by James Ellroy
PERCY’S PERCH:
A poof palace in palate-popping purple and pink. Nancy boys in niggered-out Naugahyde booths.
The barman was a sweaty swish in spangled spandex. He saw us and steered us to a back room.
No introductions. Spandex Spanky spit it out.
“Chickie has AIDS. He’s slipping guys that date-rape drug and deliberately giving them the virus.”
He popped a cassette in a console TV. Spliced footage screed the screen. There’s Harrison “the Hunk” Ford in Star Wars. There’s Sylvester “Steroid” Stallone in Rocky. There’s Chickie Farhood made up as Stephen Nash. It’s a fantastic faux cluster fuck.
The swish said, “Chickie shoots the stuff off regular movie screens and splices himself in. God forgive us, but there’s a market for such blasphemy.”
We walked back to the bar proper. I saw a cadre of cadaverous Calvins downing daiquiris and massive martinis. Spanky said, “Chickie’s victims. They’ve got four months between them to live.”
I said, “Let’s kill him.”
Tom fanned his phone book. “I got no problem with that.”
I DUMPED TOM at the fuck pad. I rhino-rolled to Roxbury Drive.
There’s Rosie. There’s Donna. There’s Miguel bombed on Belvedere.
Donna took me aside. “Rosie got tanked and explained Miguel’s visions. Stephen Nash tried to attack him. Rosie chased him and beat him with a stack of 78 records. She shattered sixteen copies of ‘You Belong to Me.’ ”
“Did you go through the old film cans?”
Stephen Nash starts his last ride. (Los Angeles Times Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)
Donna nodded. “I found it and cued it up. Brace yourself. ”
We walked to the next room. A screen covered one wall. I doused the lights. Donna ran the projector. Stephen Nash gnawed at the camera.
“I snatched the three snotty-pants from the polio joint and beat their heads against the wall of this rooming house where I was staying. I cornholed them postmortem and buried them out back. It was April. I figured the fuzz would get me sooner or later. I found me the ugliest bitch I could find and fucked her blind. I put a big banana on her stomach and made like she was a boy. She had pimples all over. I heard she popped twins right when they sent me to death row.”
Offscreen: Luis Figueroa’s voice. “I find this hard to believe.”
Nash: gap-toothed/floppy-mouthed/curly-haired/beady-eyed/ baaaaaaad.
I believed every word.
The room lights flicked on. I saw Miguel walk in. He said, “I remember him now. I haven’t had a migraine since Donna showed me the film.”
I said, “Rosie saved your life.”
Miguel nodded. “I’m going to buy her all the Häagen-Dazs in Beverly Hills and a case of Wild Turkey.”
I kissed tears off Donna’s cheeks. She said, “Can we make love now?”
WE FOUND aroom. The bed belonged to two baying beagles. We booted them. They chose two chaise lounges and watched.
Percy’s Perch. Pimple-piled killers. Camera-eyed K-9’s. Brave new fucking world.
We dusted dog dander off the covers and climbed on. Donna wore static-stark cashmere now. She peeled off a pink turtleneck shift. Shiver-sparks sparked spangled light.
I shucked my shirt and pants—threadbare third-world threads. Donna hauled off my “Home of the Whopper” shorts. Naked in a nanosecond—heaven in a hound dog’s hutch.
I remember the one long kiss. I remember blue veins synced to her heartbeat. Her breasts tasted like essence de Donna and sharp shower soap. Her mouth meandered and made me moan. Lip locks and licks made me pitch to her pivot-spot.
We fitted finally. Her call—I was orphaned in her orbit and didn’t know where I was. Beagles bayed. It lasted ten years or ten seconds. Our climax was a climb up the pyramids and a ten-planet pirouette down.
DONNA STIRRED FIRST. “Miguel and I have missed six shooting schedules. We might get fired.”
I said, “Chickie’s all over the media. We’ll get him soon.”
“I don’t want it to end. How do you go back to guest shots and dates with actors after something like this?”
I kissed her neck. “You don’t. You stay with me.”
Donna shook her head. “I’m a move-on-but-always-live-in-L.A. kind of girl.”
I shook my head. “It’s not a life sentence. You’ve been through too much to be who you were.”
Donna smiled. “I feel like an adventuress. I came to Hollywood, I was Andover and Wesleyan, it was grins and giggles, and now I’ll see Stephen Nash the moment I wake up for the rest of my life.”
