by James Ellroy
Connie said, “Loose. But what if I don’t feel inclined to…”
“Name names? That’s okay. I’d be satisfied with simple, candid responses.”
Connie, très loose: “Love, I’m sure that’s all you’ll ever get from…”
I said, “Lazy Maizie.”
Connie, très, très loose. “She smoked hashish. She…put…her…hand on Joan’s leg…and Joan slapped her.”
That was gooooood. It was Joan-centric and Joan-phobic. I laid John Henry on her.
Connie, yet more loose: “He was…a steel-driving man in a Negro spiritual. We…sang that song at all the Scottsboro Boys rallies…we knew that something like half of them were guilty, though.”
It was half good. Connie voiced un-Commie-esque candor. I gave her a brief breather.
Rat-out #114 was un-code-named. I’d have to mention Sammy Ahlendorf to rouse recollection. The papers toed Bill Parker’s line, per dead Sammy. It’s suicide, case closed. Connie believed that horseshit.
I said, “Joan informed on this man. She must have felt very strongly about him. He said he wanted to murder all FBI snitches, but I don’t know his name. He never joined your cell, although he was very much in the thrall of Sammy Ahlendorf, and I think it’s safe to say that he shared Sammy’s anti-A-bomb mentality, which is to say he was pissed off when we A-bombed the Japs, even though they were fascists, and even though they dropped those eggs on Pearl Harbor.”
Connie sighed. Her hands twitched. Her eyelids fluttered. She’s digging deep here.
“I…remember him….He said, ‘We’ve got to expose the bomb before it wipes out the human race, and I’m going to build my career on it.’ ”
She snapped awake then. She didn’t name names or say his name. She didn’t need to. She’d already said this to me:
“He was my last tortured and torturing male lover—before you.”
Fullerton’s file facts fit. They surged circumstantial. Joan’s rat-out rang true. It did not mean that Steve Cochran killed her.
Connie snapped très awake. She blinked, blank-faced. She didn’t recall what she’d said.
“Did you learn anything provocative? I’d hate to think that I let Joan down.”
I said, “You did swell.”
* * *
—
A-Bomb party. The U.S. Army’s set to launch at 9:00 p.m. It’s a tête-à-tête this time. It’s my bungalow roof. Stretch, me, frozen daiquiris and corn chips. My transistor radio for the countdown. Two cozy deck chairs.
We held hands. Stretch lounged low and leveled out our height disparity. The radio murmured musings on mach 10 and beyond. Supersonic rockets are now passé.
I said, “You’re not a Communist or a psycho killer, are you? My friendship’s not sending you over the bend?”
Stretch said, “Uncle Freddy’s having conscience pangs. He’s sleeping with this nutty old lady in Hancock Park, when he could be here with me.”
I laffed and lapped my daiquiri. The nite was cool. Stretch wore her USC letter coat. I wore a Beethoven sweatshirt that Claire left at Googie’s for me.
“She’ll break it off soon. It was a situational sort of deal. You and I are eternal.”
Stretch laffed. “Older man, younger woman. That’s a news flash. It’s on a par with ‘dog bites man.’ ”
I laffed. We swung our hands. The radio reporter cut to a commercial. Bucky Beaver hawked Ipana toothpaste.
“I saw that note you tacked to the board. Really, how blithe. ‘Rain check, okay?’ And don’t tell me C.K. isn’t the dread Claire Klein.”
I said, “She’s ephemeral. Forget all the bad things I told you about her. Don’t listen for her on the tap lines. She got out, right on cue.”
Stretch squeezed my hand. “You’re being disingenuous, but I’ll let it slide, because we’re about to witness history.”
The radioman rang out the countdown. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one—blastoff.”
I missed the mushroom cloud and the mauve-and-pink sky. Stretch strong-armed me into a kiss.
THE MALINOW-SILVERMAN CEMETERY
4/9/54
Ashes to ashes, baby. Ask the rental rabbi. Sammy Ahlendorf eats the dust.
LAPD quick-processed the stiff and released it. The graveside service was bilingo and brief. The rabbi ululated in Hebrew and extolled Sambo in English. He was a bomb builder, a macher, a mensch.
I stood graveside. The den mother stood with me. Grave diggers grappled the casket into the ground. The rabbi lit a cigarette and split the gig. It was a rush job. Who’s this Ahlendorf schmendrick?
