Widespread Panic

by James Ellroy

  Max and Red played host. We shared short dogs and potato chips. The car was cold. The booze built its glimmering glow. Max and Red teased and taunted me.

  You’re okay, Freddy. We miss you, Freddy. Confidential’s a shit rag, Freddy. How many felony extortions have you pulled this year, Freddy? The Chief’s got his four eyes on you.

  It sailed sadly by me. I was off with Stretch and Claire and the mystery man she vowed to kill. Plus Studly Steve and Commo Connie Woodard. Claire per Connie: “I’m interested in her, too.”

  Time ticked by. Tick, tick, tick. I entertain ripe revelations. Claire scares me more than Georgie Akin and the Hats. Tick, tick, tick. The hellhound Horvaths. They’ve haunted me and hurtled me here.

  The teasing and taunting ebbed. Time ticked toward 10:00 p.m. Max and Red booze-dozed their way through ten-minute naps. I popped two Dexedrine and wound myself up.

  I saw something. It was something evil and something wrong. The something walked northbound. In our direct direction. There’s a red blur where its head should be and black below that. It’s getting close. It’s veering toward the boardinghouse back gate.

  The boys woke up. The Something’s très close. It’s got its hand on the gate latch. Said latch is unlocked. Our K-car’s shadow-shrouded. We see it. It can’t see us.

  The Red Devil Bandit. That red-rubber mask. The fangs and horns. He rapes and maims. He didn’t maim and kill Joan Horvath. We’re past all that now.

  Max and Red pulled their belt guns. I pulled mine. The Red Devil Bandit opened the gate and closed it behind him. Max mouthed One, two, three, four, five. We got out and followed him.

  We were silent. We went tiptoed. The Red Devil Bandit heard zilch. He stood in the walkway and eyed the upstairs light. Harry and Eddie stepped out of a shadow. The Red Beast saw them. They held pump shotguns.

  The Red Beast turned to run. He saw three more men and three more guns out. He saw me.

  Max said, “Kill him, Freddy.”

  I stepped up. I aimed. The Red Beast stood still. I fired at his face. It blew up, red-on-red. Red rubber and red blood exploded. The shot rang loud loud.

  Harry and Eddie shotgunned him and tumbled him back off his feet. He’s dead now. He’s no danger. This is how this works. All five of us walked up and emptied our guns. We fired point-blank and shot him to bits.

  INFERNAL INTERMEZZO:

  My Furtively Fucked-up Life

  2/22–3/18/54

  Yeah, I did it. Yeah, it was wrong. Yeah, I enjoyed it. He got what he paid for. I knew I’d pay for what I did—somewhere down the line.

  The Hearst rags loved it. Hats Slay Red Devil Bandit!!! Celeb P.I. Assists!!! Dig the fetching fotos. I stand with Max, Red, Harry, and Eddie. They dwarf me. We point to something red and dead on the ground.

  More headline hullabaloo. Tipster tattles Red Devil Bandit!!! Daring Blastout Ensues!!! More fetching fotos. Georgie Akin’s 1943 mug shots. A posed my-hero shot. Fractious Freddy with Max Herman and Red Stromwall. We strut. Louise Marie Vernell smarmy-smiles up at us.

  BHPD blew a stakeout on Durward Brown and Richard Dulange. The Hats hunted them down and killed them four days later. The Hearst rags loved it. More headline hullabaloo. Motel Massacre!!! Hats Gun Down Kidnap-Rapists!!! All Gang Members Now Dead!!!

  Many more fetching fotos. The Hats with Chief Parker. Mastiffs maul for their master. Big backslaps and yuk-yuks. Many mentions of me. Max Herman sez, “We needed Freddy O. on this one. Freddy’s our boy. He’s the Man to See.” Red Stromwall sez, “God bless Freddy O. What’s a daring blastout without him?”

  Yeah, I did it. Yeah, I knew it was wrong. Yeah, I loved the hack hullabaloo. Don’t fuck with Freddy O. He’s the Man to See. Too bad the world sees back. Too bad the world’s inside him.

  The Googie’s gang saw me and tipstered me and fed me scandal skank. I scored scads of sinuendo for the magazine. Homos, lezbos, dipsos, hopheads. Underhung Untermenschen and big-dick barracudas. Heavy hermaphrodite action sunders the Sunset Strip!!!

  Freddy O.’s the Shaman of Shame. He’s got to see you. Meanwhile, you see him.