“You’re right. And I’ll pick up the phone and call you when I’m scared or bored, and we’ll meet for coffee and talk around the wild shit of fall ’83 and how it changed us.”
I cupped her breasts. I felt a ka-tick murmur under the right.
“You’re saying you can’t be subordinate to any man.”
Donna squeezed my hand on her heart. “And I imagine it’ll last until I’m 47 or -8 and I’m afraid of being alone.”
I shook my head. “You’ll have a grave and terrible beauty then. You’ll get the face you earn, and Stephen Nash and me and Chuckie and Mama Cass will be part of it.”
Donna burrowed into my chest. It hit me then—the cop part. Chickie clouted a Rite Aid. He stole Seconal, Amytal, Tuinal. He did not steal demonic date-rape Rohypnol.
Donna said, “I love you. I’ll never just walk from all of this.”
I said, “I love you, and I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone more.”
Donna touched my lips. “Rick, don’t say that. You’re 31 years old.”
“I’ll rephrase it, then. I’ve got a kick-ass will and volition, and I’ll never let myself love anyone more.”
LUIS’S HIP HACIENDA. A kooky kasa in Coldwater Canyon. Wild warped wood whipped out at raucous right angles.
We pulled up and parked. Miguel said, “Typical actor’s pad. Build as you go, between residual checks. The cocksucker starts out with Hamlet and ends up with Count Borga, Vampire for scale.”
Donna mock-swatted him. “It’s the world we chose, and we’ll be lucky to do as well as he did.”
“The cocksucker cheated on my mom during their honeymoon, then bird-dogged half of my bitches.”
Donna mock-swatted him—harder. “Women are not‘bitches.’ ”
Miguel said, “Excuse me. ‘Chicks.’ ”
Donna nudged me. “Can I kill him?”
I laffed. “If you’ll marry me as part of the cover-up, yeah.”
Donna said, “I’ll consider it.”
Miguel flipped off the kasa. “Hey, Luis, eat shit and die, you old cocksucker.”
The old cocksucker cold-cocked my headlights. I braked and missed him. He was Miguel fifty years hence. Balder, Disneyesque Dumbo ears, blackhead-blotted beak. Garb: madcap madras golf shorts and an “I Choked Linda Lovelace” T-shirt.
We got out of the car. Father and son embraced. Papa pulled a pint of Padrone from his waistband. Miguel took two gulps. Donna declined. I took two—aaaaah!
They saltily soliloquized in Spanish. Luis talked fast. Miguel talked slow. I heard “mujer magnifica” “chinga su madre,” “Count Borga—dinero grande.”
Miguel turned the talk a ingles. “Stephen Nash? Hoto sicótico. TV news, that killer. Come on, Daddy, speak English.”
Luis whipped it out. Luis pissed in the driveway. His dick was divertingly donkeyesque.
Luis said, “It pays to advertise.”
Donna said, “For those in the market.”
Luis stumbled up his steps. The living room was a dump. We followed. Dave Slatkin lamented from a wall TV.
“We dug up the remains of the three children at the backyard location today, utilizing dogs from the LAPD’s animal shelter. The boys had been missing from the polio ward since April 1956. Their broken pelvises denote a posterior-based sexual attack.”
&n
bsp; Ronald Reagan replaced Dave. Luis pounded Padrone. I badged him. “LAPD. Here or downtown.”
Luis slipped on a crown and robe. Dig the nametags attached: “Property of the Count Borga, Vampire set.”
Miguel grabbed a phone book. Miguel patted it. Miguel cracked the crown off Luis’s head.
Dig the joltingly Jack Webb-like Dragnet drawl:
“Give us the straight dope, Pancho. You worm-eating wetbacks get no truck with my partners and me.”
Donna grabbed the phone book. Donna hit Luis in the head.
“That’s for whipping it out and hitting on me on Hawaii Five-O.”
Hollywood—man-o-Manischewitz!!!!
Luis humbly hurled Latin. I’m priapically Protestant—it was gravel Greek to me. Miguel said, “Sssh. It’s the prelude to confession.”
We all stood stock-still. The count chugged Padrone and chanted “nam-myoho-renge-kyo.” We waited. He tossed the jug at the TV. The TV shattered. He corrosively confessed.