Connie and I came in two cars. She insisted on it. We walked toward the street and the Big Splitsville. Connie lifted her veil and dropped my hand.
“You brought a whirlwind into my life. We were united in common cause for a moment—and one that I’ll never forget. But the walls between us stand too high to breach, darling. It’s best that we end this thing now.”
I said, “Stay strong, Red. It was a gas knowing you. You’re History’s child. Someone has to carry the torch, and I’m glad that it’s you.”
Connie touched my cheek. “Oh, Freddy—I knew you’d understand.”
I winked. “Rain check, okay?”
Connie winked back. Her eyelash stuck. She pulled out a hankie and wiped it free.
“Always, love. For you, the world.”
I walked away. She walked away. I felt ghastly and relieved.
* * *
—
The Ranch Market. My eye in the sky. It felt feckless and familiar and gooooood.
It’s where I plot and plan and scrounge and scheme. It’s a shakedown shack. It’s a divorce-work dive. It’s a scandal screen that sifts gold. The hard heart and sick soul of Confidential thrive here. I’m a police informant now. It’s where I’ll plot and plan and scrounge and scheme to take Confidential down.
It’s ghastly. I’m relieved. It’s an opportunity.
I popped three dexies and gargled Old Crow. I put my feet up on my desk and scratched my balls. Bernie Spindel walked in. He carried earmuffs and a tape spool.
I said, “Qué pasa, baby? It’s a good day to be alive, n’est-ce pas?”
Bernie went Oy. He spooled the tape through my desk rig and earmuffed my head. He said, “It’s our standing mount at the Miramar Hotel. I’ll destroy the tape after you hear it.”
I molded the muffs down and got comfy. Bernie flipped switches. I heard mattress moans and fucky-fucky exertions. I matched moans to my megamillions of women. Oh yeah—it’s Joi Lansing in the sack. Oh shit—that’s Steve Cochran with her.
Steve Cochran. Joan Hubbard rats his ass. He’s Commie #114.
Steve and Joi light cigarettes. I hear match flare and exhale. There’s fucky-fucky/goo-goo sounds. Oh shit—there’s two full minutes’ worth.
Joi says, “Your scars are healing, baby. That plastics guy knows his stuff.”
Steve says, “I hate to say it, but so does your ex. I never bought that bill of goods the Sheriff’s fed me. Some World War Two buff in a red devil mask? That dog don’t hunt. It had to be Freddy.”
Joi said, “Let it go, baby. He’s just a stooge and a gofer. What’s that you always call him? The ‘running dog of capitalism.’ ”
Steve dog-bayed. Steve said, “Guys like Freddy are the fuckboys of the American Oligarchy. They’ve spawned this whole atomic nightmare we’re enduring. Freddy’s the ne plus ultra of the fascist gestalt. He’s Camus’ l’étranger. He’s the guy who goes to his death knowing exactly jack shit.”
Joi laffed. Joi giggled. Steve tickled her—I knew those squeals.
Steve said, “Credit where credit is due. It’s Freddy who got me started on this big roll of mine. He blew up Joanie Horvath’s husband, and got me thinking that maybe Joanie he
rself should go. For one, she was an FBI snitch, which mandates death in my book. That’s why I bugged her pad. Two, she’d snitched me once already, and with Joe McCarthy in town, I figured she’d mount the revival.”
Joi said, “You ‘revivaled’ her, baby.”
Steve said, “You mean I derivaled her.”
They laffed. Steve was swarthy and dark-haired. I recalled that bandage he wore two months back. Joan scratched him. In that exact spot. I read the autopsy protocol.
Joi: “Don’t tell me too much, baby.”
Steve: “You’re right. Mum’s the word.”
Joi: “And you be careful. Freddy’s pussy-whipped, and he’s got this thing for dead chicks. He might come after you.”
Steve hooted. He coursed contempt. He pilloried my pathos. He decreed my damned destiny.
“I’ve got Freddy fail-safed. Charlie Fullerton told me that he torched that Fed post. I lifted some of his prints off his office at the Ranch Market, and placed them on a booze-bottle accelerant at the crime scene. If Freddy acts up, I can hang Treason on him. And that bottle is now in a Fed evidence vault.”
Joi laffed. Steve said, “Ralphie to Joanie to now. The big karmic circle. When the revolution comes, your ex will be the first one to go.”
I hit the off-switch. Bernie went Oy and walked out.
