by James Ellroy
Another jacked-up Joan jumped me. Joan Hubbard Horvath. Ralphie’s widow. I had two grand in my pocket and no place to go at 3:00 fucking a.m.
So, I cadged an envelope from my waiter.
So, I went by the penance pad.
* * *
—
Lower Hollyweird. Camerford between Vine and El Centro. A smudgy small wood-frame job, just short of a shack.
I parked across the street and bopped over. I popped the envelope in the mailbox and bopped back to my sled. A light popped on. The Horvath hut glowed internal and infernal.
I’m a devious dipshit. I made too much noise on purpose. Hey, lady—I killed your husband. It’s been five years and eleven days now. I’ve never seen your face.
Just newspaper pix. Pixilated pokes at you in wilted widow’s weeds. The Herald ran headlines. Wounded Cop Survives Shoot-out. Gunman Slain In Escape Attempt.
There’s a biiiiiiiig pic of Fractious Freddy. There’s zero per throwdown guns and Ralphie’s unarmed status.
I lit a cigarette and sat there. I played “Willow Weep for Me” in my head. Time tipped by. Joan Hubbard Horvath walked out on the porch. The front-room lights boffo backlit her.
She wore a dark wool dress and brown loafers. She sported a short shag hairdo and wire-rimmed specs.
She looked toward me. I looked at her. I’m a good whistler. I whistled “Willow Weep for Me” all the way through. I made the crescendo a cri de coeur and a long-suppressed sob.
Joan Horvath looked in her mailbox. The song went soooooooooo soft—
THE SECURITY OFFICE AT THE SLEAZOID HOLLYWOOD RANCH MARKET
2/15/54
Jimmy Dean and I lolled by the two-way mirror. We looked down at the dregs and the dreck and the dreamy drag queens dragging themselves through the aisles. Shifty shoplifters shot their gaze to our opaque eye in the sky.
Jimmy said, “Aisle six. That fat guy slid a Swanson’s TV dinner down the back of his pants.”
I lit a cigarette. “The checkstand guy will spot the bulge and nail him.”
“You’re abstracted today, Freddy.”
“I had a late night, and I don’t feel like messing with chumps.”
Jimmy pulled a chair up. I collapsed on my couch. Jimmy tossed a magazine on my lap.
“I talked to Billy Eckstine after you left Googie’s. He told me you’re entranced with a certain lezzie athlete. I heard she frequents Linda’s Little Log Cabin, and I thought you might appreciate page twenty-six.”
The Trojanette Sporting News. Glittery glossy and a boss booster rag. Page twenty-six: a fulsome foldout of Joan “Stretch” Perkins.
Woo-woo!!! She’s a Viking Valkyrie. She’s a blitzkrieg blonde with bleached-blue eyes. She’s bigger than Barb Bonvillain—richly revealed to be a man some quack diced and dehomoized.
There’s Strapping Stretch. She’s Stunning Stretch in USC crimson-and-gold silks. She wears no makeup. She looks heavenly wholesome. She’s smiling because she’s bigger than everyone—men insistently included. And I know and dig that that means ME—you towering temptress.
I tossed the magazine back to Jimmy. He said, “Something’s eating you.”
“Joi moved out last night, while I was at Googie’s. She left me a note: ‘Fuck you and go to hell. You’re a storm trooper, and the world is wise to your shit.’ ”
Jimmy yukked. “Joi’s vivid, but I found you a new roommate—at least for a while.”
“Stretch Perkins?”
“No such luck. Liberace called me. He wants you to look after his leopard while he goes on tour. You’re the only man for the job. The fucking leopard would kill anyone else.”
I yukked. “I’ll consider it. Tell me some other shit I don’t know, and make it entertaining.”
Jimmy lit a cigarette and blew concentric smoke rings. Gadge Kazan told me the trick got him East of Eden.
“I did two days on Ride Clear of Diablo, at Universal. Lew Wasserman knows we’re pals, and he chatted me up on the set. He said Rock Hudson’s going batshit with boys of all races, colors, and creeds, and Morty Bendish at the Mirror’s getting ready to blind-item it, and he’s passing the specific dirt and some motel-room infrareds on to some guys at Transom and Whisper. He wants you to put the squelch on it and find Rock a wife, so maybe the appearance of being married will put the skids to all those persistent and wholly accurate rumors.”
