Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

A portable radio announced the countdown. Waiters stood by with postblast drinks and hors d’oeuvres. A doomsday disc jockey intoned: “ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one — zero.”

Bombs Away, Motherfuckers!!!!!

A magnificent mushroom cloud morphed into mauve and pink. Man, what a suck-your-soul sight!!! My balls contracted. My boys and I hopped off the roof, down to ground level. Ground zero popped pink particles high in the sky. The gilded gang applauded and roared.

We deviously ditched the party. None of the bomb babies saw us. Jack’s bungalow was right there, off the roof. I demobilized the door lock with a celluloid strip. We locked the door behind us and worked with pocket penlights. Chop, chop — fuckers. I’m giving us eight minutes, tops.

Our top target was address books. They were stashed in handbags and overcoats discarded for Jack’s toggle togs. It’s a scandal-rag caper. I’m out to notch names/numbers/addresses. The lurid love shacks of the heavy-hung and hard up. Nubile names and fuck-struck fone numbers. Noxious names and homo-hideout addresses. Non sequitur names that might mandate bracing break-ins themselves.

It was all for Confidential. Knowledge is power. You naïve nudniks know that. My misanthropic motive? A demonic desire to know the world’s secret shit and hoard said shit for my personal titillation and shakedown potential.

The clock’s ticking. We crisscrossed the crib. Ward and Race went for all the boss booty. Ooooohhh — overcoats draped on hotel-suite chairs, high-line handbags galore. My job was forensic frame-up. I secretly secured three fingerprint cards from Beverly Hills PD Burglary.

Dig: three hot-prowl/rape-o/459 men. Bad lads, already ID’d. At large for six Beverly Hills jobs. Forced oral cop/straight rape/thirty-four thou in stolen furs and jewels.

It gets wicked worse. There’s a Little Lindbergh Law kidnap. She’s a Beverly High cheerleader. There’s multiple motel-room rapes before she’s cut loose. The BHPD wanted these fucked-up fiends, baaaaaaaaad. Heh, heh — I made Scotch-taped transparencies of the three print cards. George Collier Akin, Durwood N. M. I. Brown, Richard “Rattlesnake” Dulange. Fred O. judge-and-juries a frame job on YOU.

I got out my print cards. I laid the treated transparency tape across three thumb and full-fingerprint spreads. I pulled off my single-digit tapes. I laid prints on chair backs, waist-high wainscoting, touch-and-grab bedroom planes.

J’accuse — Akin, Brown, and Dulange — you were here. You robbed Senator Jack Kennedy’s hotel suite. You done been FRAMED.

Ward and Race dumped furs and address books. They stacked them in Senator Jack’s ostrich-skin suitcase. We were six minutes in. I saved the best booty for last.

Mattress Jack was a hellacious hophead. He had legal scripts from half the pharmacists in L.A. I made for the bathroom and Jack’s mad medicine chest. Oh yeah — Dilaudid, Dexedrine, Dolophine sulfate. Ooooohhh — the nifty new Nembutal suppositories!!!

Jack collected lissome locks of women’s pubic hair. He traveled with them and kept them in unscented sachets. I found his stash in an attaché case under the bed. They were lewdly labeled. I’ve always gassed on La Bergman and Anna Magnani. I left the attaché behind. I took two love-lashed sniffs on my way out the door.

Ward and Race left me the address books. Bomb blasts and burglary — the total take vibed ten g’s. Don Wexler knew a fence. We’d lay off the furs soonsville. We split the wallet cash three ways.

I popped two of Jack’s delectable dexies and leveled the load with a one-grain Dilaudid. I drove to Googie’s to log tattle tips from the late-nite legions who lingered there.

Tipsters crept up and crowded my table. Here’s baritone sax Gerry Mulligan. He lays out alto sax Art Pepper’s yen for lush high school chicks. Pepper pounded his pud at the sight of pom-pom-girl garb. He haunted Hollywood High and Hami High and left drool stains on the football field bleachers.

Comme ci, comme ça. I laid twenty clams on Gerry. He amscrayed to score some Big “H.”

Billy Eckstine dropped by to schmooze. The mellifluous Mr. B. was mad for miscegenation. He played all the colored clubs on 46th and Central. He loved Confidential and lauded its sheer linguistic flair. He called it the “scatterbrained scat of white men working hard to be hip.” Billy was right. I told him I’d insert the quote in the next issue. Billy went on to coon fide his own recent affairs. And, Freddy, dig — all these bints want to see themselves linked to me in Confidential.

“All these bints.” As in Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, ex — U.S. Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. Lezbo basketball player Joan “Stretch” Perkins — hiding her secret yen for men from her sapphic sisters on the USC team. Plus the Misty June Christie, Anita O’Day, four boss bitches on work furlough from Tehachapi, and smack-back Chet Baker’s willowy white wife.

I laid two yards on Billy. He showed me a pic of Stretch Perkins. She’s sinking a loooooong hook shot against UCLA. I emitted low growls. Stretch ran six-six and 190. Billy grokked my Landing Strip antics. He affirmed that Stretch dug threeskies. He said he’d set Joi and me up with her.

Low growls and bilious boredom. Billy bopped off. Jilted lovers bopped up. They ratted out their cheating wives and hubbies as the Black Dahlia killer. The Dahlia was stale bread. I fobbed them off with a five-spot apiece.

It was 2:00 a.m. My dope cocktail coursed through me. My thoughts tumbled and tossed. That A-bomb blast blazed behind my eyelids. I saw three big squarejohns in gray suits by the bar. They vilely vibed fuzz. I thought of William H. Parker, still running spot tails on me. I blinked, the squarejohns squiggled, they might have been A-bomb/dope fantasia.

I thought about the magazine. Sales were up 16 percent for January ’54. Shame shot through me. I thought about my thump job on Johnnie Ray. Johnnie was tight with Joi. They koffee-klatched and gal-talked. Johnnie threatened to sue Confidential. He refused to desist. I had one rancid recourse. Johnnie gave Joi the blow-by-blow. Joi was righteously repelled. She resisted my rigorous romancing and refuseniked threeskies with Liz Taylor. Maybe Stretch Perkins would loosen her libido and liberate her heart.

Another jacked-up Joan jumped me. Joan Hubbard Horvath. Ralphie’s widow. I had two grand in my pocket and no place to go at 3:00 fucking a.m.

So, I cadged an envelope from my waiter.

So, I went by the penance pad.

Lower Holly weird. Camerford between Vine and El Centro. A smudgy small wood-frame job, just short of a shack.

I parked across the street and bopped over. I popped the envelope in the mailbox and bopped back to my sled. A light popped on. The Horvath hut glowed internal and infernal.

I’m a devious dipshit. I made too much noise on purpose. Hey, lady — I killed your husband. It’s been five years and eleven days now. I’ve never seen your face.

Just newspaper pix. Pixilated pokes at you in wilted widow’s weeds. The Herald ran headlines. Wounded Cop Survives Shoot-out. Gunman Slain In Escape Attempt.

There’s a biiiiiiiig pic of Fractious Freddy. There’s zero per throwdown guns and Ralphie’s unarmed status.

I lit a cigarette and sat there. I played “Willow Weep for Me” in my head. Time tipped by. Joan Hubbard Horvath walked out on the porch. The front-room lights boffo backlit her.

She wore a dark wool dress and brown loafers. She sported a short shag hairdo and wire-rimmed specs.

She looked toward me. I looked at her. I’m a good whistler. I whistled “Willow Weep for Me” all the way through. I made the crescendo a cri de coeur and a long-suppressed sob.