* * *
—
I felt reckless and feckless. I felt striated and stretched bare. Phantasmagoric ’54 had me morally massacred and fearfully fucked-up.
Rain check, okay?
I made the rounds that night. Rock Hudson was having people over. Jimmy and Liz were there. Johnnie Ray saw me—and scrammed out the back door. Claire left some undies behind. Jimmy told me and showed me. I took a few farewell sniffs.
Jimmy dished Rock’s new wife candidate. She was one Phyllis Gates. She worked for Rock’s agent and came recommended. Jimmy said Phyllis was squaresville. She wanted to wait for her wedding nite. Phyllis was clueless. She swooned for Rock and did not know that Rock swooned for boys.
I got half gassed and bopped back to Beverly Hills and my bungalow. I went inside and watched Stretch sleep. I tucked her too-long legs back under the sheets.
Rain check, okay?
Pervdogs are scent dogs. We often loop by locations that recently roused us to lust. I drove east to Hancock Park and pulled up to the den mother’s digs. I cut my lights and peeped her windows in the dark.
I whistled “Willow Weep for Me” and “My Funny Valentine.” I saw Connie walk across the red bedroom and turn off the lights. I drove by Camerford and Vine then. A family had moved into the Horvath house. Their kids romped out on the porch.
I drove southeast for no good reason. I stopped at Ollie Hammond’s Steakhouse and juiced in the bar. I peeped a tall redhead and watched her walk out of my life.
Opportunity is love. Hey, there—you with the stars in your eyes.
CELL 2607
Penance Penitentiary
Reckless-Wrecker-of-Lives Block
Pervert Purgatory
9/4/2020
I’m beastfully back. This concluding confession covers spring ’55 to spring ’60. The freewheeling Freddy O. is now a sniveling snitch. I’m Chief Bill Parker’s back-room bitch and punk pawn in his crusade to take down Confidential. It’s a fucked-up fin de siècle. The madcap magazine is doomed, Daddy-O. And I’m the ardent architect of its dipshit demise.
I’ve lost that lush life. I’m bopping the byways of big boo-hoo. Joi Lansing’s gone. Connie Woodard’s gone. Claire Klein’s gone. Stretch Perkins went licentiously lez and snagged herself a barmaid at Linda’s Little Log Cabin. Jimmy Dean’s pulling away. He’s a movie star now. He toplines Giant and East of Eden. He’s been shooting a teen turkey called Rebel Without a Cause. It’s filming on some loopy L.A. locations. I’m his main mentor no more. Director Nicholas Ray has replaced me. Nick Ray’s a sweaty switch-hitter and a carcinogenic Commie. I’m Jimmy’s real faux dad.
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo. I’m surfing a sicko surge of self-pity. But—this thunderous thought keeps me poised to pounce.
I know people. I’m now the pills-and-cocaine conduit for Senator Jack Kennedy. I broker scrapes for the contract cooze at Columbia and Metro. I’ve got L.A. bugged, tapped, and hot-wired here to Hell. I’m all repugnant resource and the withering will to survive.
Opportunity is love. Confluence is opportunity. I move in a mélange of machers, grifters, and graft-grabbers, and the sex-soiled sycophants so indigenous to L.A. Something has to pop my way. Something’s coming. Something’s telling me that IT is a SHE.
SHELL GAS STATION
Beverly and Hayworth,
L.A.
5/11/55
The wheelman lot. It’s the baaaaaad bane of wicked wives and horndog hubbies, hot to trot. Divorce begins here. Lowlife lawyers call the pay phone by the lube rack. Punk PIs hustle off to hot-sheet huts and kick doors down. There’s flashbulb flare and eeeek and shreeek and fuckee-suckee singed on celluloid.
The wheelman lot. It’s my lurid launching pad today. Confidential’s cornholing Art Pepper. Artful Art’s an alto sax hopping high on the Downbeat poll. He’s a junkie with a jacked-up jones for high school honeys. He’s nailed Miss Belmont High and Miss Lincoln High already. He’s meeting Miss Franklin High at the Leechee Nut Lodge in Chinatown, one hour hence. I’ll be there to instigate fuckus interruptus.
I’m serving two masters here. Confidential’s calling the piece “Sax Potentate Pepper: Junk and Jailbait Call the Tune Now!!!!!” LAPD Vice laid on the lead to the meet and laid down the law: We’ll be there to slam this slime for Stat Rape/1st Degree.
