Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales

by James Ellroy

  I flipped his tie in his face. I stepped off the stage. Donna said, “Rick, you shit.”

  I walked outside. I caught the crew with crullers and coffee. I saw a lipstick-red Lamborghini parked adjoining. The license plate read “DeFrzz.”

  DIG THE DICHOTOMY: dog dissent to dog den delight.

  I drove to Dave Slatkin’s dog shelter. I hooked up and homed in with his hounds. A canine cacophony warmed me—six brindle pit bulls full of love.

  We shared oki pastrami burritos. We crafted a cross-species group grope. I pulled out a pallet. We all snuggled up.

  I talked up Reggie’s resentment. I said Donna deftly demurred. This DeFreeze dipshit was writing her Sexton show. She couldn’t opt to offend him. She couldn’t call him on his Commie jive. Yeah, I was an asshole. I should have shut up.

  The hounds heard me out. I told them I toasted a camel jockey. I mentioned the mattresses. Southside sleeper cell— maybe. We’d re-toss the crib tomorrow. More shit might turn up.

  I dozed. Dog farts fanned. DeFreeze reprised and dug at me. He vibed parasitic pantywaist with molten mean streak. I didn’t want him working angles on Donna.

  I called the DMV and plied a plate run. A clerk caught the “DeFrzz” stats and coughed up a make. The lipstick Lambo: long-term rental from Khalid’s Kustom Cars/Khalid Salaam, owner.

  It fit the prick’s profile. Appropriate an appearance and hit Hollywood. Dun someone like Donna Donahue. Trap them and transfuse yourself. Latch on like a leech. Pile on like a piranha.

  I dozed. I drifted. I slipped into slumber. Hound heartbeats held me. I felt this big canine caress.

  I dreamed. Shondell Dineen and Webster Washington whipped through my wig. The ’92 riots. Nihilistic nostalgia. The sack of Sal’s Market, South-Central.

  Dineen’s dinged with needle tracks, smug and smacked-back. He’s caught with a case of Cutty. Webster’s wearing a “Shaq Attack” sweatshirt. He’s got ten cartons of Kools and a shitload of Schlitz malt liquor.

  They’ve got guns. They’re just out of the joint. They’ve got prison shoes—San Quentin sandals.

  There’s Sal’s Market. They’re bopping out with booty. I’m going in.

  SURPRISE!!!!!

  I’ve got a Remington pump. One spread spritzes them. The Cutty cascades. The Schlitz shvitzes. Their collective last word is “motherfucker.”

  I woke up. Donna Standard Time stung me. Let’s kommune with a kindred soul. Let’s kall Brandon Marti.

  I dug through dogs and filched the phone. I dialed the Marti pad.

  Brandon grabbed it. “Uh, yeah?”

  “It’s me, kid.”

  “Oh, hi, Uncle Rhino.”

  Fleas flipped on the pallet. Pit bulls scrunched and scratched.

  I said, “Did your dad tell you about the Arabs?”

  “Uh, yeah. He said you popped Glaser slugs and fried the guy’s face. It sounded really cool.”

  “The shooting board should clear us. The guy just iced our witness.”

  “Uh, yeah. My dad said it was a good kill, but these stupid A-rab civil-rights groups might protest.”

  “Let them. We’ve got right on our side, and—”

  “You want to talk about Donna. I can always tell by your voice.”

  I sighed soft. “You know me, kid.”

  Brandon coughed. “My dad says you’re a loser in love. He said it’s okay for me to moon for Donna, because I’m a kid, but you should know better.”

  A pit bull licked my face. Burrito breath blew.

  “I’ve been places your dad’s never been. I think he’s jealous.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you’re just on to something he doesn’t understand.”

  “I’ll buy that.”

  “My English teacher gets it. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Donna. He’s really into her hold on men and all that. He said I could read it, because I’m a Donna guy, too.”

  I yawned. “Make a copy for me, will you? You can drop it off here at the shelter.”

  Brandon yawned. “Okay.”

  “Goodnight, kid. Sweet Donna dreams.”

  “Goodnight, Uncle Rhino. Good luck with the A-rabs.”

  I hung up. I got loser-in-love lonely. I was too tired for a Stephanie stakeout. I wanted to Donna-diminuendo and sleep.

  Donny DeFreeze dinged me. I decided to dig up derogatory dish. Let’s loop his life. Let’s look for larceny. No sale?—we’ll frappé and frame his ass then.

  I dozed. Hurricane-hurled hazel eyes hammered me.

  2.

  The media mauled me. The radio rocked with it.

