White Jazz

by James Ellroy

  More mugs--some with neckboard numbers and printing: real names, john names, dates. Shine girls, Mexicans, whites--99.9 percent skank. Goosebumps: Lucille-profile, full face-no neckboard, no printing.

  Go, do it: recheck all paper. Three go-rounds--zero, zilch, buppkis. No clicks back to Lucille.

  Just one mug strip.

  Call it lost paperwork.

  Say Dan Wilhite yanked the paper--the mugs got overlooked.

  Guess burglar = peeper = Lucille K. john.

  I wrote it up, a note to Junior:

  _Check all stationhouse john/prostie lists--try for information on Lucille's tricks_.

  Goosebumps: that godawful family.

  o o o

  I hit the Bureau, dropped the note on Junior's desk. Midnight: Ad Vice empty.

  "Klein?"

  Dan Wilhite across the hall. I called him over--my squadroom.

  "So?"

  "So, I'm sorry for the run-in with Kafesjian."

  "I'm not looking for apologies. I'll say it again: so?"

  "So it's a tight situation, and I'm trying to be reasonable. I didn't ask for this job, and I don't want it."

  "I know, and your Sergeant Stemmons already apologized for your behavior. He also asked for a tally of perpetrators J.C. and his people have informed on, which I refused to give him. Don't ask again, because all notations pertaining to the Kafesjians have been destroyed. _So?_"

  "So it's like that. And the question should be 'So what does Exley want?'

  Wilhite crowded up, hands on hips. "Tell me what you think this 459 is. I think it's a dope mob warning. I think Narco is best suited to handle it, and I think you should tell Chief Exley that."

  "I don't think so. I think the burglar's hinked on the family, maybe Lucille specifically. It might be a window peeper who's been working Darktown lately."

  "Or maybe it's a crazy-man act. A rival mob using terror tactics."

  "Maybe, but I don't think so. I'm not really a case man, but--"

  "No, you're a thug with a law degree--"

  FROST/EASY/DON'T MOVE.

  "--and I regret calling you into this mess. Now I've heard that that Fed probe is going to happen. I've heard Welles Noonan has auditors checking tax returns--my own and some of my men. That probably means that he knows about Narco and the Kafesjians. We've all taken gratuities, we've all got expensive items we can't explain, so-"

  Sweating on me, hot tobacco breath.

  "--you do your duty to the Department. You've got your twenty in, I don't and my men don't. You can practice law and suck up to Mickey Cohen, and we can't. You owe us, because you let Sanderline Johnson jump. Welles Noonan has got this Southside hard-on because you compromised his prizefight job. The heat on my men is because of you, so you square things. Now, J.C. and Tommy are crazy. They've never dealt with hostile police agencies, and if the Feds start pressing them they'll go out of control. I want them quieted down. Stall this bullshit investigation of yours, feed Exley whatever you have to. Just get out of that family's way.as quick as you can."

  Crowded, elbowed in. "I'll try."

  "Do it. Make like it's a paying job. Make like I think you pushed Johnson out the window."

  "Do you?"

  "You're greedy enough, but you're not that stupid."

  Crowd him back, walk--my legs fluttered. A clerk's slip on my desk: "P. Bondurant called. Said to call H. Hughes at Bel-Air Hotel."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ". . . and my man Pete told me about your splendid performance vis-a-vis the Morton Diskant matter. Did you know that Diskant is a member of four organizations that have been classified as Communist fronts by the California State Attorney General's Office?"

  Howard Hughes: tall, lanky. A hotel suite, two flunkies: Bradley Milteer, lawyer; Harold John Miciak, goon.

  7:00 A.M.--distracted, a plan brewing: frame some geek for the Kafesjian job.

  "No, Mr. Hughes. I didn't know that."

  "Well, you should. Pete told me your methods were rough, and you should know that Diskant's record justified those methods. Among other things, I'm seeking to establish myself as an independent motion picture producer. I'm planning on producing a series of films depicting aerial warfare against the Communists, and a major theme of those films will be the end justifies the means."

  Milteer: "Lieutenant Klein is also an attorney. If he accepts your offer, you'll receive an additional interpretation of the contractual aspects."

  "I haven't practiced much law, Mr. Hughes. And I'm pretty busy right now."

  Miciak coughed. Tattooed hands--zoot gang stuff. "This ain--_isn't_ a lawyer job. Pete Bondurant's got his plate full, so--"

  Hughes, interrupting: "'Surveillance' sums this assignment up best, Lieutenant. Bradley, will you elaborate?"