I roared righteous and laffed lewd. I folded my fitful funk and tossed Jilting Joi and Jittery Johnnie Ray aside. I popped two of Jack Kennedy’s Dexedrine and went rippled and revitalized.
“Call Lew, and put him on your side in all matters pertaining to your career. Tell him we’re in. I’ll lean on Bendish and the Transom and Whisper guys. We’ll negotiate the wife search when I glom the infrareds, and we’ll split Lew’s paycheck fifty-fifty. Hit the studio casting pools and hustle up some good-looking skirts who know an opportunity when they see one, and who know how to keep their mouths shut. No semipros, nothing garish. Withhold the ‘He’s a fruit’ punch line until we’ve narrowed down our list of candidates. Call Rock now and tell him to be discreet and order in his woof-woof, for the time being. Tell Lew that he’s the one to break the news to Rock—and to tell him the good news that as far as women are concerned, nothing lasts forever.”
* * *
—
Rippled, revitalized, ready to roll. Bam!!!!!—scratch a righteous and reptilian American, and the lines between OPPORTUNITY and LOVE blur.
Jimmy split to find Rock Hudson a wife he’d never pour the pork to. I checked the a.m. papers and ran the radio. As expected—the 459 at Jack Kennedy’s suite went unreported. As expected—a BHPD Burglary dick called me. As expected—he called everybody on Senator Jack’s A-bomb-bash guest list. As expected—he mentioned the burdensome B and E in sooooo-discreet terms. But—he laid the vivid verismo on ex-cop Otash, X-clusive.
“We know who did it, Freddy. It’s those rape-o shitheads who kidnapped that cheerleader chick. They left prints up the wazoo. Those humps are bought and paid for.”
Don Wexler called half an hour later. Dig: we got 11.6 thou for the furs and jewels in Jack the K.’s hotel suite.
I went through the five address books we stole. Confidential thrived on insider tattle. I had pink and red leather books for Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, and some society sob sister named Connie Woodard. She scribed for the Hearst rags and wrote up the pampered party lives of the L.A. elite. I had black books for Baaaaaad Bob Mitchum and Senator Jack his own self.
I tapped La Grande Bergman first. The names and numbers were prissy predictable. Fat voyeur Alfred Hitchcock. Yawn-meister Gregory Peck. Dago directors Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni. So far, so what? Ingrid swung with Rossellini, circa ’50. She popped his out-of-wedlock whelp and caused a stir. So what? Confidential ran that stale story already. The rest of the numbers? Studio stiffs, fag hags, anonymous suck-ups to the stars. Plus—Jack the K., biiiiiiiiig surprise: Ingrid was a WOMAN—if it mamboed, he’d move on it. Plus this: all the dizzy data was in Confidential’s master file already.
I tapped Bob Mitchum’s black book. It was all call girls/all day and all nite. Note the boffo bust measurements next to the numbers. Half these babes peddled their poon out of Googie’s. Yawn. They were all in Confidential’s comprehensive call-girl file. Note to Bondage Bob Harrison: run an All Call Girl Issue soon!!!!
Next up: Hearst hack Connie Woodard. Aha—here my hackles hopped.
Call girls to Commies. That’s a puzzling parlay. Note these noxious names. We’ve got Joe Losey and John Howard Lawson. We’ve got Comintern cultural commissar V. J. Jerome. There’s dyspeptic Dalton Trumbo. Don’t stop now. There’s blustery blowhards blasted and blacklisted, Moscow’s minions all, plus all the mock martyrs known as the Hollywood Ten.
We had all the names and num
bers in our “Known Commo” file. So what? It’s the confounding connection to the Woodard cooze that made it all pop!!!
And—here’s a hot one. Gnaw on this non sequitur. He ain’t no apoplectic apparatchik. He ain’t no rank Red, no way.
Steve Cochran.
Steve the Stud. Mr. Twelve Inches. B-movie thug and cad supreme. Star of dreary drive-in drivel like Highway 301, White Heat, and The Damned Don’t Cry. Steve the Stud’s ruff and tuff, on- and offscreen. He’s a brawler and a sicko psychopath. Men fear him, women crave him. He’s the hungest among us. He treats women ruff and tuff—like they licentiously like it. He beat two pachucos who tried to mug him half dead. A fruit honked him at Grauman’s Chinese. He bit the guy’s nose off and spit it back in his face.
