Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

Eddie said, “Give up your dad. For the record. Let’s get it out of the way.”

Robbie scratched his balls. “For the record, my dad has been exploiting his job as a grip at Metro for the purpose of recruiting wholesome, Ivy League — looking ingénue snatch, for the purpose of turning them as call girls, for a fifty-fifty split. He’s been pulling this shit since ’49. Before you ask, I’ll tell you he doesn’t keep a trick book or a girl book. He keeps it all in his head.”

Eddie said, “Describe his relationship with Janey Blaine.”

Robbie picked his nose. “He recruited her. That means he made her strip, and he poked her, one time only. He didn’t kill her. That’s ridiculous. He never leaves the house at night. He’s got home cooking, anytime he wants it — and he always wants it. My mom and my sister keep him well supplied.”

Max said, “Tricks harassing Janey. What have you heard about that?”

Robbie said, “Zilch. And that goes for all my girls. They work a high-class clientele, strictly at the hotel.”

I said, “Your dad doesn’t keep a trick book or a girl book. But you keep a picture book — because I’ve seen it. Here’s the question. Did Janey keep a trick book?”

Robbie licked his fingers. Yum, yum — Nougat Deelite.

“I don’t know, but here’s something you should know. I keep a trick list in my room at the house. Specifically, all the big-name guys who put the boots to my girls, and here’s the rub. My room got burgled a few days ago. Shit was subtly out of place when I got home, and the trick list was gone. Lucky for you, I had the list memorized.”

Max yukked. Robbie Molette. Accept no substitutes.

“Give us a preview. You can reconstruct the list on paper, later on.”

Robbie rescratched his balls. “Besides our pal Senator Kennedy, we’ve got Senators Johnson, Knowland, Smathers, Humphrey, and Governor Stevenson, who likes boys, but my biz don’t fly that route. We’ve also got Ike’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, DA Ernie Roll, Louis B. Mayer, Lew Wasserman, Jack L. Warner, and Darryl F. Zanuck. Not to mention Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Van Heflin, and that froggy guy, Yves Montand.”

Eddie went Oooh-la-la. Max whistled. My first thought: BLACKMAIL. Big-name men/call girls/some clumsy first approach. A list on paper? Prememorized names? It read AMATEUR NITE.

I tossed a tight changeup. “The Rebel shoot. Has anyone on it expressed interest in Janey or your other girls? The cast and crew are nothing but pervs and shitbirds. It’s a suspect pool we should explore.”

Robbie made the jack-off sign. “Nobody on the shoot knows about Janey or my other girls. I keep my two business worlds separate and compartmentalized. And, as far as Rebel Without a Cause goes, the shoot’s wrapping on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth. I’ll keep my ear down for you, but I’ve got to make one final haul off those weirdos, because once they go into postproduction, I’ll never see any of them again.”

Max said, “The Democratic fund-raiser. You were bussing tables there, so you saw your ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ scene play out. Here’s what interests me. Were there any unusual occurrences outside of that that you can think of?”

Robbie dry-drained his Coke. “Not really. Some stray paparazzi guy got loose and started shooting pix through an uncurtained window, and me and Manuel, this other busboy, got tapped to pick up all these used flashbulbs where he was shooting.”

I said, “We know that Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean have been talking up a Caryl Chessman flick. What else have you heard about that? The whole deal sounds unsavory to me.”

Robbie shrugged. “Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean are unsavory. The whole biz is unsavory. Chessman’s headed for the green room. If movie folks are gabbing up Chessman, it’s just that he’s a hot topic these days.”

The wall speaker sparked. Bill Parker said, “Otash, get out here.”

I walked out. Parker passed me his flask. I gargled Old Overholt and lit a cigarette.

Parker said, “The shoot’s closing down. I’m thinking we should recruit Robbie and do a big dope raid. It would do the magazine good in the short term, and we should net a variety of leads on a variety of criminal matters out of it.”

I said, “I agree.”

Parker went scoot. We popped down to Sweatbox #3 and peeped the wall window. There’s Nick Adams. He looks phone-booked and fit to be tied. Note the blossoming bloody nose and torn earlobe.

Parker said, “He confessed to the burglaries, and he gave up your friend Jimmy Dean as his accomplice. Red and Harry are out shagging him now. It may take a while. They’re chasing a hot lead on Fat Boy Mazmanian, too.”

I made the gimme sign. Parker passed his flask. I glug-glugged and got that glow.

“We’ve got the confession on Adams, Chief. That will stand up in court, and who knows what you’ll get from Jimmy. But we need to cut them loose, so they’ll be there if we run that dope raid.”

Parker popped digitalis. Straight, no chaser. Gas on his glow.

“You’ve been saying ‘we,’ Freddy. I find that encouraging.”

“I’m starting to think like a cop again, sir.”

“Anything else before you go?”

“Yes, sir. Tell Red and Harry to give Jimmy a good thumping.”

I soloed out to Culver City. My peeper penchant popped me out there. Pervdog, peeper, priapic pad prowler. You’re a clue clown on a biiiiiiiig case. Let’s toss Janey Blaine’s pad. Let’s lay it low and look for leads. Let’s sniff her panties while we’re at it.

It was 1:00 p.m. I stopped at a pay phone and called my service. I had one message: “Call Mr. Kennedy at his hotel.”

I did it. A stooge picked up. He asked me to drop by at 3:00 today. I said I’d be there.

To extort your boss, fucker. Ring-a-ding-ding!!!!

I found chez Janey. It was a peach stucco cube job off of Motor Avenue. Her ’50 Buick was gone. The West L.A. dicks impounded it, posthomicide. A first-rate forensic revealed zero and zilch. West L.A. left the case then. The Otash-Hats combine caught the duty. The pad was pristine to prowl.

I pinned my badge to my suit coat. It added official ooomph. I walked up and keestered the keyhole. Pick #6 worked. The door popped. I locked myself in.

The living room was squaresville meets hipsville. Persnickety Persian carpets and nifty Naugahyde chairs. The kitchen featured a gas range/Frigidaire combo. The fridge featured TV dinners and Tovarich vodka. Tovarich was high-test and cut-rate. Janey was jacked on the juice. She was a secret sauce hound. That’s Clue #1.

I hit the bathroom. It was tidy, turquoise-tiled, and crawl-in cramped. I checked the medicine cabinet. Aaahhh — here’s some good shit.

A diaphragm. A big box of cornstarch. Vivid vials of biphetamine and Nembutal. I popped two of Janey’s biphetamine. Let’s bond, baby doll.

I hit the bedroom. It was squaresville squared. The de rigueur ratty carpets. The small slipcovered bed. A small four-drawer desk. A matching four-door dresser. Cheap Picasso prints on the walls.

The desk blotter. It’s a clue clown/pad-toss classic. Check it out. Catch some light and look low.

Jawohl. It’s crisscross indented. There’s cursive marks all over it. Janey wrote loose-leaf letters and pressed her pen hard. Shit — no legible words leaped out.

I rifled the desk drawers. An inconsistency inflamed me. They were all bare-bones empty. No pens, no paper, no envelopes. The wood had been washcloth-wiped. That meant print eradication. The gradations of grain gave it away. The light grain was dry, the dark grain was damp.