  Milteer, prissy: "Mr. Hughes has a young actress named Glenda Bledsoe signed to a full-service contract. She was living in one of his guest homes and was being groomed to play lead roles in his Air Force films. She infringed on her contract by moving out of the guest home and by leaving script sessions without asking permission. She's currently playing the female lead in a non-union horror film shooting in Griffith Park. It's called _Attack of the Atomic Vampire_, so you can imagine the quality of the production."

  Hughes, prissy: "Miss Bledsoe's contract allows her to make one nonHughes film per year, so I cannot violate the contract for that. There is, however, a morality clause that we can utilize. If we can prove Miss Bledsoe to be an alcoholic, criminal, narcotics addict, Communist, lesbian, or nymphomaniac, we can violate her contract and get her blackballed from the film industry on that basis. Our one other avenue is to secure proof that she knowingly took part in publicizing non-Hughes performers outside of her work for this ridiculous monster film. Lieutenant, your job would be to surveil Glenda Bledsoe with an eye toward securing contract-violating information. Your fee would be three thousand dollars."

  "Have you explained the situation to her, Mr. Milteer?"

  "Yes."

  "How did she react?"

  "Her reply was 'Fuck you.' Your reply, Lieutenant?"

  Close to "No"--freeze it--think:

  _Hush-Hush_ said Mickey C. bankrolled that movie.

  "Guest home" meant "fuck pad" meant Howard Hughes left to choke his own chicken.

  Think:

  Glom some Bureau guys for tail work. Glom a slush fund: Kafesjian frame cash.

  JEW HIM UP.

  "Five thousand, Mr. Hughes. I can recommend cheaper help, but I can't neglect my regular duties for any less than that."

  Hughes nodded; Milteer whipped out a cash roll. "All right, Lieutenant. This is a two-thousand-dollar retainer, and I'll expect reports at least every other day. You can call me here at the Bel-Air. Now, is there anything else you need to know about Miss Bledsoe?"

  "No, I'll find an in on the movie crew."

  Hughes stood up. I laid on the glad hand: "I'll nail her, sir."

  A limp shake--Hughes wiped his hand on the sly.

  o o o

  New money--spend it smart. Think smart:

  Nail Glenda Bledsoe fast. Let Junior carry some Kafesjian weight-- hope his fuck-up string ended. Figure out that Darktown tail, stay tailless.

  Instinct: Exley wouldn't rat me on Johnson. Logic: he destroyed the coroner's file; I could rat him for a piece of Diskant. Instinct: call his Kafesjian fix PERSONAL. Instinct-call me bait--a bad cop sent out to draw heat.

  Conclusions:

  Number one: Call Wilhite and Narco more dangerous; call me a bent cop juking their meal ticket. Maybe the Fed grand jury blues upcoming: true bills, indictments. Rogue cops out of work then, one scapegoat: a lawyer-landlord with a sure police pension. Out-of-work killers, one target: me.

  Number two: Find a burglar/pervert confessor--some geek to take my 459 fall. Palm squadroom bulls for leads; keep Junior on the case legit. No legit B&E man?--Joe Pervert buys the dive.

  I drove over to Hollywood Station. No file-room clerk--I boosted "459 Cleared," "False
Confessions," '49--'57. A 187 sheet on the board--the "Wino Will-o-the-Wisp." Perv stuff, nice--I grabbed a carbon.

  Conclusion number three:

  Call me still short of scared.

  o o o

  Griffith Park, the west road up-streams, small mountains. Steep turns, scrub-hill canyons--Movieland.

  I pulled into a makeshift lot--vehicles parked tight. Shouts, picket signs bobbing way back. I hopped a flatbed, scoped the ruckus.

  Union placard shakers-Chick Vecchio facing them off--the stiff-arm fungoo up close. A clearing, trailers, the set: cameras, a rocket ship half Chevy.

  "Scab!" "Scab scum!"

  Over, buck the line--"Police officer!" Punk pickets--they let me through, no grief. Chick greeted me-smiles, back slaps.

  "Scab scum!" "Police collusion!"

  We walked over to the trailers. Catcalls, no rocks--sob sisters. Chick: "You looking for Mickey? I'll bet he's got a nice envelope for you."

  "He told you?"

