by James Ellroy
I camped out on Lloyd’s roof. My nerves were shot. My cough got worse. My attention span diminished. I felt body- and brain-snatched. It was an all-new sensation. Foreign cells invaded me. They crosswired my circuits and made me someone else. The wires were loose and schizzing me into a shutdown.
It happened.
I woke up on the roof. I thought: I need some cigarettes. A mental fuse blew. My mind went dead. I could not retrieve the thought I just expressed.
I reached for it. I failed. I grabbed at four simple words for an hour. I tried to think and say my name. I failed. I willed myself to think who and where I was. I hit a synaptic black wall.
I screamed myself hoarse. Lloyd heard me. He ran up to the roof. I couldn’t think or say his name.
He called an ambulance. Some paramedics ran me to the County Hospital. They left me strapped to a gurney.
I heard voices. Nurses moved their lips and screamed silently. I screamed back. I saw a nurse prep a needle.
I CAME OUT of it.
I woke up strapped to a cot. My teeth were loose. My jaw hurt. Somebody whipped on me. My knuckles were cut and abraded. I fought back.
I remembered my name and those four simple words. God gave me my mind back.
A doctor diagnosed my mental condition. He called it a “post-alcohol brain syndrome.” It was a rare occurrence indigenous to sober drunks. It was physiological. It derived from tenuous abstention. It rarely recurred.
He heard my cough and x-rayed me. He said I had a big lung abscess. Proper care would cure me. Booze and dope would kill me in a week’s time.
Live or die. An easy choice once it confronts you.
I spent thirty days on an IV drip. I coughed up jars full of dark sputum. A male nurse pounded my back and brought up more shit.
I began to recover. I was twenty-seven. I had strong genes. God commuted my sentence. He punished me for the thoughts of my mother and rewired my circuits in mercy.
I believed it. My offense was just that transgressive.
I spent thirty days in bed. I charted my life back to day one and up to the present. I plotted my survival and thought about women.
5.
Purgatory—a noun. My revised Protestant definition.
A desert of demonic deprivation. Cloyingly close to the Inhaler Institute and Masturbation Mountain. Limbo for lascivious losers. A rigorous reminder of rapacious appetites and the precious price they extract.
I went there. The main drags were Stay Straight Street and Abstinence Avenue. I lived on Terrified Terrace. My brain wires might broil and brown out any moment. God grants and revokes. He knows me. I only seek Him when I’m scared.
I stayed scared. All day, every day. I tossed my Antabuse. I didn’t steal, drink, or pop inhalers. I left the hospital—cured. I slept on Lloyd’s roof and lived off plasma money. I read in libraries and stared at women.
I banished June, Kaya, Barbara, and the whole cast of faces. Their love would lure me back to the lung ward. Love was the linchpin of my live-or-die dilemma. I put myself there. I was priapically proactive. Nobody victimized me.
I lucked onto a job. A guy in Lloyd’s building worked at Hillcrest Country Club. He got me a caddy gig.
I dug the fresh air and swank atmosphere. I turned some nice coin and got a hotel room. My fear subsided. I sweated it out on the golf course. I dulled it with my semblance of decent behavior.
I stayed off booze and inhalers. I smoked weed and screened potential crime novels. Romantic stories. Dark and obsessive. Women abundant.
I followed women around Westwood Village. I tried to talk to them. I spooked them. They brushed me off. I batted zero.
I kept going. I kept banging that drum. I was headed for an epiphany.
Lloyd knew a bohemian couple. Solly played the flute and the sitar. Joan paid the rent and played muse. They had a crib in West Hollywood.
I spent some time there. Joan was kind to me. I liked her dark hair and blue eyes and nose that hooked off center.
I’ve got the moment memorized. It’s on file as a permanent freeze frame. It was sex and love writ large in an instant.
Joan reaches for a cigarette. Her blouse gaps at the third button. I see her right breast in profile.
You must change your life.
That was ’77. It’s ’99 now. I’m 51. Joan’s the same age. June and Kaya are several years older. Barb Bourbon and Liz Heath are pushing 60.
They taught me. They presaged the brilliant and courageous woman I married.
I followed the Clinton-Lewinsky mess. I developed a well-reasoned and morally sane hatred of Bill Clinton.
He should have known better. He stole a woman’s dignity. She’s the worldwide synonym for blow job. It’s a life sentence. Men will spot her in restaurants and bulge out one cheek. Her media fees won’t cover the cost.