  I saw Joan “Stretch” Perkins and Claire Klein. We talked about things and around things. I saw them, they saw me. They taunted, tickled, and teased me. Stretch wanted kid love, with all the va-va-voom verboten. We slept in my bed. Stretch wore basketball silks. I wore pajamas. We necked to a naughty nexus and stopped cold. Lance the Leopard got between us. It was nighty-night then.

  Stretch taunts and teases me. She knows things about me. She knows I killed the Red Devil Bandit in cold blood. She knows it all pertains to the hellhound Horvaths—and that I’m not done with them yet. Claire Klein taunts and teases me. She won’t fall down with me. We meet at Googie’s most nights. We smile and drink. Our hands often brush. We discuss Operation Rock Wife. I’ll be taking over Jimmy Dean’s stewardship soon. He’ll be off to shoot East of Eden with Gadge Kazan and that big Texas flick with Liz and Rock. Claire wants to kill a man. I see that. It consumes her. She sees that I’m going at the Cochran gig and the Commie Connie connection circumspectly. She’s an I-want-to-see-it-and-know-it-all-now girl. And most assuredly a psychopath. She withholds from me. I withhold from her. Our boundaries wiggle, wilt, and hold firm. She scares me. I don’t scare her. I’m not the Man to See. I’m the man to help her fulfill her murderous destiny.

  Stretch provides innocence. Claire turns my lifelong voyeurism back in on me. I want to know her secret shit—but fear the price she’ll make me pay. She knows that I killed the Red Devil Bandit to impress her. She intends to kill a man. I intend to kill the man who really killed Joan Horvath. The hellhound Horvaths. It all comes back to them. Claire sees that and knows that full well. I told her that I killed a man so she’ll love me. She failed to reply. She won’t love me until I find the man that she wants to kill. In the meantime, my will to work rages.

  I work the Cochran gig. Bondage Bob wants a wild and sex-soiled serialization. I live at the listening post. The bugs and taps work gooooood. I listen to Studly Steve fuck my ex-woman Joi Lansing. They deliriously defame me. They underestimate me. Joi tattles, taunts, and teases me. She knows there’s bugs and taps in place. She hasn’t told Steve. She knows I’m listening. She wants me to hear. That means she wants me to see.

  Sound equals sight. My imagination seals the sensory gaps. Information insistently issues. Steve’s recruited Lana Turner and hunk hubby Lex Barker. Lurid Lex loooooves underage stuff. The casting-call aspect of the celeb smut film proceeds. I’m on it. I’m on the Connie connection just as assiduously.

  I haunt the UCLA library. I bug the admin folk: where’s the Joan Horvath transcripts? The admin folk go Soon, soon. I read and reread Connie’s columns. Connie’s a codified Commie. She’s Comintern. She’s a Red Reptile couched in cold cover. She’s seditiously subtle. Her words work on a mini-microdot level. She’s linked to Steve Cochran. Steve rolls Red. I’m building a scandal-rag exposé and a damning derogatory profile. I’ll leak it to Joe McCarthy or some more rigorously responsible cat. I’ll get Claire the name of the man she wants to kill in the process. She’ll love me then or she won’t. I’ll love her whatever the outcome.

  Work. Operation Rock Wife. Rock and Claire like each other and look good together. Lew Wasserman’s pleased. Rock orders in bunboys from a dial-a-dick service owned by Bondage Bob’s wayward kid brother. He gets his regular woof-woof.

  I fotograph Rock and Claire’s at-the-doorway kisses. It’s sterile stuff. Rock’s a movie star and a very sweet man. He’s engaged to wed a batshit bomb thrower and more. Only in America, only in L.A., only in Hollyweird.

  Work. Allies and adversaries. Old friends passing through.

  The Hats hold their hands in. They swing by Googie’s and torque me as I tally tipster dish. How’s the boy, Freddy? Do you miss us, Freddy? The Chief misses you, Freddy. You’re always in his thoughts.

/>   I looked for them when they weren’t there. I listened for them at the listening post. They imparted the impudent theme of We See You. I saw them everywhere. I popped pills and saw them. I drank and saw them. I adamantly abstained and saw them most of all.

  Work. I got my FBI kickback on that Horvath house print. Bad news: there’s no file print extant. I lived at the listening post. I wore headphones and willed the next static-stung stammer that would tell me something big and something wrong. I waited for UCLA to call. Commie Connie confounded me. She never left her Hancock Park home. I needed to prowl the premises. I needed to booby-trap bugs and hot-wire the whole hut.

  Connie hid from me and hindered me and immolated my imagination. I parked across the street and ran my radio. Joe McCarthy proclaimed his presence in L.A. Bondage Bob told me a Fed listening post had been set up someplace/somewhere. I saw my wires crossed with their wires, strung as strangling cords.

