Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales

by James Ellroy

  Danielle mauled the mike. “I was, like, talking to this LAPD guy. We talked about these A-rabs, and this A-rab just walked in the door! I want to say hi to my dad, and, like, reassure him that I never did the A-rab, because I remember 9/11. Is that okay?”

  I turned it off. A notion nudged me. It blistered me, blossomed, and bloomed.

  The bound-and-gagged pix—fucking familiar. Let that Rhino remembrance ring.

  The memory moved sideways. It dipped to Dave Slatkin. Dave—savvy pseudo-psychic/crime historian.

  His photo stash. Sex-crime sensations. Sick shit shorn from old ’50s files.

  I knew it now. I couldn’t quite say it.

  I hit Parker Center. I dove on Dave’s desk. I drove through his drawers and found IT.

  Filched file forms. Bound-and-gagged women. 8/1/57, 3/8/58, 7/20/58. Judy Ann Dull, Shirley Ann Bridgeford, Ruth Rita Mercado.

  Identical poses. The ’50s meet the millennium. Harvey Glatman’s three vics.

  My brain broiled. Fotos. Fuck films. Bug mikes in Fire Face’s purple Pontiac. Habib Rashad’s pad—surveillance cams, spackle-spotted—there. A spray of spackle-type mortar by the Donny DeFreeze pad.

  Donny DeFreeze—shakedown man—fruit shakes in Frisco. Donny pours the pork to that mama-san in Malibu. Donny, aka Jomo Kenyatta.

  He’s left-wing. He wickedly worships Arabs. He rented his lipstick Lambo from Khalid’s Kustom Cars. He spat out a Harvey Glatman spec script.

  Donna—where does she—

  I called her house. I buzzed her cell phone. I got two machines. I made for Malibu meeeean and maaaaaaaad.

  CASA DE SUENOS— call it Hell House or Shakedown Shack now.

  I parked on PCH. I saw the lipstick Lambo. I saw Lou Pellegrino’s boss Beemer. I saw a Rolls Corniche in the porte cochere.

  No Donna-mobile Mercedes. Surf sounds and salty air.

  I cut around the casa. I looped left and back. I dipped up to the deck. There’s the bedroom. I window-watched.

  There’s Jomo-Donny. There’s a shakedown-sharp two-way mirror. There’s a movie-biz matriarch I met at Ma Maison. I was bodyguarding Bad Bill Clinton, Secret Service adjunct. This limousine liberal Lorna Lowenstein was there.

  Donna dished dirt on her. She threw political parties and pined for penis in her senescent seventies. Her hubby hustled teenage talent at some agency. The marriage was meshugina. He banged bun buddies on the Boys’ Town Strip.

  I watched Jomo jump her geriatric bones. I saw her lips latch his love muscle and leech. I saw them sidle sideways and suck soixante-neuf.

  It was licentiously leftist and corrosively communistic. Lorna loved it. Jomo simmered in self-loathing and munched muff with homoized hate.

  I bopped to the back door. I picked the lock and let myself in.

  I hooked down a hallway. Let’s catch the camera cubbyhole. Let’s lay out Lou Pellegrino. Let’s—

  My back. Something sharp and shivlike. Shivers and this needle-nuclear hush—

  IT’S AFRICA OR ARABIA. Trans-Zulu Airlines transports me. The cargo hold’s cacophonous, carniverous, and cannibalistic. I’m this rhino reposed with four-hump camels and four-foot pygmies.

  We bolt down Barko Bits Dog Chow. A mau-mau minstrel show materializes and makes us mew meek. Stephanie Gorman blanches in blackface. Donny DeFreeze scores a skin-tone transfusion and jigs out as Jomo for real.

  We lurch and land. My line-of-duty dead disembark in a dirge. There’s the Garcia brothers. There’s Huey Muhammad 6X. There’s Webster Washington and Shondell Dineen.

  They tug my rhino horn and torment me. I tear loose and light out for L.A. I hoof-hump hundreds of miles. A loopy landscape liberates me.

  It’s some doofus dystopia. Sand dunes meet Mount Kilimanjaro. Spear-chucking spooks spill crockpots of Christian-missionary stew. I graze gratefully. The sacrilege satisfies me. I cultivate communion. I willfully whip down white wafers. The spooks spill a second helping. I grunt, growl, and gorge.

  I sigh and psychedelicize. I see Russ Kuster and Osama Bin Laden. Donna peppers a Palestine pita. Mount Kilimanjaro morphs to Darktown L.A.