Some friends disdain this assessment. They point to my wild ride and imply hypocrisy. I would have done the same thing if I’d had the chance.
No, I wouldn’t.
My past taught me better than that. My survival taught me the wisdom of stern judgment.
It’s an exclusionist stance. It acknowledges the ride and honors the lessons I learned.
The retort is: It’s only sex. Sex is nothing.
No, it’s everything.
I attribute my survival to the seldom-sought presence of Almighty God. Skeptics and inclusionists might scoff at this. They can kiss my fucking ass.
The D.A.
There’s the view.
Eighteen floors up/big window/east exposure. His ritual: Gawk and sip coffee. His daily memo: The view meant the climb.
Twenty-eight years. One bureaucracy. Schmuck kid to D.A. They tag their D.A.s like presidents. Its L.A. County ego. He’s #40. His campaign dumped D.A. 39. He’s ten months in. His office is still too big. He still loves the view.
Look south—there’s City Hall. It’s a film noir update. Look straight ahead—there’s court buildings beaucoup. Look north— there’s the “Twin Towers.” It’s County Jail overflow. They’ve got freeway views.
It’s downtown L.A. It’s all crime all the time. Courtrooms and lockups. O.J.’s Oasis/the Punishment Palace/the Misdemeanant’s Motel 6.
It’s Steve Cooley’s world. Dig it dystopian. Check out his desk. It’s orgy-size. It came with the job.
It’s morning. He’s thinking. His brainwaves are broiling bravura.
With Blake. With Rampart. With Olson-Soliah.
The Blake job—six months old/indictmentless/classic. One, short time frame. Two, no guilt proof. Three, no alternative suspects. Rampart—a lurid labyrinth. The loony linchpin: a bent cop named Rafael Perez.
Perez admits his shit. Said shit includes dope ripoffs and frame-ups. Perez rats out Rampart Division. It’s a testosterone-torqued Tijuana. It’s the macho-maimed microcosm for the LAPD. There’s a lawsuit lynch mob lurking. They’re licking their lips. They’d love to loot LAPD. The mess is metastasizing.
Perez tattles tainted testimony. Court costs crescendo. Innocence invaded. Insignificant indictments incurred. Weigh the cost. It might be pull-the-plug time.
It started pre-Cooley. His predecessor caught it hot-hot. Cooley got in. Cooley formed the JSID—Justice System Integrity Division.
Protocols. Procedures to gauge cop misconduct. Rampart on his watch?—the scandal dies stillborn.
Olson-Soliah was hot. It was 10/29. Her plea date is 10/31. She might plead not guilty. She might go to trial. She might plead guilty and cop out. She tried to torch two cop cars. Her fuses fizzled. Ten years per car—predictable and wholly just.
Olson-Soliah went back. It’s ’74 now. Sara Jane Olson’s righteous tag is Kathleen Soliah. Soliah’s in the SLA. They’re loony left-wing losers. They kidnap Patty Hearst. They extort her old man. They rob some banks and spew specious rhetoric. Cut to 5/17/74. Cut to East 54th Street. LAPD SWAT swats an SLA safe house. Six Commies catch tear gas. They cough and combust. The house ignites. Six crispy critters snap,
crackle, and pop.
The stiffs are ID’d. There’s no Patty Hearst and no Kathleen Soliah. Six notable new-left nudniks lay dead. Other SLA Unter-menschen survive. They undulate underground.
Cut to 4/21/75. Cut to Carmichael, California. We’re in Sacramento County. A baaaaad heist goes down. It’s a “Righteous 211” in cop-speak.
The Crocker National Bank. Eight suspected SLA-ers. Four inside. A four-fiend outside crew. A fifteen-grand take. A woman named Myrna Opsahl shotgunned for kicks.
Cut to 1982. Patty Hearst:
Caught/convicted/jailed/pardoned/released. She writes a memoir. She names the Carmichael crew.
Kathy Soliah worked inside. Kathy Soliah dumped cash drawers. Emily Harris killed Myrna Opsahl. Soliah quizzed Harris per Opsahl. Harris called Opsahl “a bourgeois pig.”
Time trucks. There’s Emily Harris and hubby Bill. They get popped for adjunct crimes. Time trucks anew. They go to prison. They get paroled. Patty Hearst’s book appears. The Sacramento D.A. stays gun-shy.
Cut back to ’76. The Feds try Kathy’s bro Steve Soliah. Hearst says he’s a getaway man. A jury acquits him. Double jeopardy saves him. Myrna Opsahl goes unavenged.