  Work to constant communion. The Horvath house as soiled sacristy. I vowed vengeance. I exonerated the Red Devil Bandit and ran my rationale for his death. Joan heard me. I know that. Vigilance is love. I hold vigil most nights. I know that Joan hears me and sees me.

  OUTSIDE CONSTANCE WOODARD’S HANCOCK PARK HOUSE

  3/19/54

  Connie’s casa: a cool contemporary job at 1st and Beachwood. Two stories. All aluminum and glare-glinted glass, up and down. Some dippy Dane’s idea of swank.

  Sit-and-brood surveillance. A raging rainstorm brings a brainstorm. Hey, lady—we’ve got fone lines down. Let me in to check your fones, willya?

  I perched in my Packard pimpmobile. Bernie was due. He had the pseudo repair tools and the know-how. He’d wing it, wham-bam. One fone/one condenser mike/one half-ass tap. No time to tackle bug mounts.

  Raging rainstorms rip me, recollective. They wash my broiled brain and cleanse it clean. Last month. The Willoughby listening post. Stretch Perkins works Call-Girl Line #2. She hears Claire Klein and Barbara Payton trick with V. J. Jerome. The appalling apparatchik’s in Connie’s address book. That’s Cold Connection #1. Here’s Cold Connection #2:

  Last month, ditto. Claire and I nosh the news and flare-flirt at Googie’s. Claire lights me large with this line:

  “I came to L.A. to kill a man. I don’t know his name, but I think Connie Woodard might.”

  Hence, my bristling brainstorm. Hence, my ripe resolve. Work the Connie Connection now.

  I yawned. My ass dragged. I was up late last nite. My landlord lashed my lease and tossed me out, temporary. Lance the Leopard laid waste to his rose gardens and crotch-sniffed his crotchety wife. I rented a boss bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Stretch helped me move. We hung up corkboards and tacked on Confidential sales graphs. Plus notes for my tricky troika: Operation Rock Wife/the Cochran Gig/my Horvath Crusade.

  Lance looooooved his new lair. Room service served his cheeseburgers and fries in a dog dish. Lance slept with Stretch. I slept on the couch.

  I yawned. I dexie-dosed my case of the blahs. Bernie showed. He’d scrounged a PC Bell repair truck, for vivid verismo. He parked in Connie Woodard’s driveway and drilled her doorbell.

  She opened up. There she is. She’s still rangy, nervous, and knock-kneed. She’s the Specious Spinster and Miss Soviet Suck-Up of 1924.

  Bernie schmoozed her. I rolled down my window and heard it. He went Oy, lady. She went Oh dear—are you sure? Ooohhh—she talked butch bass like Lauren Bacall.

  She let Bernie in. He shut the door. I timed the house call.

  Twenty-two and a half minutes. Bernie tips his cap and walks back out the door. Connie holds the door. Her russet hair’s wrapped in a bun now. She waves toodle-oo.

  * * *

  —

  Paydirt.

  Bernie tapped the living room fone and shoved a short-range transceiver under the couch. We rented an upstairs office at a bank building off 1st and Larchmont. We laid in listening-post paraphernalia. Casa Connie to the post: two short-range blocks. We should get gooooood signal feeds.

  Bernie donned earmuffs and manned the tap. I called Harry Fremont from a pay phone. I groused and proclaimed my predicament.

  There’s this woman. She’s a shut-in. I’ve tapped her. I need to pad-prowl her. Rig me a ruse. I need four hours. She’s a Commie. Uncle Sambo needs you. Violate her sissified civil rights. I’ll pay you five yards.

  Harry said, “Jawohl, boss.”

  * * *

  —

  Babs Payton car-hopped and hooked out of Stan’s Drive-In. It was hard by Hollywood High. She hit her Hollyweird high with Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, circa ’50. She was Mrs. Franchot Tone for six seconds. Tom Neal beat Timid Tone half dead and battered Babs with his lurid love. Tattle told the torchy tale, circa ’51. Babs screeched into the skids. Yeah—she was ripe for Steve Cochran’s sexploitation.

  I pulled into Stan’s. A comely carhop cadre caught sight of Big Freddy O. Babs and I go back. We badger-gamed businessmen in my cop days. Babs snared the schnooks at the Kibitz Room at Canter’s Delicatessen. She lured them to the Lariat Motel on Lankershim. She socked the saps into the saddle and made with the moans. I kicked the door in and played irate husband. I glommed the gelt and kicked the cads back out the door.

