Джеймс Эллрой - Hollywood Nocturnes

My head whizzed. I ate a cracker to normalize my blood sugar. Sol Slotnick stared at me.

I said, “I’ve got a date with Jane tonight, and I’ll put in a good word for you. And I know an FBI man pretty well. I’ll tell him that you’re not making Wetback! , and ask him to pass the word along.”

“ You’re friends with one of J. Edgar Hoover’s minions?”

“Yeah, Special Agent Pete Van Obst. His wife’s the President of my National Fan Club.”

“What’s the current membership? We might make a picture together, and statistics like that impress financial backers.”

“The current membership is sixty-something.”

“So you add a few zeros and hope they don’t check. Dick, be a gentleman with Jane tonight. Tell her I think she has movie star potential. Tell her you’ve heard rumors that I’m hung like Roy Rogers’ horse Trigger.”

Dismissal time — Sol looked exhausted. I grabbed a few crackers for the road.

Kay Van Obst brought three .45 autos — FBI issue, “borrowed” from husband Pete. Nancy Ankrum brought a sawed-off loaded with rat poison-dipped buckshot — Caryl Chessman told her where to find one. Add my dad’s .12 gauge pumps and call the pad “Fort Contino” — L.A.’s cut-rate Alamo.

Ammo boxes on the coffee table.

Front and back window eyeball surveillance — four women in rotating shifts.

Four women packing kitchen knives in plastic scabbards — Kay hit a toy store on her way over.

Time to kill before my “Date” — I took a snooze.

Ink-smeared dreams:

COWARD REDEEMED; KIDNAPPERS STILL AT LARGE!

CONTINO FOILS FIENDS; SAVES BACK-UP SINGER FROM TORTURE AND RAPE!

L.A. FUZZ NIX PUBLICITY STUNT SPECULATION: “THIS CAPER WAS REAL!”

Chris held down by salivating psycopaths.

Cops swarming the kidnap shack.

Chief William H. Parker holding up scalps.

CONTINO KIDNAP PLOT REVEALS BIZARRE LINKS TO UNSOLVED MURDERS!!!

REDSKIN RESERVATIONS RAIDED IN SEARCH FOR KIDNAPPERS!!!

APACHE CHIEF SAYS, “HEAP BAD BUSINESS! ME SEND UP SMOKE SIGNALS TO TRAP SCALP KILLER!”

Chris woke me up. “You should get ready. I told Leigh you were jamming with some studio guys, so take your accordion.”

A last headline flickered out:

CONTINO CONQUEST CONTINUES! KIDNAP TOPS LINDBERGH SNATCH IN POPULAR POLL!

“I’m sure you must think that I’m just a naive young thing. You must think that any girl who hasn’t narrowed her career choices down any better than doctor, lawyer, movie star or recording star must be rather silly.”

Jane picked the restaurant: a dago joint off Sunset and Normandie. The Hi-Hat Motel stood cattycorner — “Vacancy” in throbbing neon made me sweat.

I drank wine. Jane drank ginger ale under protest — feeding minors liquor was a contributing beef.

“I don’t think you’re silly. When I was nineteen I was a recording star, but I just fell into it. You should finish college and let things happen to you for a while.”

“You sound like my dad. Only he doesn’t push the ‘let things happen’ part, because he knows that I have the same appetites my mom had when I was her age. I look like my mom, I act like my mom and I talk like my mom. Only my mom married this rookie cop from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who got her pregnant when she was eighteen, and I’m too smart for that.”

Scorch/scorch/twinkle — green eyes offset by Chianti bottle candlelight. “Sol Slotnick might fit that ‘let things happen to you’ bill. He likes you, and he’s a legit movie producer who could get you work.”

Jane futzed with her bread plate. “He’s a lech and a fatty-patty. He followed me to my first collective meeting, so he’s one step up from a wienie wagger. My dad used to drive me around when he was a detective in Sioux Falls. He wanted to show me what I had to look forward to as far as men were concerned. He showed me all the pimps and panty sniffers and winos and wienie waggers and rag sniffers and gigolos that he dealt with, and believe me, Sol Slotnick fits right in. Besides, he has small hands, and my mom told me what that means.”

I sipped dago red. Jane said, “You have big hands.”

“Vacancy” throbbed.

Questions throbbed: Who’s gonna know? Who’s gonna care? Who’s gonna tell?

Easy — you/you/you — straight across.

“Jane, Sol’s the kind of guy that makes dreams come true.”

“Sol Slotnick is a long-distance wrong number. My mom reads Variety, and she said Picket Line! was one of the big low grossing losers of 1951. Sol Slotnick, ick.”

I dipped some bread in my wine glass and bit off a crust. Jane said, “You’re both earthy and sensitive. You’re politically aware, but not didactic. You’ve been wronged by society, but you’re not a martyr. My mom said that men with ambiguous qualities like that make the best lovers, because they keep you guessing, and that postpones the inevitable letdown of sex getting stale.”

“Your dad must be quite a guy.”

Jane giggled. “You mean my dad’s brother Phil. I figured that out because Uncle Phil used to come around a lot when my dad was out of town on extradition assignments, and I got sent to the movies all the time. And , I used to sneak peeks at my mom’s diaphragm, which sure was out of its case a lot when Uncle Phil was around. And you know what? Uncle Phil’s hands were much bigger than my dad’s.”

I checked out my own mitts. Big — accordion practice gave them their girth.

A waiter hovered — I signalled him away. Jane laced fingers with me. “Did you ask me out just to shill for Sol Slotnick?”

“Did you join the Westwood People’s Collective just to chase men?”

“No fair. You answer first.”

I pulled my hands free. “I was bored and shopping around for kicks, so I went to the meeting. You looked like kicks, but I’ve decided not to cheat on my wife.”

Hot potato — Jane winced. “Okay, so I joined the group for the same reason. And you can tell Sol Slotnick that I won’t sleep with him until the twelfth of never, but I will audition and strip down to a bikini if you’ll chaperone me.”

“I’ll tell him, and I’ll chaperone you. And I’ll warn you now: you should quit going to those meetings, or your name will end up on some goddamn blacklist that could break your heart.”

Jane smiled. My heart swelled — just a little.

“There’s a meeting tomorrow night that I have to go to, because Mort’s going to discuss FBI malfeasance, and I want to get some lines to tease my dad with. Besides, that man with the Beethoven sweatshirt looks cute.”

“He’s an FBI agent taking names.”

“Well, then at least my dad will approve of him. My dad’s so right-wing. He thinks that slavery should be reinstated and that streets should be privately owned, so the owners can charge protective tariffs. My mom’s a liberal, because she had a Brazilian lover once. He had really big hands, but he tried to pimp her out to cover some track bets he made, and my mom said ‘No, sir,’ and called a cop.”

“What did the cop do?”

“The cop was my dad. He got her pregnant.”

I called for the check. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Jane snuggled close in the car. Chanel #5 tickled my nose — I cracked the window for relief. The McGuire Sisters on the radio — I let “Sincerely” wash over me like Jane and I were for real.

It started drizzling. I hit the wipers and adjusted the rear-view — a car was glued to my back bumper.

Spooky.

I punched the gas; the car behind us accelerated.

Jane slid off my shoulder and into my lap.

I hung a sharp left, sharp right, sharp left — that car birddogged collision close.