe treat me with the expansive courtesy that cops reserve for the pathetic. They note my copy of The Onion Field and praise my reading taste. I go to Wilshire Station. Copy Number One of The Onion Field disappears.

I got arraigned the next morning. I pled guilty. The judge gave me time served. This did not mean instant courtroom kick-out. It meant county-jail intake and release from there.

The intake took sixteen hours. Cavity searches, chest X-rays, blood tests, delousing. Intensive exposure to various strains of indigenous L.A. lowlife-all possessed of greater machismo and street panache than me. A Mexican drag queen named "Peaches" squeezed my knee. I popped the fucking puto in the chops. Peaches went down, got up and kicked my ass. Two deputies quelled the fracas. It amused them. Some inmates applauded Peaches. A few hooted at me.

I wanted to be back to my box. I wanted to be back on Crime Time. I wanted to get down with Ian and Karl and the killers.

I processed in and out of jail within twenty hours. Crime Time became Wambaugh Time. I stole a pint of vodka, got bombed and walked to Hollywood. I hit the Pickwick Bookstore and stole Copy Number Two of The Onion Field. I read some park-bench pages and hit my box at twilight. I was now 150-odd pages in.