“It was ’54. I’d lost it. I had no more self to transmit to the screen. I met Steve Nash. We got in a fender bender. He recognized me. We talked. He’d just robbed a liquor store. He was a heist man. He carried a knife and a pipe. He proudly stated that he was a butt banger, but I’d be safe because I wasn’t his type. I fell into his sway. We smoked reefer and ate Benzedrex Inhaler wads together. I drove while he robbed stores. He never spent money. I held his stash, and I’ve still got it. He ate dog food exclusively. He drank Thunderbird wine. I thought he was real, and false and reinvented, and I believed roughly half of what he said. He fucked filthy winos in our poolhouse. It drove Rosie crazy. He used to joke with you, Miguelito. It drove Rosie crazy. Once she broke a stack of records over his head. He meant you no harm, mi hijo, I swear it.”
The count picked his nose. The count took a deep stage breath.
Donna patted her phone book. “Wrap it up, Chico. Rapidamente, or I’ll yank your green card.”
The count went contemplative.
“I thought he was schizophrenic or the world’s greatest actor. His all-dog-food diet netted me $108,995, all of which is in that top cupboard. He told me he killed three polio-afflicted children, and I never believed him. Then they found that boy under the Santa Monica pier. I wept when he went to the gas chamber. He was evil, but his genius meshed with mine, and together we will reach our zenith as I portray Count Borga, Vampire.”
I said, “You’re a fucked-up cat, Luis.”
Donna hammered his head with the phone book, two-handed.
Miguel grabbed the drawer gross with greenbacks. He said, “ Yo te amo, Papa, you cocksucker.”
IT WAS LATE. We were tired and hungry. Loose lettuce lolled in my trunk. I called Kuster on my 2-way. Chickie Farhood—still at large. Massive manhunt. Habitual haunts held down. Homicide men at known homo huts. Camouflaged cops trawling the Swish Alps.
We drove southeast. The Pacific Dining Car—“Open All Nite.” We hit Highland southbound. We saw shelter lights shimmer. We pulled up and walked in.
Bull terriers barked. Bloodhounds bayed. Airedales went aoooo! Reggie the Ridgeback rammed his snout under Donna’s skirt.
Jane Slatkin was asleep. Three-dog night. Litter-mate Labs.
Dave sat on the floor. Donna shoved Reggie off. He sniffed Miguel’s crotch and snickered.
I said, “He’s still out there.”
Dave nodded. “The big white house was the Collins pad, right?”
Miguel said, “Right. You’re a fucking psychic genius, man. Want to go to the Dining Car?”
Dave shook his head. I said, “Stephen Nash ate an all-dog-food diet.”
“Proving there’s some good in all people.”
Donna scratched Reggie’s ridge. He almond-eyed her with looooove. Dave said, “I had a certified vision. There is an afterlife, and dogs run heaven. Jesus, Buddha, and all those other cats are just shills to keep squares walking the straight-and-narrow.”
Reggie snout-skimmed Donna’s skirt. Donna dodged him. She said, “ Jesus, and this is all real.”
WE HOGGED a booth at the Car. We pounced on porter-house, tore into T-bone, fattened our fangs on filet mignon. Donna said she’d adopt Reggie. Miguel said he’d adopt the two bull terriers. We piled into pecan pie. Donna held my hand in her lap. We yawned in unison. Our pads were too far to tango to. Let’s roll to the Hollywood fuck pad.
Donna said, “What did your dad do with his Oscar for Hamlet ? I didn’t see it at his dump.”
Miguel laffed. “He hocked it to Schwab’s pharmacy for phenobarbital and booze.”
I said, “Maybe he’ll mount a comeback with Count Borga. ”
Miguel said, “Nix. It’s a grade-Z turkey headed straight for TV.”
A waiter walked over. Donna pointed to some steak scraps. “Will you wrap this up for my dog?”
WE DROVE to the pad. It was dark and dank quiet. No window lights, normal TV or fuck-flick flares. No laughing or lip-smacking of late-nite libidos.
We walked in. I hit the living-room lights. It was too tidy—no dropped drawers or gunbelts shed for the sheets.
Donna yawned. “I’m going up to the roof. I want to look at the lights and extend this whole adventure.”
Miguel said, “I’ll go with you.”
They walked upstairs. I eyeballed the stairways and landings. No kitchen lights. No de rigueur disarray.
Donna and Miguel hit the roof—I heard gravel grab. I walked upstairs. No hall lights. No sconces skimming light. No bathroom lights, no light-lit walkways to the johns.
Five bedroom doors—identically shut.
My neck hairs nipped and nudged me. I opened one door. I hit the wall light.
