Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

Harry lit a cigarette. “We’ve had you spot-tailed from the moment the Chief signed you up for his Confidential caper.”

Eddie twirled the flask. “For example, I saw your outburst at Googie’s last night. Voldrich lost two pints of blood and went into shock. I stiffed the call to Queen of Angels. Voldrich is a noted sack of shit, so I told the dispatcher to dawdle.”

I laffed. “Give me the particulars on Janey.”

Red checked his notebook. “It’s rape and manual strangulation. The TOD is one a.m. She was dumped on Lindell Street, at the foot of the Mulholland embankment, right off Beverly Glen. It looks like she was killed in the bushes and dumped from there. A dog walker found her at four-fifteen. It made the a.m. Herald by a rat’s snatch-hair margin. Doc Curphey’s doing the autopsy now.”

I point-by-point parsed it. She might have stayed late with Rock and Phyllis. She cabbed to Frascati or took her own car. She knew the guy. She tricked with the guy. It all went bitching baaaad.

“Vehicle at the scene? Did she have a car? Tracks in the dirt up on Mulholland or down at the dump site?”

Harry checked his notebook. “No vehicle at the scene, that we know of. We’ll be running the canvass in an hour or so. She owned a ’50 Buick Super, which is parked in the driveway of this little house she rented in Culver City. We’ve run the cab logs already. There were no drop-offs or pickups at Frascati from eight p.m. on.”

I pondered it. Harry said, “You were spot-tailed the night of the fund-raiser. In case you didn’t know, the public places at the hotel are riddled with surveillance ports, so I was able to observe you, Senator Kennedy, and Miss Blaine — which, in retrospect, looks like a staged-date sort of deal. BHPD, by the way, has a roust sheet on Miss Blaine. She was soliciting at the bar at the Beverly Wilshire.”

Max sighed. “You see what we’ve got, Freddy. The big question is, who hipped you to the Blaine girl and got this whole thing going?”

Eddie slid the flask over. I glug-glugged, deep-deep.

“You won’t believe it, but I’ll tell you anyway. It was that little dipshit, Robbie Molette, that you rousted on my Art Pepper gig. He’s a busboy at the hotel, and his old man’s a wage slave at Metro. He’s recruited some contract girls at the studio, and Robbie’s peddling them to the guests at the hotel, along with his other jive criminal enterprises.”

Max said, “Holy shit. That jerkoff.”

Red said, “Nice family. Daddy and junior peddle poon, and Robbie sells nudie pix of his own sister.”

Harry said, “And, he sells maryjane to all the hophead kids working on film shoots. Remember? He revealed that when we were squeezing him, last week.”

Eddie said, “Including Rebel Without a Cause, which Freddy knows all about, because the Chief’s got him working up a derogatory profile on that lox, and I myself saw him bird-dogging the parking lot by the observatory, while they were shooting there.”

Spot tails. Enterprising entrapment. I’m keestered every which way. Chief William H. Parker. Accept no substitutes.

I said, “Here’s a word to the wise. Anything pertaining to that movie should go from the Chief, to me, and me to you. Robbie’s dirty, sure — and dirty as far as that flick goes. I’m just making sure that this work I’m doing for the Chief doesn’t get trampled on.”

Max sneered. “And I’m sure the same goes for Senator Kennedy, when and if we clear him on the Blaine job.”

Harry scoffed. “The Molette kid is pushing ass to a U.S. senator. I still find it hard to believe.”

Red moaned. “We’re buried on Fat Boy Mazmanian, and now we get reburied on this Blaine deal. Give us a ray of hope, Freddy. Tell us she confided in you, and you know all about her private life.”

I sucked the flask. “Nix. Robbie set the senator up with her, and I just met her last night. It’s a big canvass and known-associates job, when you’d rather be putting that Mazmanian shit in the ground.”

Red laffed. “ Es la verdad, junior.”

I buzzed Harry. “Okay, you spot-tailed me at the fund-raiser. You were on the premises at the hotel. You observed the senator and Janey, so you kept your eyes open. I’m wondering if you noted anything inconsistent while you were there.”

Harry shrugged. “Some unruly news photographers, outside the main lobby. At least one guy got loose and started shooting pictures through that big window that looks out on the porte cochere. A BHPD guy told me there were a couple of dozen dumped flashbulbs on the ground where he was standing.”

Somebody knock-knocked the door. The Hats stood up, rapidamente. Bill Parker walked in. The Hats walked out. It took point-one-two fucking seconds.

Parker straddled a chair. “The senator brought in Jerry Geisler. Jerry called Ernie Roll. Ernie sent Miller Leavy over to take the senator’s deposition. It appears as if the senator was indisposed with a second call girl while the first call girl was being raped and murdered, which clears him for Doc Curphey’s presumed time of death. The second call girl has confirmed the senator’s assertion that they were together at the senator’s bungalow from eleven p.m. to four a.m., which handily covers all possible estimated times of death. Inexplicably, the senator wants you on this job. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. I am acceding to the senator’s request, and I forbid you to utilize your dubious influence with the senator to in any way derail my incursion against Confidential. You will also deploy your goon squad and have them make every effort to dissuade newspaper, TV, and radio reporters from publicizing the murder of Miss Janey Blaine. Per that purported homicide, Doc Curphey has revised his first estimate of Miss Blaine’s cause of death. He has officially announced that Miss Blaine died of injuries sustained by a fall from the Mulholland Drive embankment. Are you following me so far?”

I cracked my knuckles. “I am, sir.”

Parker lit a cigarette. “Ernie Roll wants you to work with the Hats. He’s issuing you DA’s Bureau credentials and swearing you in as a special deputy. This will pave the way for you to legally contact municipal, state, and Federal agencies and request records checks on each and every member of the cast and crew of Rebel Without a Cause. I am, of course, aware that the disreputable Robbie Molette sells drugs to them, and I am painfully aware that young Robbie pimped Miss Blaine to Senator Kennedy. I want you to compile dossiers on any and all members of the Rebel gang. This will assist you in preparing Confidential ’s smear job on the movie, and assist me in assessing the derogatory profile that you are preparing for my eyes only. It will also, dare I say, assist you and the Hats in your sub rosa efforts to seek justice in the matter of your dear lost bait girl, Miss Blaine. Are you following me so far?”

I follow, boss. Find the guy. Kill him. Buttress Doc Curphey’s bullshit. Janey fell off a high hill.

“I follow, sir.”

Parker dry-popped digitalis. He chained Chesterfields and chased it. He smoke-smacked Sweatbox #3, wall to wall.

“Concludingly, I want you to compile a derogatory profile on Senator Kennedy himself. I may direct you to publish your findings in Confidential. There’s been talk that the senator may be tapped as Governor Stevenson’s running mate next year. It might be just the right time for an in-depth smear.”

William H. Parker. Accept no substitutes.

I parked my Packard pimpmobile in the City Hall basement. Back stairs bopped me down there. I saw Jack the K.’s Lincoln limo by the cop-car slots. The back doors were whipped wide. Roof lights lit the ripe rendezvous.