  There’s Fire Face and Habib Rashad. There’s cross-cultural confusion. Osama opens the Muezzin Market. It caters to coons and comes up with deep discounts on welfare-check day. The store stocks malt liquor and Kool cigarettes. Osama offers offal— hair-o-wine, crack cocaine, choice chicken wings. Reggie Ridgeback rips through ribs and coughs up collard greens. Danielle dances at Dawn’s Dugout and digs on her “Dad.”

  I jerked. My knees struck a steering wheel and ditzed a dashboard. My eyes popped. My periphery pulsated. I caught my car seat. I squinted and squared up a windshield. I saw a dawn beach.

  The motherfuckers Mickey Finned me. It made me maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

  4.

  My head hurt. My bones burned. I felt sideswiped and psychedelifried. My mad mood magnified.

  I couldn’t juke Jomo-Donny just yet. I B&E’d his beach pad. I left myself open to legal meshugas. I had to hand Donna hard truths on her scurrilous scribe. I had to jiggle the Jomo/Arab coonection.

  Dawn bristled into bright daylight. I hit Holmby Hills and slid my sled up Donna’s driveway. Her Mercedes was missing. She probably bombed out for her morning mocha.

  I waited in the backyard. I popped up to the patio and perched. Reggie ran over. I raked his ridge and ruminated romantic. Rhino Rick and Donna, let’s rock.

  Mickey Finn dregs drifted through me. They made me muse poetic. I called up quotes from Her Lonely Places. Let’s send a cell-phone selection of lit-lifted love.

  I punched in Donna’s number. Her voice-mail message melted me mellifluous. I parsed out paraphrases.

  “You retain your implacable hold on men as you age and your presence more and more strongly suggests a sensuality grounded in wisdom.”

  “You’re my ‘opportunist of love.’ You have a stern desire never to dilute your oneness through subservience to any man.”

  My phone fucked up. The connection cut off. Reggie reclined by my feet.

  I talked to him. I tried for James Ellington eloquence. I said, “I’m afraid we’ll never happen again. She only capitulates to me in fits and starts. Things might be getting crazy like they did those two other times, but twice in twenty-one years can never sustain me.”

  Reggie nuzzled my knees. I notched it up. I said, “It kills me. I always have to rely on outside events to bring us together. If I could think of a formula, or a phrase, or any kind of strategy that would hold us through plain old everyday life, I’d be the richest, most grateful motherfucker on earth.”

  A breeze sent me scents. There’s sandalwood soap. There’s almond after-bath. There’s mocha melting off morning breath.

  I turned around. I saw Donna. She said, “Okay, sweetie. For a little while, at least.”

  WE DID IT AGAIN. We threw ourselves into Rick-Donna 3.

  We tried to tame time. We lay down and lasted long. Time tricked us and trumped us before. Every touch told time to stay away and let us make these moments meld.

  Donna brought me a new body. She’d softened in the six months since our last then. This then became our new now. We kissed, caressed, tasted. Her hips flared and flattened and rolled into her ribs. I spanned the whole spread with my hands.

  She tasted. I tasted. Sandalwood soap, after-bath balm, my up-all-night sweat. I swirled. Her tastes nabbed me new. Preciously private—my brave bride a third time—thrill me both then and now new.

  We tricked time. We trailed our kisses and caresses and took our tastes new places and waited and went wild with the new. We fell into our meld in a soft sync. Her hurricane-hurled hazel eyes led me through.

  SLEEP. SLIDING GLASS. One-way wall peeks aimed at us.

  I woke up. I felt fur. Reggie Ridgeback rolled and chucked his chin on my chest.

  Donna sat over me. She wore a salmon satin wrap. I looked around. I found the phone. Reggie’s head was heavy. Donna held my hands.

  “Tell me. Something�
��s wrong, or you wouldn’t be here at seven a.m., looking like you slept in your car.”

  I yawned. “It’s about DeFreeze.”

  Donna said, “Of course it is. You’ve got that ‘Where’s the phone, I’ve got to call Dave Slatkin’ look, and we only get back together when there’s some dead people involved.”

  I yawned. Reggie yawned. Donna said, “Tell me.”

  I said it simple, sotto voce, stock-still stoic and sloooooooow.

  “DeFreeze is an extortionist. He was shaking down fags in San Francisco, and he’s extorting rich old women here. He’s very probably involved in my Arab snuff case.”

  Donna squirmed and squeezed my hands. Donna said, “Fuck”—sloe-eyed and sloooooooow.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Of course. I was starting to think he plagiarized this Anne Sexton script proposal he showed me, and you just confirmed it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. Jesus, and I was going to take him to the Academy Awards next week.”

