Джеймс Эллрой - Hollywood Nocturnes

“A hard yard — and you still owe me money on my fee. Seriously, I need it. I lent Liz some heavy coin to get her teeth capped.”

The trifecta loomed, “Are you dunning me?”

“No, I’m a Greek bearing gifts at 10 % interest.”

“Such as?”

“Such as this: a grand a week cash and three hots and a cot at a Beverly Hills mansion, all legit. I take a tensky off the top to cover your bill. The clock’s ticking, so yes or no?”

I said, “Legit?”

“If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’. My office in an hour?”

“I’ll be there.”

Wax worked out of a storefront on Beverly and Alvarado — close to his clientele — dope dealers and wetbacks hot to bring the family up from Calexico. I doubleparked, put a “Clergyman on Call” sign on my windshield and walked in.

Miller was in his office, slipping envelopes to a couple of Immigration Service goons — big guys with that hinky look indigenous to bagmen worldwide. They walked out thumbing C-notes; Wax said, “Do you like dogs?”

I took a chair uninvited. “Well enough. Why?”

“Why? Because Phil feels bad about lounging around up at the Betty Ford Clinic while you went inside. He wants to play catch up, and he asked me if I had ideas. A plum fell into my lap and I thought of you.”

Weird Phil: facial scars and a line of shit that could make the Pope go Protestant. “How’s Phil doing these days?”

“Not bad. Do you like dogs?”

“Like I said before, well enough. Why?”

Wax pointed to his clients’ wall of fame — scads of framed mugshots. Included: Leroy Washington, the “Crack King” of Watts; Chester Hardell, a TV preacher indicted for unnatural acts against cats; the murderous Sanchez family — scores of inbred cousins foisted on L.A. as the result of Waxie’s green card machinations. In a prominent spot: Richie “The Sicko” Sicora and Chick Ottens, the 7-11 Slayers, still at large. Picaresque: Sicora and Ottens heisted a convenience store in Pacoima and hid the salesgirl behind an upended Slurpee machine to facilitate their escape. The machine disgorged its contents: ice, sugar and carcinogenic food coloring; the girl, a diabetic, passed out, sucked in the goo, went into sugar shock and kicked. Sicora and Ottens jumped bail for parts unknown — and Wax got a commendation letter from the ACLU, citing his tenacity in defending the L.A. underclass.

I said, “You’ve been pointing for five minutes. Want to narrow it down?”

Wax brushed dandruff off his lapels. “I was illustrating a point, the point being that my largest client is not on that wall because he was never arrested.”

I feigned shock. “No shit, Dick Tracy?”

“No shit, Sherlock. I’m referring, of course, to Sol Bendish, entrepreneur, bail bondsman supreme, heir to the late great Mickey Cohen’s vice kingdom. Sol passed on recently, and I’m handling his estate.”

I sighed. “And the punch line?”

Wax tossed me a keyring. “He left a twenty-five million dollar estate to his dog. It’s legally inviolate and so well safeguarded that I can’t contest it or scam it. You’re the dog’s new keeper.”

My list of duties ran seven pages. I drove to Beverly Hills wishing I’d been born canine.

“Basko” lived in a mansion north of Sunset; Basko wore cashmere sweaters and a custom-designed flea collar that emitted minute amounts of nuclear radiation guaranteed not to harm dogs — a physicist spent three years developing the product. Basko ate prime steak, Beluga caviar, Häagen-Dazs ice cream and Fritos soaked in ketchup. Rats were brought in to sate his blood lust: rodent mayhem every Tuesday morning, a hundred of them let loose in the back yard for Basko to hunt down and destroy. Basko suffered from insomnia and required a unique sedative: a slice of Velveeta cheese melted in a cup of hundred-year-old brandy.

I almost shit when I saw the pad; going in the door my knees went weak. Stan Klein enters the white-trash comfort zone to which he had so long aspired.

Deep pile purple rugs everywhere.

A three-story amphitheatre to accommodate a gigantic satellite dish that brought in four hundred TV channels.

Big screen TVs in every room and a comprehensive library of porn flicks.

A huge kitchen featuring two walk-in refrigerators: one for Basko, one for me. Wax must have stocked mine — it was packed with the high-sodium, high-cholesterol stuff I thrive on. Rooms and rooms full of the swag of my dreams — I felt like Fulgencio Batista back from exile.

The I met the dog.

I found him in the pool, floating on a cushion. He was munching a cat carcass, his rear paws in the water. I did not yet know that it was the pivotal moment of my life.

I observed the beast from a distance.

He was a white bull terrier — muscular, compact, deep in the chest, bow-legged. His short-haired coat gleamed in the sunlight; he was so heavily muscled that flea-nipping required a great effort. His head was perfect good-natured misanthropy: a sloping wedge of a snout, close-set beady eyes, sharp teeth and a furrowed brow that gave him the look of a teenaged kid scheming trouble. His left ear was brindled — I sighed as the realization hit me, an epiphany — like the time I figured out Annie “Wild Thing” Behringer dyed her pubic hair.

Our eyes met.

Basko hit the water, swam and ran to me and rooted at my crotch. Looking back, I recall those moments in slow motion, gooey music on the sound track of my life, like those frenchy films where the lovers never talk, just smoke cigarettes, gaze at each other and bang away.

Over the next week we established a routine.

Up early, roadwork by the Beverly Hills Hotel, Basko’s A.M. dump on an Arab sheik’s front lawn. Breakfast, Basko’s morning nap; he kept his head on my lap while I watched porno films and read sci-fi novels. Lunch: blood-rare fillets, then a float in the pool on adjoining cushions. Another walk; an eyeball on the foxy redhead who strolled her Lab at the same time each day — I figured I’d bide my time and propose a double date: us, Basko and the bitch. Evenings went to introspection: I screened films of my old fights, Stan “The Man” Klein, feather-fisted, cannon fodder for hungry schmucks looking to pad their records. There I was: six-pointed star on my trunks, my back dusted with Clearasil to hide my zits. A film editor buddy spliced me in with some stock footage of the greats; movie magic had me kicking the shit out of Ali, Marciano and Tyson. Wistful might-have-been stuff accompanied by Basko’s beady browns darting from the screen to me. Soon I was telling the dog the secrets I always hid from women.

When I shifted into a confessional mode, Basko would scrunch up his brow and cock his head; my cue to shut up was one of his gigantic mouth-stretching yawns. When he started dozing, I carried him upstairs and tucked him in. A little Velveeta and brandy, a little goodnight story — Basko seemed to enjoy accounts of my sexual exploits best. And he always fell asleep just as I began to exaggerate.

I could never sync my sleep to Basko’s: his warm presence got me hopped up, thinking of all the good deals I’d blown, thinking that he was only good for another ten years on earth and then I’d be fifty-one with no good buddy to look after and no pot to piss in. Prowling the pad buttressed my sense that this incredible gravy train was tangible and would last — so I prowled with a vengeance.

Sol Bendish dressed antithetical to his Vegas-style crib: tweedy sports jackets, slacks with cuffs, Oxford cloth shirts, wingtips and white bucks. He left three closets stuffed with Ivy League threads just about my size. While my canine charge slept, I transformed myself into his sartorial image. Jewboy Klein became Jewboy Bendish, wealthy contributor to the U.J.A., the man with the class to love a dog of supreme blunt efficacy. I’d stand before the mirror in Bendish’s clothes — and my years as a pimp, burglar, car thief and scam artist would melt away — replaced by a thrilling and fatuous notion: finding the woman to compliment my new persona....