Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

I dropped Lois at the hotel and nudged north-northwest. I hit Mulholland and Beverly Glen. The two crime-scenes crisscrossed and merged as one hellish whole.

’48 to ’55. The perfectly preserved historical location. Jimmy D. didn’t kill Janey. Ditto, Nick Ray. It was some suck-ass subaltern. He’d prowled Janey’s pad. He rifled her desk and jizzed up her undies. Somebody stole Robbie Molette’s list of Janey’s johns. That somebody was circling Janey in advance of the alternative film. Nick Ray called that man at the pay phone by the Black Cat. They discussed the details of the shoot. The Hats cleared Robbie Molette’s dad. The killer was a Rebel set flunky. He possessed technical and/or logistical skills. He 459’d Robbie’s pad. That meant he knew Robbie. That meant Robbie knew something about him.

I walked the merged crime scenes. I climbed hills and claimed clues. I found used flashbulbs off the Mulholland embankment. That meant photography. It linked the lead of the used flashbulbs at the Demo fund-raiser site. He was stalking Janey then. It was furtive foreplay. He knew Janey would be there to culminate with Jack K. Robbie set Janey up with Jack. That meant Mr. X knew Robbie.

I humped hillsides. I claimed clues. I found a roll of red cellophane by a tree trunk. Red cellophane. It covered the headlights on Chessman’s ’46 Ford. It covered the headlights of the ’46 Ford prop car Nick Ray discussed with Mr. X. The Red Light Bandit posed as a cop. Jimmy revived the role. This red cellophane was weathered and worn. It looked to be two-plus years old.

Robbie didn’t kill Janey Blaine. He showed me his foto ID once. He had O-positive blood. The killer had AB-negative blood. His jizz secreted his blood type. Robbie had a name for me. I sensed it, sure thing.

The wheelman lot. There’s Robbie. He’s listlessly lounged by the lube rack. The lot’s listless, today. There’s no trabajo, no divorce dinero.

I pulled in and hit my horn. Robbie rubbed his eyes and walked over.

I popped the passenger door. Robbie scooched in. I passed him my flask. We traded pops and glommed up a glow.

“I had a few questions about Janey.”

Robbie said, “Boy, that’s sure old news.”

I smiled. “Well, something’s come up.”

Robbie heh-hehed. “You mean Fat Boy doesn’t fit the bill anymore? Not that he ever did, to the cognoscenti.”

I went nix. “I’m recalling something you said, and how you said it wistfully. You said, ‘Well, she resisted me,’ and I’d like you to elaborate on that.”

Robbie choked up. “Aw, Freddy. Don’t make me say it.”

“Say what, Robbie? That you were in love with her?”

Robbie wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Robbie blew his nose on his shirttail.

“Okay, I’ll say it. I was in love with her.”

“And your dad set you up with her. And she joined your stable at the hotel.”

Robbie said, “You’re rubbing it in. I divested the stable, as you damn well know. I’m a wheelman now. I’m on the straight and narrow.”

That made me laff. “Your dad introduced you to Janey, right?”

“No. Chrissy, my sister, did. She knew Janey, independent of my dad. Even before she got her contract at Metro.”

“Are you saying they were pals? Running partners?”

Robbie snatched the flask and deep-dunked it. He got this kid wild-man glow.

“Chrissy and Janey were movie-mad. They costarred in these jive, skeevy-ass shorts. You know, so-called experimental films where nobody gets paid, you never see the flicks in theaters, but copies circulate. I’m not calling them smut, but I’d call them ‘bodice rippers,’ with a lot of skin and some pretty smutty scenes, if you get what I mean.”

I said, “Keep going. Don’t make me prompt you.”

Robbie deep-dunked. “They were historical-type pastiches, and they were all based on famous crimes where women got raped and sliced. You know, The Last Days of the Black Dahlia, Fatty Arbuckle and Virginia Rappe, the girls that guy Otto Stephen Wilson shanked. Chrissy always played the sidekick, and Janey always played the victim. That’s how they met, and how they got tight.”

I said, “Who made the films? I mean photographed and directed them?”

Robbie said, “I don’t know. Just some fucko movie guys who wanted to push women around and see some skin.”

“Did any guys like that work on the Rebel shoot?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did you know that a film like the ones you described was being shot, and that it pertained to Caryl Chessman?”

“No, but it don’t surprise me, because, like I told you back then, that sick twist Jimmy Dean was all hopped up to play Chessman, and that yet sicker twist Nick Ray was promoting the idea. I also passed you the tip on that so-called alternative film.”

I lit a cigarette. “Do you know a bar in Silver Lake called the Black Cat?”

“Yeah. It’s a bookie joint by day and a fag joint by night.”

“All right. Did you know anyone from the Rebel shoot who lived near there? Right off of Sunset and Vendome?”

Robbie shook his head. “Not exactly. Not back in ’55, I didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I knew a guy who lived up the hill from there, and who frequented the Cat, and who moved his studio to a couple of doors down from the Cat, maybe last year.”

I tensed up. Say the name, Robbie. We just tipped telepathic. I should have tapped the guy already. I nabbed the name a split second back.

“And?”

“And, what ? It’s Arvo Jandine. He was the unit fotog on Rebel, and he’s another sick twist of the Jimmy and Nick Ray ilk. He don’t strike me as the killer type, so that’s why I didn’t mention him when you started in on the Rebel guys.”

I shut my eyes. I saw it. Jandine. The Rebel records checks. He’s a whipout man. He habituates junior high schools. He invades girls’ locker rooms. He’s a photographer. He snapped stills at the Liquor Store Inferno.

Plus, the dope raid. Jandine’s flop. The bikini pic from Robbie’s girl book.

Robbie said, “Freddy’s in a trance. It’s like he’s on some new species of hop that’s just been discovered.”

I opened my eyes. “You said ‘sick twist.’ ”

“Yeah. He’s the guy who took those beaver pix of Chrissy. That, and he whipped it out on my mom.”

I reshut my eyes. Robbie said, “Do you ever get ashamed of your life, Freddy?”

I said, “Only most of the time.”

Escalation. Mine and his. I escalated my efforts to know him. I escalated my master plan and primed it for profit. I called LAPD Vice and filched a full fotostat of Arvo Jandine’s green sheet. It revealed his rude escalation.

Arvo Jandine, one sizzling sick twist. Born 6/8/19, bumfuck Nebraska. Arvo’s a shifty shutterbug. He’s sneaking snaps in girls’ locker rooms, eeeaaarly.

His first bust is back in Omaha, ’37. He’s peddling candid nudes at CCC camps and WPA wingdings. He’s sent to a compassionate youth camp. It’s committedly coed. He wires the girls’ locker room and rigs an automatic shutter flap. He compiles and catalogues candid nudes by the thousands. He escapes and peddles the pix at truck stops and gin mills throughout the Midwest. He’s Mr. Smut now. He makes his move and hotfoots it here.

He becomes a unit fotog. He pops pix at Paramount and calls Columbia home. He rigs automatic shutter flaps in female stars’ dressing rooms. They snap sneak pix on overdrive. He’s Mr. Beaver Bounty and Mr. Stark Naked Star. Word of mouth mainlines him to the L.A. Perv Elite. He manufactures nude actress trading cards. Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer. Rita Hayworth, Ella Raines. One Ann Sheridan trumps two Betty Grables. He spawns a craaaaazy craze. He makes a fat fortune. The fuzz fox him and entrap him. He sells shunt shots to an undercover cop and gets five to eight in quivering Quentin.