  I yawned. Reggie yawned. I raked his ridge. Donna said, “ Fuck.”

  I filched the phone. Donna ducked from the room. I dialed Dave.

  “Cold Case Unit. Detective Slatkin.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Shit. Where have you—”

  “Don’t ask. Have you—”

  “Yeah, I canvassed the gentlemen’s clubs and showed those fetish pix around. There were no dancers missing, but I got more IDs on our Identikit guys, and more confirmations that they tried to get the girls to appear in so-called adult films.”

  Insidious. Shit circles and surfaces surefire—

  “Rick, are you there?”

  “I’m here. Dave, do you know Lou Pellegrino?”

  “Sure. He’s this fuckhead PI.”

  I yawned—fuck—that mean Mickey Finn.

  “He sandbagged me. Have Tim put a stationary tail on his office.”

  “All right. But will you exp—”

  “Yeah, I’ll explain when I see you.”

  Dave sighed. Dave read the sign—Rhino on a roll. I hung up. I rolled Reggie off me. I dipped into the den.

  Donna watched TV. News footage filled the screen. I saw the smog-smacked San Gabriels. I recognized a ridge line. A crime-lab crew crawled for clues. A Sheriff’s dick talked.

  “. . . we’ve got slight decomposition of the bodies, and we’ve tentatively ID’d all three women as prostitutes employed by the Cool Coed and Stacked Stewardess outcall services. Further examination of the bodies revealed that—”

  The cop-ese coursed into gibberish. A cold sweat swarmed me. The fetish fotos. The safe house. Falafel Fan. The outrageous outcall brochures.

  Donna tapped me telepathic. Her hard hazels hurled.

  “It’s us. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this Brave New World 3?”

  “Yes.”

  Donna smiled. “Let’s try not to kill anyone, please.”

  SMOG SMOLDERED AND hid the hills. We mowed through Monrovia and made the scene.

  I badged us by the cordon. We moved by the meat wagon. I craned a look and caught the corpses within.

  Three women. The ones from the bound-and-gagged pix. Nude. Neck abrasions—rope-wrap burns for real.

  It was a glaring glut of Glatmanism. It was DeFreeze depravity. It socked me soul sick.

  Donna looked in. Donna called up old Catholicism and signed the sign of the cross.

  The safe house. The blood-blistered rope. Scorched skin that tore off at a touch.

  I bug-eyed the bodies. I saw slight sunburns. Make it movie-camera lights. Probable overlighting. Fucked-up filmmakers. Awful A-rab amateurs. The Identikit Islamics. The gentlemen’s clubs—“Come on, baby. You make film with us.”

  A thought snagged me. Snuff films. Some terrorist tie-in. Camel jockey conundrum. Party-hearty Palestinians vs. real Jihadites.

  Donna tipped some tears out. I stared at the corpses and called up Stephanie G. Deputies dipped by. Detectives dug in the dirt by the dump site. A coroner cornered a ranking cop. He caught Donna sidelong. He righteously recognized her. His eyes said, “Say what?”

  Vivid voices overlapped. Cop talk cascaded: “time of death,” “rectal temperature,” “last seen alive,” “dumped after dark.”

  Two detectives saw us and sidled over. I didn’t want to share my shit. I steered Donna off.

  She said, “How much of this is Donny?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s take him down.”

  I said, “Not yet.”

  SHE HAD TO hear the horror. I dished the dirt on Donny and tattled the tie-ins. Donna delivered her dirt. She figured the fuck for a fag. She slowly slipped to the fact that he didn’t dig sexy Anne Sexton. She told him to scoot her some script pages. He deftly demurred. She grokked something grave. He might be wickedly working her. He’s ugly, he’s usurious. His motives run ulterior.

  We winged west. I cell-phoned Dave Slatkin and shorthand shored up my case. Dave said he’d set SIS out to tail Jomo-Donny. I said whip a wiretap, too. Hotwire his house and seize his cell-phone calls. Dave said he’d dun Deputy D.A. Daisy Delgado. She’d write warrants quicksville.

  I hung up. Donna said Lou P.’s the linchpin. I said yeah, he’s the shakedown shit supreme. I buzzed Tim. I caught his cell service. He’d left me a voice message.

  “I’m in the garage at Pellegrino’s building. It’s 9166 Sunset.”

  We nudged north. We sailed out Sunset. We bopped to the building and sunk into a subterranean garage.

  There’s parking slots and deep Dempsey Dumpsters. There’s Tim by a telephone bank.