  "No, it's what my brother would call an 'inescapable conclusion to the cognoscenti.' Come on, a witness flies out the window with Dave Klein standing by. What's a card-carrying cogno supposed to think?"

  "I think you almost did some union thumping."

  "Hey, we should have called the old Enforcer. Seriously, you got ideas? Mickey's got a bad case of the shorts. You know any boys who won't cost us an arm and a leg?"

  "Fuck it, let them picket."

  "Uh-uh. They yell when we're shooting, which means scenes have to be redubbed, which costs money."

  Someone, somewhere: "Cameras! Action!"

  "Serious, Dave."

  "Okay, call Fats Medina at the Main Street Gym. Tell him I said five sparring partners and a roadblock. Tell him you'll go fifty a man."

  "For real?"

  "Do it tonight, and you won't have union trouble tomorrow. Come on, I want to check out this movie."

  Up to the set. Chick held a finger to his lips--scene in progress.

  Two "actors" gesticulating. The spaceship close up: Chevy fins, Studebaker grille, Kotex-box launching pad.

  Touch Vecchio: "Russian rocket ships have dropped atomic waste on Los Angeles--a plot to turn Angelenos into automatons susceptible to Communism! They have created a vampire virus! People have turned into monsters who devour their own families!"

  His co-star--blond, padded crotch: "Family is the sacred concept that binds all Americans. We must stop this soul-usurping invasion whatever the cost!"

  Chick, cupping a whisper: "The hoot is my brother's killed eight men, and he takes this noise serious. And feature-him and that bottle-blond fruitcake are porking in trailers every chance they get, _and_ chasing chicken down at the Fern Dell toilets. You see that guy with the megaphone? That's Sid Frizell, the so-called director. Mickey hired him on the cheap, and to me he reads ex-con who couldn't direct a Mongolian cluster fuck. He's always talking to that guy Wylie Bullock, the cameraman, who at least has got a place to live, unlike most of the bums Mickey's hired. Feature: he hired the crew out of the slave markets down on skid row. They sleep on the set, like this is some kind of fucking hobo jungle. And the dialogue? Frizell--Mickey shoots him an extra sawbuck a day to be scriptwriter."

  No Mickey, no women. Touch: "I would slay the highest echelon of the Soviet Secretariat to protect the sanctity of my family!"

  Blondie: "I of course empathize. But first we must isolate the atomic waste before it seeps into the Hollywood Reservoir. Look at these wretched victims of the vampire virus!"

  Cut to werewolf-mask extras hip-hopping. Hip, hop--T-Bird popped out of back pockets.

  Sid Frizell: "Cut! I told you people to leave your wine back with your blankets and sleeping bags! And remember Mr. Cohen's order--no wine before your lunch break!"

  A geek lurched into the spaceship. Touch squeezed Blondie's ass on the QT

  Frizell: "Five-minute break and no drinking!" Background noise: "Scab scum! Police puppets!"

  No Glenda Bledsoe.

  Touch oozed by the camera slow. "Hi, Dave. Looking for Mickey?"

  "People keep asking me that."

  "Well, it's an inescapable conclusion of the cognoscenti."

  Chick winked. "He'll show up. He goes by this bakery to get week-old bread to make sandwiches with. Feature the cuisine we get: stale bread, stale doughnuts and this lunch meat sold out the back door at this slaughterhouse out in Vernon. I quit eating on the set when I caught fur on my baloney and cheese."

  I laughed. Script talk: Blondie and an old geek dressed like Dracula.

  Touch sighed. "Rock Rockwell is going to be such a big star. Listen, he's actually telling Elston Majeska how to interpret his lines. What does that imply to the cognoscenti?"

  "Who's Elston Majeska?"

  Chick: "He was some kind of silent-movie star over in Europe, and now Mickey gets him passes from this rest home. He's a junkie, so Mickey pays him off in this diluted H he gets cheap. Old Elston says his lines, shoots up and goes on a sugar jag. You ought to see him snarf those stale doughnuts."

  Pops peeled a Mars Bar, weaving--Blondie grabbed his cape.

  Touch, swooning: "One man sandwich with the works!"

  Frizell: "Glenda to the set in five minutes!"

  "When I met Mickey, he was clearing ten million a year. From that to this, Jesus Christ."

  Chick: "Things come and go."

  Touch: "The torch passes."

