Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

I replayed the nite we met. Her blood-soaked blouse dripped. I brought her a blanket. She said, “You’re very kind.” I brought her a cup of water. Colin Forbes and Al Goossen took over from there.

I touched the screen. I scrolled the screen. Lois Nettleton mainlined Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

It was Her Voice. She had The Voice. She jumped geography and subsumed a southern belle’s timbre here. She withered her weak willy/bottle baby/homo-haunted hubby and begged him to sire her child. She pinnacled the pathos and wrapped back to the rage. Her Deep South diction dipped north to Chitown shaded with Sheboygan. I was glad. It was Her Voice, The Voice.

Lois, it’s you.

Janey, it’s you.

For Jack, it is. Tonite, at least. You look goooooood. You move magnetic. You roil the room and mug the men moving at you. You’ve got droves of dreary Democrats drip-dried. You might bag the bait-girl gig. I’ll call you Rambunctious Rock’s Squeeze, then.

I circulated. It was a big-room bash. It was committedly corny and panderingly partisan. Note the crepe-paper bunting. Note the coarse cardboard cutouts — Democrat donkeys at graze.

I’m crawl-crammed in with two hundred people. The women wear god-awful gowns and show too much shoulder. The men sport spring-weight suits and sweat them straight through. I’m sweating. I’m a Lebanese camel fucker and prone to the sweats.

Jack’s immune to sweat. Janey’s immune. Jack’s got cucumber-cool chromosomes. Janey’s loose-limbed in lavender linen. I’m tall, Jack’s tall, Janey’s tall. I’m a periscope. I’m peering over the heads of the heaving hoi polloi. Come on, kids. It’s Some Enchanted Evening. This bum bash is one hour in. Orb those eyes. Orbit the room. Let’s see you cull contact.

Some nudnik nudged me. Oh shit — it’s Robbie Molette. He’s passing out puffed cheese and seared tuna on toast. He slipped me a note. I brusque-brushed him off. The rodent rambled away.

Ooooga-booooga. There it is. Jack’s moving her way. Janey’s moving his way. It’s a slow slog and a deep detour through dowdy folks. He’s laughing. She’s laughing. They move their hands in sexy sync. It’s fate — what can you do?

There, they’ve met. They shake hands. They’re speaking. Here’s my speech balloons. She’s calling him “Senator Kennedy.” He’s calling up his killer comeback: “Come on, call me Jack.”

I watched them. The Pervdog of the Nite’s a peeper from waaaaaaaay back. What’s going on here? What’s with this jungled-up juju? What is it that you two have got?

It’s this:

You’re decorous. It’s a deft deception. You project a state of groovy grace as you sally forth in sin. There’s a halo around you now. It hides your cold hearts and your constant calls to conquest.

Janey, it’s you.

You were born to play bait gigs. I’m enchanted and appalled.

I barged out of the bash. I bopped over to the porte cochere and read Robbie’s note.

“Nick’s Knights are mobilizing. Tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. at the Marmont.”

I remade myself as Stage Door Freddy. I’m a sweaty swain swooning for my phone to ring. I know her name, she knows my name. Nasty Nat’s our conduit and cupid. The Actors Studio clerk laid out the lowdown on Lois.

Born Oak Park, Illinois/’27. Miss Chicago, ’48. The Art Institute of Chicago. East to the Apple. The Actors Studio. Lois meets Shirley Tutler. Her connection to the Caryl Chessman case is calamitously forged.

TV work. Film work. Stage work. Her zenith’s right now. She’s understudying Barbara Bel Geddes in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Here’s a punchy parenthetical:

The play’s all Broadway bravos right now. If Barbara bails behind a bad bug or lays up with laryngitis, Lois plays Maggie the Cat.

But she’s in L.A. She knew her cruel critique of Confidential would somehow summon me. She knows things about me. She wants something from me. My pay-phone trace will work at some point. Yeah, but I’m right here, right now.

I caved on my couch. I’m Stage Door Freddy. I’m a cuckold, a cornuto, a juvie jerkoff, a chump. I hexed the phone. I brain-brewed an APB on Lois June Nettleton/white female American/DOB 8-16-27, Oak Park, Ill—

The phone rang. I picked up and risked ridicule. I said, “Hello, Lois.”

She said, “Hi, Freddy. I figured you’d find me before too long. So I jumped the gun a bit.”

“I’m glad you did. And I’m not going to ask you what you want, because I know you’ll tell me pretty damn quick.”

Lois said, “That’s true, but what I want is evolving, and I’m not quite sure what it is.”

I said, “I saw a clip of you today. It was in black and white. I couldn’t tell what color your hair is.”

“It’s strawberry blond. And I saw you on Paul Coates’ show, and you tried to tell the truth, but you faltered at it.”

I said, “Meet me. Right now. It’s not that late.”

Lois said, “Not tonight. Before too long, though.”

I said, “You’ve got this haunted tomboy thing going. Like Julie Harris, but earthier and more pronounced.”

“I like men who notice things like that, and make accurate comparisons like the one you just did.”

“How long have you been pulling this anonymous telephone stuff?”

“Since the war, when I was in high school. The telephone has always been my métier.”

“I wish we could talk in person.”

“We will, in time.”

“Shall we talk about Chessman?”

“Not yet.”

“You’re right. It’s more of an in-person conversation.”

Lois said, “Shirley speaks of you, when she’s capable of speaking. She’s never forgotten those few moments you spent together.”

West Holly weird

5/16/55

Rolling stakeout.

It’s 8:55 p.m. I’m parked perpendicular, down from bungalow row. I borrowed Donkey Don’s ’53 Chevy. It’s innocuous compared to my Packard pimpmobile. I’m snout-out in a flat flower bed. I’m ready to roll.

I’m still stage door — stuck and looped on Lois standard time. We talked until 2:00 last nite. We tippled at topics and nodded off into non sequiturs. We laffed, we flirted, we surged toward and circumnavigated a path past Shirley Tutler and Caryl Chessman. Lois refused to divulge her L.A. hideaway. I called Nasty Nat and Ray Pinker two hours back. They’d trace-tracked three Lois calls. They got cloyingly close. Ray tracked transformer stations and logiced out a loose location. He made it mid-Wilshire east.

It’s a booth call. Here’s his best shot at a border-to-border bid. It’s Western to the west/Vermont to the east/Beverly to the north/Olympic to the south.

I got it. I saw it. My mind churned and channeled straight to Chapman Park.

The Ambassador Hotel’s there. Ditto, the Chapman Park Hotel and the Gaylord Apartments. The Brown Derby’s there. Dale’s Secret Harbor’s there. It’s a lively locale. Lois would light there — I knew it.

The fone fungooed my whole day. Rodent Robbie called and ran me raw. He said, Jack loved Janey. I said, No shit, Shadrack — what’s not to love? Robbie goosed me: You giving her the bait gig? I said, Yeah — tell her to meet me tomorrow nite/Frascati/ten p.m. It’s a pithy party of four. She’ll meet the players then. Robbie hung up. Harry Fremont called. Caramba!!! — Sheriff’s Burglary called him.

It’s a make. The Nick Adams swag matched the manifests for six 459’s. Six B and E’s — all within one mile of Nabob Nick’s rent-a-pad. That’s gooooooood. If Nick keeps the cache, he’s cooked. Here’s what’s baaaaad. The Sheriff’s lab dutifully dusted the B and E locations. They turned up no viable latents.