Woooo-woooo!!!!
A hunch hit me, hard. Call it the Cochran Confluence. I had two address books left. Lana Turner’s and Jack K’s. Said books would yield boring bupkes. Except for this: said books would unify the Cochran Confluence.
I cracked the books and riffled pages. Steve the Stud’s right there, alphabetical.
Bingo. Both books. Add on Commophile Connie Woodard. Here’s my hunch: it all meant Something Big.
* * *
—
I drove back to my pad. I brooded and worked the phone until 10:00 p.m. sharp. Then I dressed sharp and drove out to the Valley.
Something Big.
My phone work confirmed it. I tapped my contact at PC Bell. I gave him four names and pledged him a thou to run phone bills. Dig this, demonic:
Jack Kennedy called Steve Cochran nineteen times the past two months. He called from his Senate office and his Hyannis Port home. Steve the Stud called Jack fourteen times. He called from his well-known fuck pad in West Hollyweird.
Connie Woodard called Steve Cochran twenty-four times the past two months. She called from her crib in high-rent Hancock Park. Steve the Stud called Connie twenty-one times.
Lana Turner called Steve Cochran thirty-four times the past two months. She called from her Holmby Hills manse. Steve the Stud called Lana twenty-six times.
I logged the insidious info and let it pulse and percolate. Dumb domestic shit ditzed me. Joi left a note, taped to the bathroom mirror. She called me a “Merchant of Hate and Violence” and preeningly prophesied my short and loveless life. I checked my answering-service messages. Liberace begged me to babysit Lance the Leopard. I left a message with his service: “Okay, I’ll do it.”
I popped two dexies and leveled the load with four belts of Old Crow. I put on my choice chalk-stripe suit and spritzed on Lucky Tiger. I pondered the Cochran Confluence and Joan “Stretch” Perkins, nonstop. I called Bernie Spindel on my way out the door.
I said, “We’re working tomorrow. It’s a bug-and-tap on Steve Cochran’s place.”
Bernie said, “Oy,” and hung up.
* * *
—
Linda’s Little Log Cabin: a lezbo lair and rustic rendezvous raft. A shadowed shack. Shellacked wood beams and show tunes tuned low. A make-out mood. Wraparound booths wrapped in cigarette smoke. Butch bunkers and fetching femme nests.
I walked in. I knew the drill. Central Vice validated the dive and took 5 percent. Linda Lindholm owed me. She liked lewd Latin stuff. She went through wetback wenches, mucho mas. Linda laid las chiquitas low. Linda went from burning love to boredom in six seconds flat. Frame-up Freddy stepped in then. I reefer-rousted the girls and bounced them back over the border.
Linda saw me. She stood at the bar and made that gimme sign. I dipped a double sawbuck her way. She pointed to a back booth.
I walked over. I smelled Jungle Jaguar perfume—straight up/no chaser. She stepped out of the booth and stood up to meet me. Gilded goddess, I’m yours.
She towered tall. She backlit and bashed my base desires and made me simmer sooooooft in her glow. She wore a sleeveless madras shirtdress and saddle shoes sans socks. She emitted Valkyric vibrations. She looked like Kirsten Flagstad sang Tristan und Isolde. She said, “Hello, Mr. Otash,” and held out her hand.
I took it and bowed. She had a husky kid voice. It was cool contralto cut with prep school—straight up/no chaser.
We slid into the booth. We sat across from each other. A table lamp lit Stretch, A-bomb mauve and pink. Her bare arms were my size. She raised a hand and tossed her hair. Her underarm hair showed. Her craaaaazy credentials crackled by torchlight. Kirsten Flagstad to Anna Magnani. She took on an Italian Neorealist glow.
She said, “Billy told me that you wanted to meet me. I like meeting new and interesting people, so I said okay.”
I said, “I saw your picture. That’s why I’m here, and I know you can guess why. But my intentions went out the window the second I saw you.”
