Джеймс Эллрой - Shakedown - Freddy Otash Confesses

L.A. ’53 — ring-a-ding-ding!

Joi and I hit the Crescendo and the Largo most nights. Cocktail waitresses fed me slander slurs in exchange for my titanic tips. It was my kid-voyeur days, rabidly redux.

A fragmenting frustration set in. I had the dirt. It would take an armada of shakedown shills and photo fiends to deploy it. I racked my brain. I knocked my noggin against the bruising brick wall of unknowing. Extortion as existential dilemma. A confounding conundrum worthy of those French philosopher cats.

My cop life could not compete with the lush life. I was a double agent akin to that Commie cad Alger Hiss. Liz Taylor drove me to Central Station and signed autographs for the blues. I knew that word would leak to Chief William H. Parker. I was full of a finger-stabbing Fuck you.

Ralph Mitchell Horvath still haunted me. Nightmares nabbed me as I slid into sleep. Joi and Liz nursed me with yellow jackets and booze. My bedtime mantra was He Deserved to Die. It was beastly bullshit. I couldn’t convince myself that what I did was right.

The Rosenbergs fried at Sing Sing. That was justified. They sold A-bomb secrets to Russia. They got what they paid for.

I developed my personal credo: “I’ll work for anyone but Communists. I’ll do anything short of murder.”

Morally sound in L.A., circa ’53. Equally sound in purgatory today.

I spent nuke-bomb nights at the Hollywood Ranch Market. My office was two-way-mirrored and overlooked the aisles. I scanned for boosters and looked down at legions of the lost.

Their pathos pounded me. Bit actors buying stale bread and Tokay. Six-foot-two drag queens shopping for extra-long nylons. Cough-syrup hopheads reading labels for the codeine content. Teenage boys sneaking girlie mags to the can to jerk off.

I watched, I peeped, I lost myself in the losers. A goofy ghost came and went with them.

He was about 23. He slouched in windbreakers and wore cigarettes as props. He breezed through the aisles at 3 a.m. He always looked ecstatic. He talked to people. He cultivated people. He studied people the way I looked in windows as a kid. I saw him out on the sidewalk once. He played the bongos for a clique of fags and junkies. A girl called him “Jimmy.”

The fucker appeared intermittent. I made him for an actor living off chump change and aging fruits. I saw him kiss a girl by the bread bin. I saw him kiss a boy in the soup aisle. He moved with a weirdo grace. He wasn’t froufrou or masculine. He was in on some exalted joke.

I saw him boost a carton of Pall Malls. I cornered him, cuffed him, and hauled him upstairs. His name was James Dean. He was from Bumfuck, Indiana. He was an actor and a bohemian you-name-it. He explained that Pall Mall cigarettes were queer code. The In hoc signo vinces on the pack meant “In this sign you shall conquer.” Homos flashed Pall Malls and ID’d each other. It was all-new shit to me.

I let Jimmy off with a warning. We started hanging out in the office. We tipped Old Crow, looked down on the floor, and gassed on the humanoids. Jimmy habituated the leather bars in East Hollywood. He ratted off pushers and celebrity quiffs and filled a whole side of my dirt bin. I told him about my smut-film and male-prosty gigs. I promised him a date with Donkey Don Eversall in exchange for hot dirt.

We’d hit silent stretches. I’d scan the floor. Jimmy would read scandal rags.

They were just popping up. Peep, Transom, Whisper, Tattle, Lowdown. Titillation texts. Lurid language marred by mitigation. Insipid innuendo.

Politicos got slurred as Red — but never nailed past implication. Jimmy loved the rags but said they weren’t sufficiently sordid or precise in their prose. He called them “timid tipster texts.” He said, “You’ve got better skank than this, Freddy. I could give you three issues’ worth from one night at the Cockpit Lounge.”

A bell bonged — faint and far-off. Memory is revised retrospection. Oh, yeah — fate fungooed me that night.

A newsboy pulled a red wagon into the market. It was stacked with magazines. He began filling the racks.

A cover caught my eye. Primary colors and big headlines screamed.

The magazine was called Confidential.

Beverly Hills Hotel

8/14/53

Joi woke me up. I was nudging off a nightmare. Double dip: Ralph Mitchell Horvath shot in the mouth, Manolo Sanchez with skeleton claws.

I looked across the bed. Shit — Liz was gone.

Joi read my mind. “She had an early call. She said to remind you that Arthur Crowley wants that phone date.”

I lit a cigarette. I chased three bennies with Old Crow. Aaaaaaah, breakfast of champions!

“Remind me again. Who’s Arthur Crowley?”

“That divorce lawyer who needs your help.”

“I’ll call him when I go off-duty.”

Joi stepped into a skirt and pulled her shoes on. She dressed as fast as most men.

“No more girls for a while, okay, Freddy? Liz is great, but Barb is like Helga, She Wolf of the SS. Really, that stunt with the armband and the garters? That and she hogs the whole bed.”

I laffed loud and lewd. My wake-up whipped through me and canceled cobwebs. Summer in L.A. — ring-a-ding-ding!!

Joi kissed me and bopped out of the bungalow. I shit, shaved, showered, and put on my uniform.

The bedroom phone rang. I snagged it. A man said, “Mr. Otash, this is Arthur Crowley.”

I buffed my badge with my necktie. A mirror magnetized me. Man, oh Manischewitz, I looked good!

“Mr. Crowley, it’s a pleasure.”

Crowley said, “Sir, I’ll be blunt. I’m swamped with pissed-off husbands and wives looking to take each other to the cleaners. Legal statutes are in flux, and divorce-court judges are demanding proof of adultery. Liz Taylor told me you might have some ideas.”

I lit a cigarette. Benzedrine arched through my arteries and piqued my pizzazz.

“I do have ideas. If you have flexible scruples, I think we can do biz.”

Crowley laffed. “I’m listening.”

I said, “I know some Marines stationed down at Camp Pendleton. I was their DI in ’43 and ’44, and now they’re back from Korea and looking for kicks. It’s a parlay. Hot rods, good-looking shills, walkie-talkies, phone drops, and Speed Graphic cameras.”

Crowley hooted. “Semper fi, sir. You’re a white man in my book.”

“ Semper fi, boss. We’ll work out the details at your convenience, and I’ll round up my boys.”

“And in the meantime? Is there anything you need?”

Benzedrine was a groin groper. One thing came to mind.

“My Landing Strip’s got two empty runways tonight. Liz told me you’re conversant with the concept.”

I heard voices outside the bungalow — male and brazenly brusque. I thought I heard foot scrapes and coughs.

Crowley said, “Liz explained the concept, so I called you prepared. I’ll send two stenos over.”

“Mr. Crowley, you’re a pisser.”

“It takes one to know one, sir.”

We hung up. I heard the voices again. A key-in-lock noise followed. I walked into the living room. The door opened wide.

William H. Parker.

Two plainclothes bulls. Maladroit mastiffs on a mission to maul for their master.

“Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

I unpinned my badge and tossed it at Parker. It hit his chest and dropped on the floor. The mastiffs moved. Parker gestured Get back . The mastiffs pawed the carpeting.

I unhooked my gun belt and dropped it on a chair. I called up some cool. Freon Freddy, the Shaman of Shakedown.