  We caught the Coal Chute. Dave Slatkin drove. Tim ran the radio. This fucking fedayee Gazi Alli filleted me. It was civil-rights shit shorn of shape and reason. Two sharp Shiite sharifs— dead. Boo-hoo—two super Sufis. Rhino Rick rampages. He’s tripped-out and trigger-happy. He’s deep depressed. LAPD just shot him to a shrink.

  I bounced in the backseat. Gazi gored my goat. Some personnel punk leaked him my package. Tim made the jackoff sign. Dave ditzed the dial. Some ballsy bitch ballyhooed the upcoming Oscars.

  I groaned. Donna was set to attend. She was boyfriend-bereft now. She might take Dipshit DeFreeze.

  We cut off the Coal Chute. We caught side streets to Saint Andrews. Bluesuits bloomed on our block. They cordoned back a camelhead cadre. Many Moors mingled. They shucked with shines and mouthed multicultural mayhem. They growled grievance in some spunky Spook-Arab Pact.

  We parked outside the cordon and coursed through on foot. We rolled through Ramadan cut with Kwanzaa. Black Muslims materialized and mau-maued us with their eyes. Anti-Zionist zingers zipped by:

  “Islam—not Israel!”/“Stop the LAPD Jew Jihad!”/“Gen-o-cide, gen-o-cide, LAPD and the Jews can’t hide!”

  We walked through. We made tracks through mini-Ramadan and parted the Red Sea of Resentment. We barged biiiiiiig. We shot out sharp elbows. We ripped through reefer smoke and toppled tallboys of Olde English 800.

  There’s the Rashad rancho—let’s duck inside.

  We did it. We laid up with some lab guys and print techs. They told us this:

  Per prints—we latched on to some latents. We got Rashad’s prints, we got glove prints boocoo. Match the mattresses to the glove prints—you craft a crash pad. Figure fingerprint-known felons. They gloved and hid their hands. Figure fuckheads with felonious intent.

  Per the Pontiac—we impounded it and pounced on the panels. We found fourteen K in cash. We print-wiped inside and outside. The shooter’s filed fingertips showed up—scuffed skin marks.

  We flung floor mats. We found mucho matchbooks. They came from “gentlemen’s clubs.” Dig: Sandi’s Sandbox, Lani’s Lapdance, the Chrysanthemum Club. We found soiled clothes, dishes, and detergent in the trunk. We think Fire Face slept in his car.

  A patrol sergeant dipped in and debriefed us. He told us this:

  Patrolmen polled the locals. Said locals laid out Rashad. Many men popped by the pad. All Arabs, all hours. Some locals vibed terrorist trouble and buzzed the Feds.

  Dave called his Fed connection and tracked the tips. His connection coughed up a conclusion. Yeah, we checked it out. No, we nabbed no known suspects. Habib Rashad—forget him—he’s some falafel fuck.

  Dave, Tim, and I huddled hard. We bounced the bug mikes in the Pontiac to the spackle-specked cameras in the pad. We talked. We threaded theories. We culled no conclusive shit at all.

  I called the U.S. Passport Office. I fielded favors. I learned this:

  The Pontiac passport had Fire Face’s features and Habib Rashad’s name. The address of record: Rashad’s falafel hut.

  A lab guy laid a morgue mug shot on us. There’s Fire Face with his scorched skin scraped off. His face—now feature-firm and fit to make IDs off.

  Tim called Pac Bell and racked up Rashad’s phone records. He got short-shrift shit. Rashad buzzed his Falafel Fan biz repeatedly. Rashad rang nobody else.

  Suspicious. Sleeper cell slippery—yeah, probably.

/>   Dave, Tim, and I huddled hard. Rashad had to make more calls. Conclusion: He called from pay phones.

  We walked outside. We genuflected to the genocide chanters and made them mad with the sign of the cross. We borrowed a black-and-white and whipped to Western Avenue—the nearest pay-phone-filled street.

  We walked phone to phone and nabbed numbers. We found fifteen phones in a four-block stretch. Tim called Pac Bell back.

  He gave them our pay-phone stats. He requested a readout on phone numbers called. The clerk said she’d have readout results tomorrow. She’d call the Cold Case Squad.

  My phone rang. I read the display. Rob the snitch/Starbucks/ Beverly Hills.

  Call it Donna communing with coffee. Call me too work-wigged to go.

  We drove back to Rashad’s rancho and dropped Dave off. Jigs chucked chicken wings and rib bones at our car. It was a barb-q bombardment. A multitude of malicious Muslims mean-mouthed us.

  “Gen-o-cide! Gen-o-cide! LAPD and the Jews can’t hide!”

  FALAFEL FAN: A hajj hut at 34th and Vermont. A dervish dive from the get-go. A counter and picnic tables out front.

