Джеймс Эллрой - Widespread Panic

I cut him off. “ So, we also bug all the gay bathhouses. So, I have extortion wedges on the informants who supply the dirt for our most explosive pieces. So, I polygraph-test them to assure their veracity. So, I create a climate of fear in Hollywood, which is the most gorgeously perverted and cosmetically moralistic place on God’s green fucking Earth. Because, I have an unerring nose for human weakness and have sensed for some time that we have entered an era where the gilded and famous all secretly harbor a desire to be exposed. Because, I am willing to burglarize any psychiatrist’s office in order to get the dirt on their celebrity patients. Because, I am willing to quash lawsuits through the threat and application of physical force.”

Bondage Bob guuuuuuuulped. “What won’t you do?”

I saw Ralph Mitchell Horvath. I said, “Commit murder or work for the Reds.”

A pin-drop silence sizzled. I let it linger loooooong.

“Would you consent to an audition? To test your inside knowledge?”

I nodded. Harrison hit me. I bopped to his beat, beatific.

“Senator Estes Kefauver?”

“Whorehound. Shacks with Filipina prosties at the downtown Statler.”

“Sinatra. Give me the latest.”

“Caught his new girlfriend muff-diving Lana Turner, went on a six-day bender with Jackie Gleason, and wound up with the DT’s at Queen of Angels.”

“Otto Preminger?”

“Mud shark. Currently enthralled with a sepia seductress named Dorothy Dandridge.”

“Lawrence Tierney?”

“Brawling, psychopathic brother of noted grasshopper Scott Brady. Digs the boys at the Cockpit Lounge, and the occasional girl who looks like a boy.”

“John Wayne?”

“Quasi — drag queen. Fucks women and looks stunning in a size fifty-two-long muumuu.”

“Johnny Weissmuller?”

“King Schlong. Well known to have fathered nine kids out of wedlock, with nine different women. Current holder of the White Man’s World Record.”

“Duke Ellington?”

“Current holder of the Black World Record.”

“Van Johnson?”

“The Semen Demon. Sucks dick at the glory hole at the Wilshire May Company men’s room.”

“Burt Lancaster?”

“Sadist. Has a well-appointed torture den in West Hollywood. Pays call girls top dollar to inflict pain on them.”

“Fritz Lang?”

“Known to film Burt’s torture sessions, and screen them for a select clientele.”

“The Misty June Christy?”

“Nympho size queen. My shakedown bait Donkey Don Eversall gives her the big one on a regular basis. Donkey Don’s got a wall peek at his crib. My pal Jimmy Dean made an avant-garde film of their last assignation. It’s called The Stacked and the Hung. The premiere is Friday night, in my living room. You’re cordially invited.”

“Alfred Hitchcock?”

“Peeper.”

“Natalie Wood?”

“Child actress in transition. Rumored to be ensconced at a dyke slave den near Hollywood High.”

“Alan Ladd?”

“Dramatically underhung snatch hound. A man on the horns of a brutal existential dilemma.”

Bondage Bob. The big magazine mogul. He’s gaga, goo-goo, pulled into putty. He’s martini-mangled and mine.

“Mr. Otash, the job is yours.”

I said, “The bite is fifty grand a year, and expenses. My operating costs will go at least double that.”

Now, he’s green at the gills. Now, he knows there’s No Exit. It’s a fabulous fait accompli.

“Yes, Mr. Otash. We have a deal.”

We shook hands. We jacked gin and vermouth. Bondage Bob said, “Jean-Paul Sartre’s a pal of mine. He’ll love The Stacked and the Hung. ”

That talking bug rocked across the rug and waved at me. I swear this is true.

Jimmy timed the fuck. It ran 1:46. Jack Kennedy and Ingrid Bergman banged the beast with two backs.

Pillow patter tapped the tape. Jack said, “ Aaaaah, that was good.” Ingrid said, “Vell, for vun of us, perhaps.”

I roared. Jimmy howled. The market was 3:00 a.m. dead. We gargled Old Crow.

Jimmy said, “We wrapped GE Theater. I invited Ronnie Reagan to the premiere.”

I said, “He hates the Reds. I’ll hit him up for some snitch-outs.”

The tape groaned and ground down to squelch. Jimmy turned it off. I looked down at the floor. A dippy denizen bought this month’s Confidential.

Jimmy said, “When I’m famous, keep me out of the magazine.”

I said, “When you’re in it, you’ll know you’ve arrived.”

My first ops check arrived. I retained Bernie “the Bug King” Spindel. We spent a week whipping wires to wainscoting and laying mike mounts into mattresses. I bribed hotel honchos up the yammering ying-yang. We drilled, bored, spackled, threaded, planted, and wired all the high-end hotels. Regular retainers would result in records of sicko celebs sacking up in those rooms. Bondage Bob had bountiful bucks. We wire-whipped full-time listening posts at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Hotel Bel-Air, the Beverly Wilshire, the Miramar, the Biltmore, the downtown Statler. A Biltmore bellboy tipped us, right off. Gary Cooper and a jailbait jill jumped into that bugged bedroom. BAM!!! — our system socks in sync. Bedsprings bounce, voices vibrate, mikes pick up tattle text and lay it to the listening post. BAM!!! — my Marine Corps mastiff retrieves the tape. BAM!!! — the babe is sixteen and a Belmont High coed. Coop says, “You’re built, honey. Tell me your name again.” The girl gasps, “I’ve always loved your pictures, Mr. Cooper. And, wow, you’re really big. ”

The dirt. The dish. The scandal skank. The lewd libels revealed as real. It all came to me and to Confidential. Freddy O.’s in unstoppable ascent.

Jimmy cut his movie and dubbed in a sizzling sound track. The proud premiere was the L.A. Moment of Fall ’53. I served pizza, booze, and pills from a felonious pharmacy. My pad was packed with movie machers and Marines, stupid starlets, stars, and studs. Dig: Liz, Joi, Ward Wardell, Race Rockwell, Donkey Don Eversall. Ronnie Reagan, Harry Fremont, Arthur Crowley, Bondage Bob, and Jean-Paul Sartre — existentially seeking the scene. A six-foot-six drag queen, Rock Hudson, ex — U.S. Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, nodding on Big “H.”

It’s the egalitarian epicenter of postwar America. It’s a colossal convergence of the gilded and gorgeous, the defiled and demented, the lurid and the low-down. This seedy summit set the tone for the frazzled and fractured frisson that is our nation today.

I dimmed the lights. Race Rockwell ran the projector. The sound track hit: Bartók, Beethoven, bebop by way of Bird. There’s the opening titles: The Stacked and the Hung, starring Donkey Don Eversall and June Christy. Photographed, edited, produced, and directed by James Dean.

The applause ran apoplectic. There’s the first shot. It’s a Holly weird motel room. It’s a through-a-wall-peek peep at you know what.

June Christy enters the room and drops her purse on the bed. She looks apprehensive. She lights a cigarette, she checks her watch, she taps her toes and paces. It’s soundless cinema. The camera stays static — the lens is lashed to that peek.

June hears something. She smiles, she walks offscreen, she walks back on with Donkey Don. Donkey Don winks at the wall peek. He’s in on it. June sits on the bed. Donkey Don whips it out and wags it. My pad shakes and shimmies. There’s gasps, wolf whistles, shrill shrieks.

I looked around for Jimmy. June devoured Donkey Don, tonsil-deep. Where’s Jimmy? Fuck — he’s jacking off by the pizza buffet!!!