James Ellroy: American tabloid

America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can’t ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can’t lose what you lacked at conception.

Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight.

The real Trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He talked a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab.

Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. It’s time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall.

They were rogue cops and shakedown artists. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it.

It’s time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It’s time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time.

Here’s to them.

He always shot up by TV light.

Some spics waved guns. The head spic plucked bugs from his beard and fomented. Black amp; white footage; CBS geeks in jungle fatigues. A newsman said, Cuba, bad juju-Fidel Castro’s rebels vs. Fulgencio Batista’s standing army.

Howard Hughes found a vein and mainlined codeine. Pete watched on the sly-Hughes left his bedroom door ajar.

The dope hit home. Big Howard went slack-faced.

Room service carts clattered outside. Hughes wiped off his spike and ffipped channels. The “Howdy Doody” show replaced the news-standard Beverly Hills Hotel business.

Pete walked out to the patio-pool view, a good bird-dog spot. Crappy weather today: no starlet types in bikinis.

He checked his watch, antsy.

He had a divorce gig at noon-the husband drank lunch alone and dug young cooze. Get quality flashbulbs: blurry photos looked like spiders fucking. On Hughes’ timecard: find out who’s hawking subpoenas for the TWA antitrust divestment case and bribe them into reporting that Big Howard blasted off for Mars.

Crafty Howard put it this way: “I’m not going to fight this divestment, Pete. I’m simply going to stay incommunicado indefinitely and force the price up until I have to sell. I’m tired of TWA anyway, and I’m not going to sell until I can realize at least five hundred million dollars.”

He’d said it pouty: Lord Fauntleroy, aging junkie.

Ava Gardner cruised by the pool. Pete waved; Ava flipped him the bird. They went back: he got her an abortion in exchange for a weekend with Hughes. Renaissance Man Pete: pimp, dope procurer, licensed PI goon.

Hughes and him went waaay back.

June ‘52. L.A. County Deputy Sheriff Pete Bondurant-night watch commander at the San Dimas Substation. That one shitty night: a nigger rape-o at large, the drunk tank packed with howling juiceheads.

This wino gave him grief. “I know you, tough guy. You kill innocent women and your own-”

He beat the man to death barefisted.

The Sheriff’s hushed it up. An eyeball witness squealed to the Feds. The L.A. agent-in-charge tagged Joe Wino “Joe Civil Rights Victim.”

Two agents leaned on him: Kemper Boyd and Ward J. Littell. Howard Hughes saw his picture in the paper and sensed strongarm potential. Hughes got the beef quashed and offered him a job: fixer, pimp, dope conduit.

Howard married Jean Peters and installed her in a mansion by herself. Add “watchdog” to his duties; add the world’s greatest rent-free doghouse: the mansion next door.

Howard Hughes on marriage: “I find it a delightful institution, Pete, but I also find cohabitation stressful. Explain that to Jean periodically, won’t you? And if she gets lonely, tell her that she’s in my thoughts, even though I’m very busy.”

Pete lit a cigarette. Clouds passed over-pool loungers shivered. The intercom crackled-Hughes was beckoning.

He walked into the bedroom. “Captain Kangaroo” was on TV, the volume down low.

Dim black amp; white lighting-and Big Howard in deep-focus shadows.

“Sir?”

“It’s ‘Howard’ when we’re alone. You know that.”

“I’m feeling subservient today.”

“You mean you’re feeling your oats with your paramour, Miss Gail Hendee. Tell me, is she enjoying the surveillance house?’

“She likes it. She’s as hinky of shack jobs as you are, and she says twenty-four rooms for two people smooths things out.”

“I like independent women.”

“No you don’t.”

Hughes plumped up his pillows. “You’re correct. But I do like the idea of independent women, which I have always tried to exploit in my movies. And I’m sure Miss Hendee is both a wonderful extortion partner and mistress. Now, Pete, about the TWA divestment…”

Pete pulled a chair up. “The process servers won’t get to you. I’ve got every employee at this hotel bribed, and I’ve got an actor set up in a bungalow two rows over. He looks like you and dresses like you, and I’ve got call girls going in at all hours, to perpetuate the myth that you still fuck women. I check every man and woman who applies for work here, to make sure the Justice Department doesn’t slip a ringer in. All the shift bosses here play the stock market, and for every month you go unfuckingsubpoenaed I give them twenty shares of Hughes Tool Company stock apiece. As long as you stay in this bungalow, you won’t be served and you won’t have to appear in court.”

Hughes plucked at his robe-little palsied fidgets. “You’re a very cruel man.”

“No, I’m your very cruel man, which is why you let me talk back to you.”

“You’re ‘my man,’ but you still retain your somewhat tawdry private investigator sideline.”

“That’s because you crowd me. That’s because I’m not so good at cohabitation either.”

“Despite what I pay you?’

“No, because of it.”

“For instance?’

“For instance, I’ve got a mansion in Holmby Hills, but you’ve got the deed. I’ve got a ‘58 Pontiac coupe, but you’ve got the pink slip. I’ve got a-”

“This is getting us nowhere.”

“Howard, you want something. Tell me what it is and I’ll do it.”

Hughes tapped his remote-control gizmo. “Captain Kangaroo” blipped off. “I’ve purchased Hush-Hush magazine. My reasons for acquiring a scurrilous scandal rag are twofold. One, I’ve been corresponding with J. Edgar Hoover, and I want to solidify my friendship with him. We both love the type of Hollywood gossip that Hush-Hush purveys, so owning the magazine would be both pleasurable and a smart political move. Second, there’s politics itself. To be blunt, I want to be able to smear politicians that I dislike, especially profligate playboys like Senator John Kennedy, who might be running for President against my good friend Dick Nixon in 1960. As you undoubtedly know, Kennedy’s father and I were business rivals back in the ‘20s, and frankly, I hate the entire family.”

Pete said, “And?’