Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

She parts her lips. Transposition/transfiguration. I kiss the merged Joan Perkins and Joan Horvath for the fade-out.

Camerford and El Centro. There’s the house. There’s late living room lights.

I parked and walked over. I mimicked Monty’s last mile and made the mailbox drop laaaast. I looped back to my sled and waited. I whistled “My Funny Valentine” at dirge speed.

Joan Horvath walked out. She wore the same stay-at-home ensemble. She held a cigarette and a highball glass. She tossed her dumb wool skirt and sat down on the porch.

She caught me mid-chorus. I hit a high note and made the secondary theme soar. I looked at her. She looked toward me. The moon moved out of a cloud bank. I saw gray flecks in her shag cut.

Those steel-rimmed glasses gave her 3-D vision. She saw through me like some creature in a monster matinee. I shut my eyes to shut her gaze out and deploy the big close-up. A black curtain closed off her kiss.

Outside Steve Cochran’s Apartment Complex West Holly weird

2/16/54

Bernie said, “I’m wary of this job. This psycho cocksucker scares me.”

Studly Steve lived on Havenhurst between Fountain and the Strip. Three sparkle-Spanish buildings/one cool courtyard. Six pads per building. Call girls and minor movie minions ensconced within.

It’s 9:14 a.m. now. Steve’s home. His coon maroon Merc’s parked out back.

I lit a cigarette and gargled Old Crow. I had a case of the yammering yips and the mean megrims. I kept seeing things. Strongarm cops in surging surveillance. Women I wanted wicked baaaaaaaad and weren’t there. Waiting wilted me. I wanted WORK. I popped two Dexedrine to goose things along.

Bernie said, “He’s got four rooms, plus bathroom. I checked with the County Planning Office. The walls are soft stucco, and all rough-finished. They’ll be easy to drill and respackle. I broke in last night and carved some paint chips. It’s a new paint job, so it should be easy to match.”

We wore TV repairman jumpsuits. Master keys would get us in. Steve the Stud was filming some crime lox called Private Hell 36. Bernie spot-tailed him yesterday. He said Steve got his all-day calls at 9:30 a.m.

I said, “We’ll piggyback the listening post on Sweetzer. Burt Lancaster’s got his torture den in the same building. My Marines will monitor both locations. We’ll have a man hot-wired in at all times.”

Bernie went Oy. “Burt swings both ways. Ward Wardell told me. He buys his boys from a swish named Dwight Gilette.”

I said, “To each his own. You’re a big cheese at your synagogue, and you’ve got eight schvartze girlfriends.”

Bernie went Oy. I pointed across the street. Studly Steve’s rolling. His cherry Merc’s wheeling southbound.

We loaded up. Drills, spackle paste, paint and brushes — check. Wire rolls, condenser mikes, friction tape — check. Wire clamps, spatulas, industrial vacuum — check. Toolbox packed with close-work tools — check.

We packed two big metal cases. They were marked “Acme TV Repair.” We vacated the van and coursed through the courtyard. We hit Steve’s door at a sprint. Bernie jabbed keys at the door lock. Key #3 got us in.

I popped through the pad. It was cool, cozy, and tidy tight. Living room/ bedroom/kitchen/bathroom/washroom. One connecting hallway. One demented decorating motif:

World War II. Ripe real regalia. Booty from Berchtesgaden and Jap flags salvaged from Saipan. Swastika wall banners. German helmets as cereal serving bowls, sunk in the sink. SS-motif ashtrays. Rising-sun rugs. Showy shadow-boxed Lugers. Beaver pix of Eva Braun — der Führer ’s freaky Frau. Choice tchotchkes on chairs/tables/wall racks. Dig this, deranged: Jap shrunken heads, beady-eyed beasts, all wearing fit-to-size Brooklyn Dodger hats.

Bernie slavered, slack-jawed. I got out my Minox spy camera and shot it all. I smelled Smear Job. Let’s foto-fuck this creep.

Steve Cochran, the Big Dick Bürgermeister of the L.A. Reich. Nazi nests at Warner’s, Metro, and Fox. We’ll loose-link it to last year’s Nazi/flying saucer piece. Bondage Bob Harrison partied with Paraguayan parasite Alfredo Stroessner and wicked Juan Perón. They hid hordes of Hitlerites, circa ’46. Commie columnists called Confidential “fascistic,” “nativistic,” “hucksteristic,” and “the voice of vile volition in the vox populi.” The coruscating Cochran exposé would lash those leftist lies!!!!!

Bernie jerked at my jumpsuit and jacked me half off my feet. “Freddy, let’s go. Quit gawking. We’ve got work to do.”

So, yeah — we worked. We whipped wires to wainscoting and wiggled them under rugs. We drilled white walls and wedged in bug mounts. We rigorously respackled and repainted. We vacuumed up Spackle dust. We planted microphones in cracks, crevices, crawl spaces. We ripped the receivers off the two telephones and planted condenser mikes. We studied standing lamps and stuck bug mounts under the shades. We bugged the bedroom and looped the living room. We supersocked in the sound.

Tick, tick, tick. Four-plus hours’ work. I was sweat-swacked and dexie-ditzed and stomp-the-stars elated. We repacked our gear. Bernie sighed and went Oy. Opportunity is love. That maladroit maxim moved through me.

The Sweetzer listening post. A two-bedroom flop in a Deco dive off Willoughby. We recorded Burt Lancaster’s torture tilts with stacked starlets there. Plus three call-girl cribs. Plus an opium den in the back of the Hunan Hut — “Home of the Shanghai Shipwreck Cocktail.”

The pad was wire-whipped, floor to rafters. Cable cords and outlet plugs jammed up the joint. We manned tape rigs round the clock. Bernie set up a transceiver in Steve Cochran’s living room. It went optimum operational at 6:00 p.m. 6:00 sharp came and went. I slipped on headphones and listened to dead air.

Jimmy Dean dropped by. He brought nudie pix and brief bios for Rock Hudson’s wife candidates. Dig: six backlot babes who cadged coffee for cast and crew and blew select directors. I told Jimmy they looked gooooood. Jimmy donned earmuffs and manned the Hunan Hut rig. He passed on choice sin uendo. The delivery dinks pushed pills packed in with their pupu platters and pork fried rice. Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre toked “O” in the den. They schmoozed their guest shots on Vampira’s late-nite TV show. Vampira went lez in the Los Amigas home for girls. She was running a lez string out of Googie’s, as we speak.

More dead air. I got bored and called my answering service. Oooooh — Miss Joan “Stretch” Perkins called. She wanted to know if she could pick up Lance the Leopard and install him at my crib. I called Stretch back and set it up. I urged caution. Stretch blew me a fone kiss and said she’d make out with me soon.

Joi called. Johnnie Ray called. The answering-service girl said they got catty. “Tell Mr. Otash he’s hung like a cashew — and who knows better than me?” “Tell Mr. Otash he’s an evil storm trooper — and soon the whole world will know.”

Fuck that shit — I went back to line hiss and dead air.

Time ticked. I chain-smoked and scratched my balls. The Hunan Hut delivered dinner. I noshed Noodles à la Chang and China Joe’s Chop Suey. Steve Cochran’s phone rang at 8:29.

Steve picked up. The voice activator vibrated. “It’s Lew’s War Surplus. We’ve got a clearance sale on Schmeisser machine pistols, Nazi daggers, and Jap shrunken heads — flamethrower-fried on Iwo Jima.” Steve bought three daggers and three heads. The guy said he’d fix them up with Dodger baseball caps.