Джеймс Эллрой - White Jazz

“You’re naive, Lieutenant. Money won’t make J.C. and Tommy go away.”

“EVERYTHING” = “MORE” = “BULLOCK.”

Back to the trailer dump — a two-tone Packard in the lot. I jammed up behind it, spewing smoke.

Voices, feet kicking gravel.

Thick fumes — I got out coughing. Exley and two IA men — packing shotguns.

“Everything” means “more” means—

Fumes, gravel dust. Shotgun flankers, Exley sweating up a custom-made suit.

“Bullock killed the Herricks and trashed the Kafesjian place. How did you know—”

“I called Chino to get my own roster. That woman in the warden’s office told me you went crazy over Bullock.”

“Let’s take him. And get those guys out of here — I know he’s got stuff on Dudley.”

“You men wait here. Fenner, give the lieutenant your shotgun.”

Fenner tossed it — I pumped a shell home.

Exley said, “All right then.”

Now:

We ran three rows over, six trailers down — civilians watched us slack-jawed. That Airstream — radio hum, the door open—

I stepped in aiming; Exley squeezed in behind me. Two feet away: Wylie Bullock in a lawn chair.

This bland geek:

Smiling.

Raising his hands cop-wise slow.

Spreading ten fingers wide — no harm meant.

I jammed the shotgun barrel under his chin.

Exley cuffed his hands behind his back.

Radio hum: Starfire 88’s at Yeakel Olds.

“Mr. Bullock, you’re under arrest for the murders of Phillip, Laura and Christine Herrick. I’m the LAPD chief of detectives, and I’d like to question you here first.”

Monster’s den: Playboy pinups, mattress. Bullock: Dodger T-shirt, calm brown eyes.

I goosed him: “I know about you and Richie Herrick. I know you told him you’d get him revenge on the Kafesjians, and I’ll bet you know the name Dudley Smith.”

“I want a cell by myself and pancakes for breakfast. If you say that’s okay, I’ll talk to you here.”

I said, “Make like you’re telling us a story.”

“Why? Cops like to ask questions.”

“This is different.”

“Pancakes and sausage? ”

“Sure, every day.”

Chairs circled up, the door shut. No Q&A/no notebooks — Maniac speaks.

June, 1937 — Wylie Bullock, almost twelve — “I was just a kid, you dig me?”

An only child, nice parents — but poor. “Our flop was as small as this trailer, and we ate at this gin mill every night, because you got free seconds on the cold cuts.”

June 22:

A crazy blind man enters the tavern. Random shotgun blasts: his parents get vaporized.

“I got hospitalized, ’cause I was in some kind of shock.”

Foster homes then — “some nice, some not so hot” — revenge dreams minus a bad guy — the shotgun man killed himself. Trade schools — a knack for cameras — “Old Wylie’s a born shutterbug.” Camera jobs, curiosity: 6/22/37 — why?

Amateur detective Wylie — he kept pestering the cops. The brush-off: “They kept saying the case file was lost.” Newspaper study: Sergeant Dudley Smith, investigating officer. Calls to now-Lieutenant Smith — none returned.

He haunted that tavern. Rumors haunted the place itself: bad bootleg trashed the shotgun man’s eyes. He chased rumors: who sold bootleg whiskey back in ’37?

Bad leads — years’ worth — “like impossible to verify, you know?” Two rumors persistent: “dry-cleaning-cut hooch,” “this Armenian guy — J.C.”

He made a logical jump: the E-Z Kleen shops/J.C. Kafesjian. “I didn’t have any proof — it just felt right. I kept a scrapbook on the blind man case, and I had this picture of Sergeant Smith from ’37.”

“It was becoming like an obsession.”

Supporting that obsession: camera work. Illegal: “I took snatch pictures and sold them to sailors and Marines up from Diego.”

Obsession focus: the Kafesjians.

“I sort of circled around them. I found out J.C. and Tommy pushed dope and had these police connections. Lucille was a floozy, and Tommy was vicious. It was sort of like they were my pretend family. Tommy had this buddy Richie, and the two of them played this jazz music really lousy. I used to follow them, and I watched them get into some kind of big falling-out over Lucille. Richie got popped selling dope up in Bakersfield. He got sentenced to Chino, and I was in an E-Z Kleen shop one day, and I heard Tommy tell Abe Voldrich that when he got out Richie was dead meat.”

Early ’56 — two bombshells hit him simultaneous:

One — he’s outside a Southside E-Z Kleen. Huddled up: J.C. Kafesjian and Dudley Smith — nineteen years older than that news pic.

Two — he gets popped selling snatch photos.

“I figured Dudley Smith and the Kafesjians were dirty together. I couldn’t prove anything, but I thought maybe Smith gave J.C. a skate on that poison liquor he sold. After a while I just believed it.”

He started hatching revenge plots — this Eyeball Man inside him fed him plans. He pleaded guilty to selling pornography — his lawyer said beg for mercy.

“At the County Jail this guy told me about the X-ray lab at Chino — what a good job it was. I figured I could get a job there if I got sentenced to State time, ’cause I knew so much about photography. See, I had a real plan now, and I wanted to do a Chino hitch so I could get next to Richie.”

The judge hit him with three-to-five State. They bought his X-ray experience snow job: Wylie Davis Bullock, go to Chino.

“So I went to Chino and got next to Richie. He was a lonely kid, so I befriended him, and he told me this AMAZING goddamn story.”

Amazing:

The Kafesjians, the Herricks — who fathered whose children? Phil Herrick and J.C. — bootleg dealers back in the ’30s. The blind man killings — Richie said yes, maybe — it might be Dudley Smith’s wedge. Incest: maybe/quasi/brother/father perv stuff.

“I guarantee you you have never heard nothing to compare to the stuff Richie told me.”

Richie, sissy/voyeur:

“He told me he was in love with Lucille, but he wouldn’t touch her because she might be his half-sister. He said he loved spying on her.”

Richie, compulsive talker:

“He put things together for me. I figured out enough about Dudley Smith to know that he met up with Herrick and Kafesjian some time right after the killings. I figured Smith got cozy with them and took bribes not to snitch that they brewed that liquor. I knew now. I knew these two crazy families killed my family.”

Richie, talking vengeance on Tommy:

“I knew he didn’t have the balls for it. I said just wait — I’ll get you your revenge if you promise not to bother the Kafesjians.”

Richie promised.

“Then his mother wrote him and went through this sob-sister suicide routine. Richie walked Chino — fucking minimum security, he just walked .”

Richie stayed loose.

He got paroled two months later.

“I tried to find Richie. I staked out the Kafesjian and Herrick houses, but I never saw him.”

“That Lucille, though — wow. I used to watch her do the shimmy-shimmy naked.”

Months ticked by. “One day right before she killed herself I saw Old Lady Herrick leave a letter in her box for the postman. I snuck up and grabbed it, and it was addressed to Champ Dineen, this jazz clown that Richie worshipped. There was a PO box address, so I figured Moms and Richie were working a mail-drop thing. I sent Richie a note at his box: ‘Dig Lucille do the shimmy shimmy in her window. Now you be patient and I’ll get you your revenge.’ ”

The note worked — months ticked by — he peeped Richie peeping Lucille. AMAZING: peeper Richie, amateur bug man — that electronics class did him solid. He walked the straight and narrow himself — movie jobs, parole confabs — nobody knew the Eyeball Man kept his dick hard—