Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

Lois played Emily Dickinson. She was all Art and Loneliness. Her poet’s passion pounded me. I know why. Lois lives longing the same way I do. She said, “What will you do about it?” I haven’t told her I’ve done one big thing already. I haven’t said, “I’ll tell you all in time.” I want to rig our reunion in Shirley Tutler’s name and the name of Vindictive Justice. We’ve got time here. Three jolting jurists have told me that.

J. Miller Leavy prosecuted Chessman. He told me the hump should burn some time in ’59. Ernie Roll’s best guess is early ’60. Judge Charles Fricke calls it ’60–’61.

We’ve got time. Hotshot men owe me favors. We’ll get our jailhouse visit. I promise you that. In the meantime, I’ve done this:

I stored the pix from Jimmy D.’s crawl crib in a bank vault. I B and E’d the crib the day Jimmy died. I stole his Chessman letters and stored them in Vault #2. I ripped his Chessman wallpaper to shreds and burned it. I contacted two high-ups at Quentin and begged for all the names of Chessman’s approved correspondents. They’ve refused me so far.

We’ll reunite. I know it. We won’t ride as rich as I’d hoped. Jack the K.’s fifty grand sallied south.

The cocksucker stiffed me. A minion called and made the meet. The parcel weighed in weighty. I took it home and counted the cash. The bills boded wrong. I showed some to a Treasury man. He said the cash was counterfeit. Freddy, you’re fucked.

I hexed Jack the K. It worked at first. He lost the veep bid in ’56. ’56 is not presumptive ’60. Jack was right. My shakedown was short-range thinking and a small-time move. That made me a small-time man.

Yeah — but I took down Confidential.

Es not la verdad. I just helped. The gig was Bill Parker’s bristling brainstorm from the get. We compiled the damaging data. Parker fed it to AG Pat Brown. He launched the official investigation and empaneled the grand jury then. The grand jury issued indictments on 5/15/57. Conspiracy to Publish Criminal Libel. Conspiracy to Publish Obscene Material. Conspiracy to Disseminate Information in Violation of the California Business Code.

Call it a clamorous cluster fuck. Bondage Bob hired Arthur Crowley to defend the magazine. Art was a divorce lawyer. He was not a libel-defense lawyer. Assistant AG Clarence Linn repped California State. I owed Bob a big beau geste. I was not indicted. Parker and Roll kept their word. I made a ham-handed play to pollute the jury pool. It cost Bondage Bob forty g’s. I flew the fuckers to Acapulco. They lived large for one week. So what? Nobody noticed or seemed to care.

A load of lawsuits surfaced, postindictments. Maureen O’Hara sued. Confidential cornholed her in the March ’57 issue. It alleged that she made out with a Mexican at Grauman’s Chinese. Oops. Somebody futzed the fact check. It had to be me.

Robert Mitchum sued. Errol Flynn sued. Dorothy Dandridge sued. We miscegenation-mauled her on no evidence. The trial opened on 8/7/57. Prosecutor Linn called Bondage Bob “Mr. Big.” He said Mr. Big had prosties lure celebs into compromising contexts. No shit. He said we paid known homosexuals to rat out those of their ilk. No shit. He said we employed strongarm methods routinely. No shit. Art Crowley preached the letter of the libel laws and freewheeling freedom of speech. It bopped back and forth. The courtroom socked in summer heat. Maureen O’Hara testified. She said she never made out with that Mex. The trial traipsed and trucked along until late September. The jury was deep-six deadlocked. They stood at seven to five for conviction on two counts. The judge closed the cluster fuck off and declared a mistrial.

Doofus Double Agent Freddy. He’s the dippy deus ex machina of the whole mess. His secret depositions shaped the prosecutor’s trial brief. He gave up his guilt. It cost him big gelt. It freed him to dream and scheme anew.

Confidential survived. It cooled down its content. It now publishes pap for a reduced readership. Our circulation circled downward. Bondage Bob pledged to publish “only wholesome stories.” He went on a cost-cutting binge. Listening posts were abandoned. I’m on my way out. My goon squad squared up tall and went back in the Marine Corps. I’m a full-time private eye now. I work divorce gigs out of the wheelman lot and snitch to Bill Parker. A snitch fund pays me five yards per month. I make out okay. Robbie Molette and Nasty Nat Denkins work the wheelman lot with me. I’m their faux daddy who used to be hot shit.

I’m alone most nights. I talk to women who aren’t in the room with me. I think about Janey Blaine and Shirley Tutler. Rumination to revelation. A click clicked in my broiled-to-burnout brain, much belatedly.

January ’48. Shirley Tutler is abducted and assaulted. Near Mulholland and Beverly Glen. May ’55. Janey Blaine is raped and murdered. Near Mulholland and Beverly Glen.

Rumination to revelation. I now see replication at work here. Movie madness. The Rebel shoot. Craaaazy crisscrosses at play. Robbie Molette and Janey. Robbie and the Rebel crew.

The Rebel remnants remain in L.A. Nick Ray’s prepping a preachy lox at Fox. Nick Adams shows up on TV. The Nick’s Knights Kar Klub is surely making mischief. It poses a What-Will-You-Do-About-It? dilemma.

I’m bored. I’m underemployed. I may be ramping up to do something bold, brave, and stupid.

The Downtown Statler

10/14/57

The useless eulogy. The dippy de-brief. The rip-snorting ride is over, Sahib.

We took chairs. Bondage Bob poured mid-morning martinis. He wore a pink-puce toga. Note the lash marks on his legs.

“It’s the end of an era, Freddy. And you’re savvy enough to know why I’ve called you in.”

I lit a cigarette. “You’re ‘Mr. Wholesome’ now. I’m redundant. You’ve got no need for a strongarm corps, so you’re cutting me loose.”

Bob sipped bum Beefeaters. The suite was bargain basement. The booze was bottom shelf. His toga resembled a reclaimed Klan sheet.

“That’s the long and short of it, son. There’s a few clean-up jobs you can take care of — but that’s it, over and out.”

I went nix. “You’ve got qualms about the trial. The prosecutors came in, armed to the teeth. Somebody fed them a shitload of inside dirt. It was either me, or one of my guys. You’re getting up the juice to ask me. You’re sitting there in your toga, and you look like Julius Caesar at a drag ball. You’re getting ready to lay some sort of ‘ et tu, Freddy’ number on me.”

Bob went te salud. I went so ask. Bob scratched the whip scars on his ankles.

“I see Bill Parker behind the whole magillah. He ran the show and fed the dope to the AG’s boys. He recruited informants, took depositions, the whole schmear. ”

I said, “Ask me, Bob. Accuse me and ask me, and I’ll say yes or no.”

Bob shook his head. “This is not the Freddy Otash of yore I’m seeing here today. This is some new kamikaze version, that I find disconcerting.”

I drained my drink. “You’re asking me to feed you cues. Okay, here’s the first one. The shit I pulled for you and the magazine was wrong. You take it from there.”

Bob made the jackoff sign. “You’re jerking my chain, son. You don’t get to take my money for as long as you did, and make me the bad guy.”

I said, “I’m the bad guy. I knew it when I put the hurt on Johnnie Ray.”

Bob shrugged. “I’m not going to ask you, and you’re not going to volunteer. I’ll tell you what gets me, though.”