  He caught our car and came over. He saw Donna and curtsied—cute.

  He leaned in her window. “Jesus. Are you two doing it again?”

  Donna laffed. “For a little while, at least.”

  I said, “We’re getting married.”

  Donna said, “Fuck you.”

  Tim laffed. “Pellegrino’s been coming down and tossing shredded paper in the Dumpsters. He’s made three trips so far.”

  Donna said, “He’s creepazoid. He whipped it out on a friend of mine. She said he was hung like a cashew.”

  Laff time—Tim and I howled hard. I heard foot scuffs. I scanned the garage. There’s loutlike Lou P. by the Dumpsters.

  I got molto maaaaad. I careened from the car and ran toward him. He shoved shreds in a Dumpster. He saw me. He did a deep double-take and spun into a sprint.

  The elevator enclosure—he’s getting near.

  I ran. Tim tore tracks. Donna flew on flat heels. Lou lurched and lost ground. I bolted onto his back belt loops and brought him down.

  He blitzed the blacktop. He graced the ground and groveled. Genuflections, gesticulations—please don’t hit me.

  I didn’t hit him. I whipped my wide-welt wingtips in. I rammed his ribs. I laced his legs. I banged his back. He wiggled and whimpered and plied me with please-don’t-hit-me pleas.

  Tim tore up and torqued me off him. Donna dug in and shoe-shot him a boss bang to the balls. It was fetchingly feministic. She hated wienie waggers and Mickey Mouse misogynists.

  Lou P. pulsed punklike. I dragged him behind a maroon Mercedes and two whitewashed walls. The space was contained and cubbyholed. Let’s lay down the law.

  Lou looked up and pissed his pants. We stood over him and straddled him stern. Donna kicked him in the cojones. He wiggled, whimpered, and whizzed anew.

  Donna said, “You whipped it out on a friend of mine. That was for her.”

  I said, “Donny DeFreeze. Roll on the motherfucker, before I get really mad.”

  Lou looked up. He saw vicious vigilantes and the loose-cannon law. No rapid right of writs and redress here. No mitigation mercy pleas, no O.J. jive justice, no sissy civil rights.

  He looked at us. He quelled his quakes. He rubbed his bruised balls.

  He said, “Donny’s fucking psycho. He’s batshit on certain shit, like he’s non-
compos-fucking-mental. I set him up with these old babes. They were heavily biz-connected, you know, industry-type wives with gelt. The plan was photo shakes. You know, I shoot the old girls and Donny in the saddle, and we threaten to show the pix to the husbands if the old girls don’t pay out.”

  Tim said, “Keep going. Why’s this clown ‘psycho’?”

  Lou rubbed his ribs and nursed his gnashed nuts. He sniveled and snitched snakelike.

  “It was the crazy shit he talked. He said he needed money for this ‘holy war.’ I saw him talking to these Arab guys at his crib, and that scared me. I don’t know, I just felt heat coming down. Then you snuck into the house while I was filming Donny dicking this old dame, and I sandbagged you. I figured you was a PI, then I saw your badge. I talked Donny out of icing you.”

  Donna said, “He was writing a script for me. Did he ever mention my name?”

  Lou leered. “He dropped these hints. He said he had this ‘plan’ for you, but he didn’t give out no details.”

  Tim said, “Kick loose some names. The women, who you collected from, and how much.”

  Lou licked his lips loathsome. “This Jane Pearlstein cooze. Her old man’s a macher at Paramount, and we took her for forty K. The second mark was Sharon Michaelman. Her husband’s a big biz lawyer, and she coughed out sixty K total. Lorna Lowenstein was the last. I ain’t put the bite on her yet. This has been a good fucking gig. I like old snatch. I get off on the wrinkles. I might let Lorna pay me off in trade. Fuck, I thought this might happen. I was tossing all my paper on Donny.”

  I bent down. I bored in and beady-eyed him. I sunk into my psycho cop persona. I’ll state it straight: It wasn’t much of a stretch.

  “You’ll be talking to DeFreeze. You don’t let on that we braced you. We’ve got his phones tapped, so we’ve got your talks with him nailed. If he brings me up, you tell him I’m compromised. I’m considered a wack within LAPD, and I’ll lose Donna if I follow up on him.”

  Lou nodded numb. Lou sniveled snitchlike. Donna kicked him in the balls.

  “In the name of all oppressed women, fuckhead.”

  LORNA LOWENSTEIN let us in. The pad was a palazzo. Her husband was out. The maid was off. The setup served us superb.