Cut to 6/16/99. The Feds nail “Sara Jane Olson.” She lives in Minnesota. She’s a housewife. She’s got three kids. Her husband’s a M.D.
She’s extradited. She hits L.A. She bails out. Her pretrial process attenuates.
Steve Cooley perks up. Steve Cooley reviews Carmichael. Steve Cooley smells murder beefs.
Myrna Opsahl had a son. His name was Jon. He was a M.D. Cooley briefed some D.A.’s cops. They called Jon Opsahl. They updated him.
Kathy Soliah—popped for the car-bomb caper. The Carmichael job—primed for prosecution now.
Cooley kept calling Jon Opsahl. Opsahl bugged the Sacramento D.A. Opsahl got the gist. Opsahl vibed this:
Sacramento’s reluctant—once bitten/twice shy. Cooley’s running for D.A. Cooley leads the polls. Say he gets elected. Say he goes bold. Say he tries the case non-jurisdictionally.
Cooley got elected. Cooley took over. A local judge scoped the car-bomb evidence. Said judge said this:
“The history of the SLA, including Carmichael, could be introduced in the bombing case here, because it was part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy.”
Cooley smiled. Cooley tapped his desk. Cooley checked the view.
Time trucked backwards. It’s 5/74 again. It’s yesterday once more.
He was a kid prosecutor. He was a kid LAPD reserve. The “SLA Shootout” ran live on TV.
He watched it. He dug it. It played live from his own beat.
Some show. Order triumphant. Adjudication circumvented— a tragedy. He almost grabbed his uniform. He almost went over.
He deferred his help. Time trucked forward. His Carmichael ploy might work. Sacramento might prosecute.
What a ride. What a fucking view.
The office was huge. Newcomers needed maps. Floors and floors/rooms and rooms/mazelike cubbyholes.
The Criminal Courts Building—Temple and Broadway.
Cooley knew every wall crack. He worked headquarters. He detoured. He worked Siberian outposts. He returned as top dog.
He toured the halls. He touched the walls. It was turf-marking time. You’re el perro primo/il cane supremo/chien numero un.
Pinch me—I’m the D.A.
Cooley walked to his 10:00 a.m. meeting. Subordinates said hi. It was “Steve” and “Boss” mostly. The timid deployed “sir.” Cooley looked embarrassed.
He cut through the squadroom. It was packed. Good cops all—prime PD transfers. They investigated cases. They guarded witnesses. They watchdogged him.
Pinch me. I’ve got bodyguards and drivers. Headwaiters kiss my ass.
Busting Robert Blake earned Steve Cooley headlines, but reshaping the largest prosecutor’s office in the country—and one of the most maligned—is the challenge of a lifetime. (Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office)
Cooley walked. Cooley touched wall cracks. Cooley made his 10:00 a.m. meet.
The crew was there. The room was big. The desk was orgy-size. The topic: the new Cold Case Unit.
It’s Cooley’s scheme. It’s four DDAs plus LAPD detectives. Let’s solve old murders. Let’s deploy DNA. There’s a big state grant—fifty million cold. Let’s utilize our share. Local crime labs are swamped. Let’s blast through our agenda.
For LAPD:
Lieutenant Debbie McCarthy, Detective Rick Jackson, Detective Dave Lambkin, Detective Tim Marcia, et al. One supervisor. Three file-prowling/street-pounding/case-clearing dicks.
For the D.A.:
Lisa Kahn—deputy-in-charge. The widely known DNA “Goddess.” John Lewin—stoic prosecutor. Nifty suit and slick haircut. Ellen Aragon—seasoned litigator. Piercing eyes chilled by large glasses. Vesna Maras—prosecutor/recent transfer/quiet-raucous wit. Dead ringer: the Eastern-bloc ingenue in Andrzej Waida flicks. Joe Scott—Cooley’s media boss. A young 71. Deep L.A. roots. His dad was a judge. His dad slammed Big Bill Tilden for honking young boys.
Bagels and coffee sit warm. Packaged cream cheese melts. The crew shags coffee. Cooley shags a bagel. Lisa Kahn takes charge. She’s the Goddess DIC.
We’ve got high-volume unsolveds. We’ve got evidence extant. We’ve got evidence destroyed. We’ve got jobs with no suspects, jobs with prime suspects, and whodunit jobs. We’ve got grant funding. We get one DNA sample-test per case. Our priority: nail suspects in hardcore sex snuffs.
Everyone agrees. It’s charged and vocal. Cooley’s noshing a bagel. He nods assent.