  We parked and walked up. We gaped and guffawed at the menu: the “Palestine Pita,” the “Soul Souvlaki,” the “Shiite Shish-Kebab.”

  Baaaaad bow-tied Muslims at tables. Slicksters slurping up “Muhammad’s Meatball Sub.” A mean mosque mastiff behind the counter. He’s spanking a spatula, he’s grinding griddle grease, he’s stirring steak chunks in lentil sauce.

  We cut around the counter and dipped in the door. Grease granules griddle-hopped and grabbed me. Daddy-o did not deign to look at us. Call him one cooool Camelite Cal.

  I said, “LAPD.”

  Tim pulled out pix: the Fire Face morgue shot/the ’01 killers’ Identikits.

  Cal speared his spatula. He lanced lamb and stirred steak. He glared at us. He glanced at the pix. His eyes racked up recognition. He said, “No. I do not know them. I tell you truth, now you leave.”

  Tim said, “Habib Rashad’s dead. Who gets this place now?”

  Camel Cal shrugged. “I get place. Mine now. Rashad my cousin. He was good man. He Hafiz.”

  I flashed the matchbooks: Sandi’s Sandbox/Lani’s Lapdance/ Chrysanthemum Club. Camel Cal glanced and glowered. More recognition racked up.

  “You guys hang out there, don’t you? You, Rashad, the dead guy in the picture.”

  Cal shook his head. “No. Such places are for infidels. Good men never go.”

  Tim said, “Shit, I go. I don’t see the big deal.”

  “You infidel. I see you two in newspaper. You shoot man who shoot Rashad. You ‘trigger-happy.’ Arab League say that.”

  I laffed. “Come on, man. He killed your cousin.”

  “All Arabs my cousins. We unite against infidels. We spit on you.”

  Tim laffed. Cal spit on the griddle. The loogie landed, sputtered, hissed.

  I said, “Bugging microphones and surveillance cameras. We found them at Rashad’s house and in the shooter’s car. I think the two guys knew each other, and I think you know them and the liquor-store guys, and a fuckload of other Arabs up to no fucking good.”

  Cal spit on the griddle. Cal spanked his spatula in griddle grease. His face flushed. His heartbeat hammered and vibrated veins. Tim bellied up to him.

  “Here’s what I think. This dump is a message drop for Arab criminals. They get their mail here. They leave messages here. Your fuckhead friends come by for the fucking cat-meat couscous, and you—”

  Cal swung the spatula. It caught Tim’s coat collar. It snared. It snagged. Tim kicked Cal in the balls.

  He jackknifed. Tim judo-chopped him. He aimed at his Adam’s apple, all applied force. I jumped in. I nabbed Cal’s neck. I kicked his legs loose. I bent him backwards. I scorched his scalp on the grill.

  He screamed. I bent him back. Hair frizzed and frazzled. I burned his long locks down to a crewcut.

  Tim tossed the place.

  He spilled spice racks. He dumped dishes. He climbed through a closet. He ripped through Ramadan robes, shot through shelves and nabbed mail.

  Cal’s hair sizzled. His crewcut burned down to a butch.

  MAIL:

  We popped to Parker Center and went through it. It indicated infidels and hajjite horndogs.

  Flyers for gentlemen’s clubs/matches to our matchbooks, plus the Honey Bunny and Dawn’s Dugout. Outcall hooker ads— grabber graphics, clipped newspaper stock. Skin magazines/dog-eared pages/vivid ads for 1-800-VIAGRA. Gun shop inventories, insidious. Buy-by-mail Mac10s and Magnums.

  Whoa!—Lani’s Lapdance meets Cool Coed Outcall meets Pan-Patriot Guns. Fetishistic fotos—gone girls in garters. Stacked Stewardess Outcall. Viagra vertiginous. Six down-and-dirty dick-enlargement ads.

  Dave, Tim, and I huddled. Dave sicced SIS surveillance on the Falafel Fan. We left Camel Cal shorn like a sandal-clad Sam-son. He might rabbit or free-form freak out. He might lose it and lead us to the liquor-store cats.

  Pac Bell—no callback yet. No make on the pay-phone calls. The shooting board—tapped for Tuesday next. Call the kill kosher—I knew we’d walk. Our prime priority: Prowl the gentlemen’s clubs.

  We laid out our list. We divvied destinations. I got the Honey Bunny and Sandi’s Sandbox.

  I solo-sailed to the City of Commerce. It was all industrial interspersed with stinky strip malls. Lap-dance lairs were laid out next to nail nooks and fast-food joints. It was murky multicultural. Hopped-up Hondurans, kool-kat Koreans, Sufis and sushi-heads. White Man’s L.A., where you at?