Stretch smiled. “Billy said you’re the man to see in L.A. He considers me trouble-prone, because I sort of like girls. I’m training for the ’56 Olympics, and I don’t want to bollix that up.”
Drinks appeared. On the house. Linda brought them herself. A Manhattan for Stretch. Old Crow for me.
We tipped glasses. “You’re nineteen. Everyone’s a new and interesting person to you. That leaves you vulnerable. Lezzie girls, and colored guys like Billy, and guys like me are trouble, so if you’re trouble-prone, you should consider who you let into your life.”
Stretch sipped her drink. I held my hands back and tried not to touch her.
“If the stern-big-brother routine is a ploy, it’s a new one. People usually don’t meet me and start warning me away in the same breath.”
“I like the idea of you being reckless, and me getting you out of jams. Here’s my first bit of advice. Billy told me you want to be linked to him in Confidential. That’s a dumb move. It’ll mess you up with the USC regents and the Olympic people.”
Stretch shrugged. “I’m nineteen. I’m restless. I’m as notable as an intramural athlete who happens to be a girl can be. I’m big, and I’m rather awkward, and a certain type of man and woman go for me, and want to meet me and test themselves with me, and I’m very curious as to who those people are.”
I folded my hands on the table. Stretch folded her hands over them. Her hands were bigger than mine.
“So, I go for you. I wanted to meet you, and I’ve met you. I’ve explained my intentions, so here’s something you might find interesting. I’m looking after a real-live leopard for the next three weeks. You can visit my pad and meet him, and I won’t let him maul you or kill you.”
Stretch laffed. She temptress-tossed her hair. It was straight and dirty blond and center-parted. She had big buck teeth.
I locked up our fingers. It went to a cute tug-of-war. Her hands were stronger than mine.
“Are you in a jam right now?”
“No.”
“Can you sniff out bad intentions and walk away, fast?”
“Yes.”
“Will you call me if you’re unsure about somebody?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got enough money to live on?”
“Yes, and I’d never let man, woman, or beast set me up in a place and expect favors.”
I yukked. “It’s a code you’ve got, right? It’s like me. I’ll do anything short of murder, and I’ll work for anybody but Communists.”
Stretch yukked and unlaced our hands. The booth was warm. We popped sweat. Stretch wiped her brow and her underarms. She tied her hair back with a rubber band and gave me This Look.
“I’m glad you like me there. It means that you’re discerning, and that you dig the offbeat.”
My nerves were shot to shit. Stretch scared me and scattered me and lust-lashed me some new way. Stretch read me her restricting riot act.
“I like to make out and take naps with men. I’m putting the rest of it off until I sort some things out.”
I lit a cigarette. Stretch lit up out of
my pack. She blew four concentric smoke rings to my three. I felt dope-ditzed and sex-socked—and lost-lifed some new way. I laid my head on the table. Stretch ran her hands through my hair.
“You’re okay, Uncle Freddy. I know you killed a man when you were a policeman, and Billy said maybe you shouldn’t have. I’m forgiving with people, if they don’t mess with me directly.”
I raised my head and pulled her hands down and kissed them. I caught her scent and my scent, all merged up.
“What else did Billy tell you about me?”
“He said we were both curious and lonely, in the exact same way.”
* * *
—
Jungle Jaguar. The widow’s withered scent. The Joan-to-Joan parlay at 1:00 a.m. A penance payment in my pocket and a picture in my head.
Liz Taylor in A Place in the Sun. The final shot. Monty Clift walks the last mile. The mad mise-en-scène goes silky subjective. There’s a climactic close-up. Liz looms, laaaaarge.
She parts her lips. Transposition/transfiguration. I kiss the merged Joan Perkins and Joan Horvath for the fade-out.
Camerford and El Centro. There’s the house. There’s late living room lights.
I parked and walked over. I mimicked Monty’s last mile and made the mailbox drop laaaast. I looped back to my sled and waited. I whistled “My Funny Valentine” at dirge speed.
Joan Horvath walked out. She wore the same stay-at-home ensemble. She held a cigarette and a highball glass. She tossed her dumb wool skirt and sat down on the porch.
She caught me mid-chorus. I hit a high note and made the secondary theme soar. I looked at her. She looked toward me. The moon moved out of a cloud bank. I saw gray flecks in her shag cut.