The cops take over. It goes orderly. We go McCarthy to Jackson/Lambkin to Marcia on down.
Subtext runs strong. We work the worst murders. Female victims/male suspects. Penetration/ejaculation/mutilation. Lust-now-pay-later crimes.
The cops riff prosaics. We read files, we ID victims, we locate or confirm evidence lost. We locate suspects free or in custody.
Lisa Kahn speaks. Remember—DNA convicts and exonerates. Cooley speaks. Remember—DNA is fully precise. It cannot distort or dissemble. We can serve justice both ways.
The subtext shifts. It goes telepathic quick. It’s a mass O.J. injection. Probative certainty—one thing. Shit-slick defense lawyers—another.
More cop talk. More D.A. talk. The ball bops beatific.
Rape kits/freezers/property rooms. The comb-old-cartons/computer run/field-new-calls essentials. Resentment sizzles. They’re new. They’re pumped and poised. They’ll buck longstanding sloth.
Lab backlog. Lab incompetence. DNA as hot topic and Kafkaesque theme. Idle cons in Quentin and Folsom. Let’s try a DNA scam! We might get lucky! It worked for O.J.!!!
More talk. Deft passes—cops to D.A.s.
Rape-kit tests. The consensual sex factor. Outside labs—can we employ them? Let’s buy that new fingerprint computer.
Cooley mops up bagel crumbs. Cooley shifts his chair. It’s his prelude to coda.
Cooley speaks. His chair’s a pulpit. The orgy desk’s a pew.
Murder solving—the detectives’ stern duty. Sound teamwork as device. The prosecutor’s duty: Win honestly in court. Usurp the autonomy of killers. Protect society on that basis ad hoc.
The pitch worked. The sermon on the orgy desk. Nonsectarian prayer.
The meeting adjourned. Cooley grabbed a bagel for the road.
THERE’S THE LIFE.
“The Life”—noun. Convict-derived. Denotes inclusiveness and sealed borders. You’re in or out. You commit crimes. You run inherent risks. That’s your membership card.
“The Life”—noun. Applied to whores and their high-risk existence. Applied to all sealed societies. Risk remains the membership card.
The L.A. D.A.’s Office—ditto.
Deep roots. 152 years. Deeeeep history.
Wild West days. Chinatown tong wars. Race riots. Lynchings. Police scandals. Bent cops running prosties. Bent cops bombing cars. Bent cop homicides.
D.A. Buron Fitts—deep shit in 1930.
There’s a whore ring. It feeds young cooze to high rollers. Allegations arise. Fitts allegedly quashes them. Suspicions arise. The grand jury indicts. Fitts endures. Fitts wins at trial.
Deputy D.A. Jack Kirschke—’60s swinging dick. Jack’s wife is straying. She’s fucking this clown Orville Drankhan. Jack finds them in bed. Jack whacks them. Jack does ten years.
Hot crimes. Perpetrated within. Statistical rarities. Emblematic? Sure.
You’re in the Life. You make the law. You fight lawlessness without. You breathe the stink. You de-inoculate. You know the law. Your knowledge engenders recklessness. You crash the law without.
History. Dig it as picaresque. Load on that lore large.
La vida, la vie—Cooley fucking loved it.
The old days. The old D.A.’s cops—phone book-thumping goons deluxe. The rubber-stamp grand jury—Indictments R Us.
History lost. History least. The Office got hip and cleaned up. Credit time and trends without.
Racial roots rocked. The Spanish land grants and up. Mexican rule early. White rule ascendant—per population flux. The Office flew with the flux. The Office grokked that melting pot/Pacific Rim rebop. The Life was rigidly restricted and inimically inclusive. It lived by the law and flowed with flux more than not. L.A. changed complexion. The Office likewise. Seoul and Ciudad Whatever meet the Dark Continent and crash the White Spot.
L.A. changed. L.A. grew. The Office followed up. Representative justice—within meets without. Race. Gender. The Cold Case Squad. Female victims probable. Three women to prosecute.
Cooley loved it. He was 54. He lived an L.A. lifetime. He logged half-plus in the Life. He saw the big guns work and fade. He met J. Miller “Gas Chamber” Leavy. Miller sent Stephen Nash and Barbara Graham to the green room. Miller 86’d Donald Keith Bashor. Miller was a self-described gas.
Then was then. Now was now. Fuck nostalgia in the knee cracks and neck. Now was better. Then had its place. The weave warped inextricable. Then and now latched the L to the Life.