  Babs roller-skated over. She wore red-and-white jodhpurs and a too-tight jersey top. She said, “Here’s trouble.” She hooked a tray to my passenger-side door.

  I dropped a C-note on the tray. Babs got the gestalt. She got in and sat beside me. The C-note went poof!!!

  “Okay, I’ll play.”

  “I thought you might want to.”

  Babs scooched down and swung her legs up. Her skate boots nudged her knees and fit fetishistic. She posed pouty and ran the rollers on my dashboard.

  “I’m on my break for the next fifteen minutes. Before you start, let me state no more shakedowns. I’m not going back to the Kibitz Room or the Lariat Motel.”

  I laffed and lit a cigarette. Babs bummed a smoke and lit it off my lighter.

  “Freddy, the point of all this is—”

  “Steve Cochran. The smut film he’s making, and don’t ask me how I know about it.”

  Babs said, “Ha-ha. You’re jealous, because Joi’s in the flick, and she left you for Steve. I don’t blame you, I’d be jealous, too. Ha-ha, and too bad for Joi, because as crummy men go, she’s gone from the frying pan into the fire.”

  I rebuffed the rude remark. “Update me. The film, who Steve’s conned into appearing, the start date, the whole schmear.”

  Babs shrugged. “Smut’s smut, and I know from smut on an intimate level. Okay, Steve’s wrapping Private Hell 36 this week, so we’ll start pretty soon. Probably within the next two weeks. Lana Turner, Lex Barker, and Gene Tierney have dropped out, which I know don’t surprise you. Steve’s stuck with me, Joi, and Anita O’Day, and he’s recruiting an additional ten girls out of one of the call services some of us have been known to work for, which makes the full thirteen women that Steve and his big dick will repopulate the world with, after the A-bomb wipes everybody else on Earth out. Need I say that Steve’s hipped on the A-bomb like nobody I’ve ever seen.”

  I went Don’t stop now. Babs rolled her rollers on my red leather dashboard. It rubbed me wrong. I nudged her knees and kiboshed it.

  Babs tapped ash out the window. “The premiere is sometime later this spring, in Harry Cohn’s rec room. Smut’s smut, and what’s smut without some straitlaced boys to let their back hair down while they watch it. And since Harry’s Harry, and a tyrant, a perv, and, most especially, a suck-up, these are some powerful boys, as in Senator Bill Knowland, Senator Joe McCarthy—if he don’t trip on his dick between now and this so-called ‘premiere’—and Senator Jack Kennedy, who I know you know from, but probably not on the intimate level that I do.”

  “Why would Jack’s name be in Steve’s address book? Why would Jack and Steve b
e calling each other, regularly?”

  “Because Steve’s Jack’s pimp and dope supplier in L.A. Because Steve rolls left, and Jack’s a barely suppressed bleeding heart, right below the surface.”

  I dipped through the dish. I strung it and strained it and microscoped it minutely. Nothing surprised me. Babs bops banal, so far.

  “Claire Klein. I know you trick three-ways with her, and don’t ask me how I know. If you start by saying she scares you, it wouldn’t surprise me—because she scares me, too.”

  Babs made the hex sign. Babs waved faux wolfsbane. Babs made the sign of the cross.

  “Claire don’t scare me. Claire terrifies me. She likes to shave men’s pubic hair with her switchblade, and half the tricks we go out on love it. She carries a Makarov pistol with a silencer in her purse, and we’ve been tricking with these Russian consulate guys, and they speak Russian with her, so I don’t know what they’re saying—”

  I cut in. “And V. J. Jerome, that Commie culture-vulture guy—”

  Babs cut back in. “Yeah, there’s him, and Claire’s cutting side deals, to swing with these Russian guys and shave their wives, and all the time she’s pressing them, and she’s digging for leads on some Commie scientist back in the ’30s and ’40s, who’s got this weirdo ‘Robin Redbreast’ code name, and then she’s pressing them on some society writer named Constance Woodard, and about this time I lose track of all Claire’s crazy shit, and start praying to the Good Lord that I never have to work with her again.”

  * * *

  —

  I drove to Googie’s. I perv-peeped Claire through a back window. I trembled. I smeared nose prints on the glass.

  Claire sat in her back booth. She sipped absinthe and nibbled french fries. She wore tight blue jeans. Note the knife bulge on her left leg.

  I walked in. The dinner din diminuendoed. There was just my heartbeat and hers. I trembled and tumbled toward her. She saw me. She read me right and tumbled telepathic. She knew that I knew.