  I hit Sandi’s Sandbox. Listless Latinas lap-danced and stripped to strobe lights. The audience was the Coonited Nations—immigrant duskies in deep despair, digging on 4:00 p.m. dark.

  I badged the boss. He flipped me a flashlight. I roamed the runways and paraded my pix. Lap-dance Louies and Lolitas looked at them. I lashed up one long no, nix and nyet.

  The Honey Bunny buttressed a Burmese burger barn and a mex mariscos dive. I badged in bold. The doorman sulked subservient and seated me ringside. The dump was dead dark. The runway bristled in bright light. A white wench wiggled to dated disco music. My eyes stung, stigmatic. I blinked and got full sight.

  I saw one long lap-dance loop around the runway. Girls girded themselves over chumps in chairs and hip-humped it home. I dunned the doorman for a flashlight. I looped the loop and laid out my pictures. I lashed through a line of loser longing. The girls saw my pix, the geeks saw my pix, no one coughed confirmation up.

  “I don’t know them.” “Who are they?” “We don’t get many A-rabs here.” “Who’s that guy with the burned-up face, he sure looks funny.” “Oh, ick. They look like Saddam Hussein.”

  I returned to my ringside rack. I felt beat-up and bushwhacked and slapped by my slink though Saddam and Gomorrah. I dug for Donna. I shut my eyes for showtime. I shut out the Junkie Jill on the runway and dunned Donna up.

  She laughed. We held hands in Holmby Hills. We tossed treats to Reggie Ridgeback. She hammed it up on Homicide Heat.

  Somebody tapped me. A corpulent Korean and a nifty nude Nadine stood next to me. I coughed and called up my cop self. I said, “LAPD.”

  The guy said, “A-rabs, huh? I see some in here.” The woman said, “I’m from Tel Aviv. Oy, Arabs I know from, believe me.”

  I showed my pix. Identikit killers and Fire Face—now dig on it.

  They stood still. They stared. They studied. They both tapped the pix.

  The guy said, “I see guys like the guys in the pictures in here. Maybe two, three months ago. They spend lots of money.”

  Tel Aviv Tanya said, “I danced for the man with the peeled face. It was like last week. He said he was depressed, he feared his death, tsuris like that. Oy, did he party hard, and spend money. I said, ‘Honey, for you there’s no tomorrow,’ and now you show me this.”

  I gulped. “Credit cards. Did they use—”

  The guy cut in. “Cash only here. Credit cads not okay.” Money—where from? Three
heists in ’01, chump change takes all. The Falafel Fan—minor moneymaker. Rashad: “no intention of performing terrorist acts”/“just wanted to enjoy themselves”/ “You know the term ‘party hearty’?”

  Maybe—a rift—real terrorists vs. party pigs. But—Fire Face “was depressed”/“he feared his death”/“ ‘for you there’s no tomorrow.’ ”

  Say that says suicide shit?

  My cell phone rang. The display dilated. Pat at Pacific Dining Car—that means Donna’s there.

  Tanya said, “I did the Arab in his car. He was hung like a Hebrew National salami.”

  DONNA DINED SOLO. She noshed noodles and char-broiled chicken. She saw me and flipped me off.

  “Rick, you fuck. You were a shit with Donny.”

  I barged into her booth. “Are you doing him?”

  “No, but I may do him just to mess with you.”

  I laffed. I sipped her seltzer. I shagged a shrimp in Alfredo sauce.

  “What do you know about him?”

  Donna sighed. “He’s rich from dot-com investments. He’s living in the old Clark Gable house in Malibu, Casa de Suenos. He’s writing spec scripts and trying to break into the business.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “At a party. I saw him talking to Lou Pellegrino—you know, the ‘Private Eye to the Stars.’ He’d heard that I wanted to do an Anne Sexton show, and so we started talking Sexton. He has a Web site, in case you’re interested.”

  Pellegrino: strong-arm goon, shakedown sharpie. Slick sleazemonger. Ripe-rumored extortionist. Pint-sized pit bull/longtime lapdog for the Hollywood elite.

  I said, “Reggie hates DeFreeze. What does that tell you?”

  “Reggie is a dog. I don’t credit him with ESP. I’m not some addled pet owner.”

  I freed French fries and wrapped them in relish. Tasty shit— yum yum.

  “I hate DeFreeze. What does that tell—”

  “That you’re my best friend and very occasional lover. That you hate him on GP. That the LAPD just sent you to a shrink, that you killed a man in the line of duty, and you’re running a little raw right now.”

  I laffed. I held Donna’s hands under the table. My pant python perked up.

  “It’s been six months. I keep waiting for something to happen that will stir us up again.”