There’s Condom Cal Coleman and a mulatto meter maid snoring. They passed out dressed. There’s a nightstand. There’s a Jim Beam jug. There’s a red capsule popped and white powder residue.
The Rite Aid 459. The stolen barbiturates—
I tiptoed. I opened doors. I got insidious instant replays. Snores. Clothed couples. Barely broken bottle seals and popped-pill residue.
I ran upstairs. The roof door was open. There’s Donna and Miguel by the south ledge, grooving and grokking the view.
I pulled my piece. The door slammed back. It hit my nose. It tore my teeth. I dropped my gun. It fell down the stairs. It sheared a shot accidental.
I stumbled. I staggered. I saw the Antichrist: Chickie Farhood made up as Stephen Nash.
I pulled my throw-down. Chickie caught it and kicked it away. He slammed the door. My fingers got fucked. Three thread-dangled off the knucklebones.
Gravel ground, grabbed, crackled, and crunched. I saw Donna and Miguel.
They grabbed Chickie. They pulled his hair. Donna gouged his eyes. Miguel kicked him and stuffed gravel in his mouth. Donna ripped an eye out. Chickie screamed. Miguel lashed a belt around his neck. Four hands tightened and pulled.
I saw Chickie scream. I saw Chickie thrash, spasm, and spit gravel. I saw the ledge. I saw Donna step on his face and make him eat mica-flecked grounds. I saw Miguel lift his legs and throw him off the building.
The shooting board cleared me. One call to Kuster—case clapboard-closed. Donna drove me to Cedars of Lebanon. The ER docs saved my fingers.
I badged the night nurse. Donna slept in my hospital bed with me. The morphine drip made for mad nightmares—all Stephen Nash.
They released me next noon. We all met at Hollywood Homicide: me, Donna, Dave, Russ, Miguel.
We agreed. The house was evil. It had to burn. The Nash stash would fix the landlady—some swank oldster’s crib for life.
Chuy Nieves had a firebug brother. Street name: Matchhead Manuel. Russ said he’d call him.
We watched it burn. We sat across the street and drank canned daiquiris. I held hands with Donna. The fuck pad ignited. Fire-men showed. The roof caved in. Kitsch house to kindling in twelve minutes flat.
I walked Donna to her car. We kissed. She said, “We were fucked by this and made by this, and
I’ll never love anyone more than you, and I’ll go through men and cut them loose because I’m an actress with appetites and nothing in my life will ever be this goddamn motherfucking real.”
I brushed soot from her hair. “I’ll remember every moment. That’ll see me through.”
She got in her car. She threaded past fire engines. She drove west on Hollywood Boulevard.
I died in a futile gunfight. Others fell before me.
Russ Kuster died 10/9/90. It happened at the Hilltop Hungarian. Bela Marko was drunk. He had a laser gun. He aimed it at customers. Russ told him to stop. Marko refused. Marko shot Russ. Russ shot Marko. They killed each other. It took six seconds flat.
Donna attended the funeral. We held hands. We wept at the eulogy.
Dave and I rose within LAPD. The big one—downtown Homicide. Donna and Miguel became TV stars and did feature work. Donna never married. I’d see her on the street sometimes. We’d hold each other and whisper-talk for an hour at a crack. People thought we were nuts. We embraced for two hours in a rainstorm once in Beverly Hills.
I never married. Everything Donna said outside the burned-down house proved true.
I lived to age 96. Donna’s still alive. She’s got a recurring role on a nighttime soap job. The show’s about as good as Count Borga, Vampire.
Here’s how I died.
I was in a mall in Orange County. I was old and frail. I still carried a gun. A very old Mexican cat walked up to me. He had tic-tac-toe scars. I remembered immediately: Chuy Nieves/the screen test.
Chuy had a big Glock. I had a big Browning. We blew each other away instantaneously. The papers called it the “Oldsters’ O.K. Corral.”
Dogs run heaven. Donna’s generations of Reggie Ridgebacks call the shots. There’s lots of clouds and a fuckload of dogs. The food’s good. You get to have sex with people you really love. You get to relive your earth life and hit a Pause button. I always go back to fall ’83.
I miss Donna. I want to get hammered by those hurricane-hurled hazel eyes up close once again. There’s only one catch. I never want her to die.
Hot-Prowl Rape-O
Heaven’s forever. Time trips on and traps you. Time cordons you corporeal. Time circumscribes your surfeit of earthly events. Time immobilizes the immortal and makes them look back.