  "Bullshit. Mickey got out of McNeil Island a year ago-and nobody has grabbed his old action. Is he scared? Four of his guys have gotten clipped, all unsolveds--and I mean nobody knows who did it. You guys are all the muscle he's got left, and I can't feature why you stick around. What's he got left, the Niggertown coin business? How much can he be turning on that?"

  Chick shrugged. "So feature we been with Mickey a longtime. Feature we don't like change. He's a scrapper, and scrappers get results sooner or later."

  "Nice results. And Lester Lake told me some out-of-town guys are working the Southside coin."

  Chick shrugged. Wino cheers and wolf whistles--Glenda Bledsoe in a pom-pom-girl outfit.

  Feature:

  Tall, lanky, honey blond. All legs, all chest--a grin said she never bought in. A little knock-kneed, big eyes, dark freckles. Pure something-- maybe style, maybe juice.

  Touch shot me details: "Glamorous Glenda. Rock and me are the only males on the set immune to her charms. Mickey discovered her working at Scrivner's Drive-In. He's smitten, Chick's smitten. Glenda and Rock play brother and sister. She's been infected with the vampire virus, and she puts the make on her own brother. She turns into a monster and sends Rock running off into the hills."

  Frizell: "Actors on their marks! Camera! Action!"

  Rock: "Susie, I'm your big brother. The vampire virus has stunted your moral growth, and you've still got two years to go at Hollywood High."

  Glenda: "Todd, in times of historic struggle, the rules of the bourgeoisie don't apply."

  A clinch, a kiss. Frizell: "Cut! It's a take! Print it!"

  Rock broke the clinch. Whistles, cheers. A wino booed; Glenda flipped him the finger. Mickey C. ducked in a trailer, lugging groceries.

  I eased around the set and tapped the door.

  "Wine money not disbursed until six o'clock! The tsuris you stumblebums inflict! This is a motion picture location, not the Jesus Saves Rescue Mission!"

  I opened the door, caught a flying bagel. Stale-I tossed it back.

  "David Douglas Klein, the 'Douglas' a dead giveaway you are not of my kindred blood, you farshtinkener Dutch fuck. Refuse my food, but I doubt you will refuse the money Sam Giancana has transmitted to me for you."

  Mickey tucked a wad under my holster. "Sammy says thank you. Sammy says damn good job on such short notice."

  "It was too close to home, Mick. It caused me lots of trouble."

  Mickey plopped into a chair. "Sammy doesn't care from your troubles. You of all people should know the ethos of that farshtinkener crazy cocksucker."

&n
bsp; "He's supposed to care about _your_ trouble."

  "Which in his brutish spaghetti-bender fashion he does."

  Glenda cheesecake-four walls' worth. "Let's say he miscalculated this time."

  "As the song goes, 'I should care?'"

  "You should care. Noonan's prizefight probe went out the window too, so now he's hot to get something going in Niggertown. If the Feds hit the Southside, they'll raid your coin locations. If I get a line on it I'll tell you, but I might not know. Sam put your last going business in real trouble."

  Chick V. by the doorway; Mickey, cheesecake eyes. "David, such tsuris you predict, such tsuris I am nonplussed by. My desires are strictly to see district gambling get in, then retire to Galapagos and watch turtles fuck in the sun."

  Laugh it out. "District gambling will never pass the State Legislature, and if it did, you'd never get a franchise. Bob Gallaudet is the only reputable politician who supports it, and he'll change his mind if he makes attorney general."

  Chick coughed; Mickey shrugged. A permit on the door: "ParksRecreation, Approval to Film." I squinted--"Robert Gallaudet," small print.

  Laugh _that_ out. "Bob let you film here for a campaign contribution. He's about to make DA, so you think a grand or two gets you the inside track on district gambling. Jesus, you must be shooting dope like old Dracula."

  Pinups galore--Mickey blew them kisses. "The prom date I never had in 1931. I could guarantee her a corsage and many fine hours of Bury the Brisket."

  "She reciprocate?"

  "Tomorrow, maybe yes, but today she breaks my heart. Dinner tonight was already finalized, then Herman Gerstein called. His company is set to distribute my movie, and he needs Glenda to accompany his faygeleh heartthrob Rock Rockwell on a publicity date. Such tsuris-- Herman is grooming that rump ranger for stardom apart from me, he's terrified the scandal rags will discover he takes his pleasure Greek. Such duplicity to lose her company, my comely brisketeer."

  "Publicity date"--contract breaker. "Mickey, watch your coin biz. Remember what I told you."