Bill Parker hates hopheads and jailbait jumpers. Bill Parker’s out to keester Confidential. He wants to catalogue Confidential’s coercive methods and march the mag to Indictment City. He’s implementing a looooooooooong-range strategy.
I lounged in my Packard pimpmobile. Ward Wardell and Race Rockwell reclined in their surveillance van. Donkey Don Eversall worked the outside spot. Miss Franklin High had her own sled. She handed out hand jobs, at five bucks per, and glommed a beat-to-shit ’48 Merc. Donkey Don would call the pay phone. He’d say It’s on and tail the twist to the Leechee Nut Lodge. The desk clerk was an LAPD lapdog. He told Don that putzo Pepper was smack-back in Room #9. Two Vice Squad goons were mainlining mai tais in the Lily Pad Lounge. They were set to grind Pepper while my camera crew rolled film.
I’m a snitch. I’m a rat fink. I’m a doofus double agent. I’m LAPD Lapdog #1.
I eyeballed the lot. Six wheelmen reposed in their rides. They drove hellacious hot rods and blew their gelt on booze, kustom kar kits, and cooze. They lived at the lot. They slept in their sleds. They poked B-girls from the Kibitz Room at Canter’s Delicatessen and bounced their backseats, six at a pop.
Ward Wardell walked to the phone. Race Rockwell schmoozed a wigged-out wheelman with pizza-pus zits. The cat was a cop buff. He said the Hat Squad was chasing two 211/rape-o’s. They stormed steak houses at closing time. They tapped the tills and took wallets. They purloined purses and made the women strip and dispense snout jobs. The Hats were out to take scalps on this one.
I tuned it out. The Hats and I had shared some shimmering shit. Fuck them—more current shit shivered through me.
Bondage Bob called me this morning. He beefed a southside radio station and a late-nite show called Nasty Nat’s Soul Patrol. It was all pimp patois, cool-cat consciousness, and jive jazz. A woman called in three nights running. She came off winsome and waaaay white. She called herself “Miss Blind Item.” She jawed with Nasty Nat and aped Confidential’s alliterative prose style. Bob had no gripe there. But—she crossed some craaaaazy line and madly mauled the magazine. She baaaaad-beefed the August ’52 piece on “Red Light Bandit” Caryl Chessman.
The piece bawled boo-hoo per Chessman’s tripartite conviction. It’
s baaaad: Kidnap/Armed Robbery/Forced Oral Cop. Dig: the tone was apoplectic apostasy. The tone disregarded the magazine’s perpetual fry-the-fucker stance. Chessman was convicted in spring ’48. The Little Lindbergh Law applied. Hanging judge Charles Fricke righteously mandated DEATH. Chessman professed his innocence. Chessman excoriated capital punishment. Lunar-looped liberals took up his hue and cry. ’48 to ’55. He’d held off his trek to the green room for seven full years. He filed appeals. He wrote screechy screeds and peddled them to pinko publishers. Now, this wiggy witch was mocking my magazine, and lambasting its one lamentable lapse in moral tone.
Bondage Bob told me to tune in Nasty Nat tonite. He said the witch called in at 1:00 a.m. and motormouthed till 3:00. I said I’d jump on it and take boocoo notes.
The pay phone rang. Ward grabbed it and grinned. He said, “Arriba, boss.”
* * *
—
I banged Beverly, straight downtown. My Packard pimpmobile performed. A supercharged V-12 va-va-voomed me due east. My sled featured lake pipes, cheater slicks, and a Nazi death’s-head shift knob. It was two-way-radio-rigged and synced to the surveillance van and Donkey Don’s ’53 Chevy. Our frequency number? What else? It’s 69.
I ran the lead slot. The surveillance van dogged me. Donkey Don tailed Miss Franklin High southbound on the Arroyo Seco. She’s crazoid Chrissy Molette. She’s a hot-hormoned hellion out to bang all the bopsters on the ’54 Downbeat and Metronome polls. She plays mean skin flute and hides hatpins in her big beehive. Her high school homeroom teacher was hotsville with Donkey Don. She tattled Chrissy’s crazed yen for men.
Confluence. It’s who you know and who you blow. Thus, this shimmering shakedown—
My radio cricked, crackled, and spit sputters. Donkey Don said, “69-Baker to 69-Alpha. Come in, Freddy.”
“Alpha to Baker. I hear you, Don.”
Don gargled garble talk. Sputters, stutters, static—his real voice shimmied and shot through.
