by James Ellroy
Janey said, “Freddy, you’re a dog.”
I said, “Woof, woof.”
Rock high-signed me. I moved Janey’s purse out of the way and pulled my chair close. Rock chaired in close.
“I’m coming out of that haze I was in when you got me out of jail. I’m remembering some things that happened at Nick Adams’ place.”
“Such as?”
“Such as arc lights. And, you remember that guy who I said was there with Nick?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, now I remember him touching me—if you catch my drift. And he was babbling something about Jimmy Dean playing Caryl Chessman.”
It vibed blackmail/smut smear/cold-cocked Rock and some Nick’s Knights perv. Some filthy-film fandango. That equals Extortion 1. Bill Parker would dig it. Rebel Without a Cause. The derogatory profile expands. Plus—Caryl Chessman, again.
A waiter passed me a message slip. I unfolded it.
Freddy,
We traced the calls. She’s calling from a booth at Wilshire and Mariposa. It’s behind Dale’s Secret Harbor.
All best,
Nasty Nat
I stood up. I grabbed the flowers out of the centerpiece and wrapped my napkin around the stems.
Rock said, “Freddy’s leaving. I’ll bet he’s got a hot date.”
The girls ignored us. They chitchatted and heaped on the hate.
* * *
—
Lois Nettleton at twenty-seven. Here she is, the first time I saw her.
I parked in the lot behind Dale’s Secret Harbor. The booth stood by the back door. She talked to the phone. A booth bulb shined down and shimmered her. She’s boldly backlit by nite.
She’s lithe. Lissome, yeah—I figured that from her foto and film clip. She runs rangy but not tall. Her hair’s red running to blond. She’s unadorned. She goes to gaunt. It’s that timeless tomboy gestalt. She’s got bleached-blue eyes. They connote kulture-kooky and crazy. They confirm our fone-call contact. She works for effect, she shears short of contrived.
I walked up to the booth. Lois saw me. She cracked the door and smiled. She saw the flowers and stage-swooned. She said, “Nat, I have to go,” and hung up.
I handed her the flowers. She said, “Freddy, you shouldn’t have.” Her bleached-blue eyes bounced. They were set too close together. They marred her good looks and served up her soul.
* * *
—
She’d leased a cool casita at the Chapman Park Hotel. It was a white stucco job with a tiled terrace. A green-brown walkway wound down to Wilshire. Stray headlights strafed skyscrapers and smart storefronts.
We sat on a serape-print swing. Room service sent lobster salads and white wine by. Lois wore a shift dress and a sheer cardigan. We laid our feet on a long ottoman. Lois had knobby knees. I dug that.
I said, “What if Miss Bel Geddes gets pneumonia? You’ll be out here with me, brooding on you know who, and you’ll blow your big break.”
Lois twirled her ashtray. “Barbara will never let herself get sick. It’s one reason why I scheduled the trip when I did. And you shouldn’t be shy about saying his name. It’s Caryl Whittier Chessman.”
I twirled my ashtray. “What’s another reason?”
“He has a court appearance coming up. I thought I might stand outside the Hall of Justice and hex the son of a bitch.”
I stretched and plopped my feet close to Lois. She scooched close and bumped her feet up against mine. She wore ungainly lace oxfords. I dug that.
“There’s a weird confluence going on, with that hump Chessman in the middle. First, you show up and start tweaking the magazine, and yours truly. Second, I get embroiled with some cop pals of mine and the magazine, as they pertain to this movie that my ex–boon companion, James Dean, is filming right now. I’ve been informed that Nick Ray has been urging Jimmy to play Chessman in some sort of biopic that he’s got his hat set on making.”
Lois lit a cigarette. “Jimmy’s a shit. I knew him in New York, and I didn’t like him. If he plays Chessman and portrays him as anything other than the evil bastard he is, I’ll hex him with Aunt Lois’ you-will-die-young hex, and he’ll go tits up in some sort of embarrassing leather-bar altercation.”
I laffed loud and lewd. Lois laffed loud and lewd and laced up our fingers.
“I might have a shot at interviewing Chessman, while he’s in L.A. My pals the DA and police chief have okayed it, provisionally. Would you like to be there?”
Lois crossed herself. “As God is my witness.”
I crossed myself. “Then you shall be.”
Music meandered and wafted over Wilshire. The Ambassador Hotel and the Coconut Grove were close by. I heard “How High the Moon” and looked up. Moonbeams stirred stars, all across the sky.
“Freddy, the mystic. Penny for your thoughts.”
“I’m wondering how you’d summarize this whole Chessman deal of yours.”
“I’d call it the central moment of my life, even though I wasn’t there for the outrage.”
I looked at Lois. “I’ll buy that. I’m also wondering if you’ll let me kiss you good night.”
Lois said, “I haven’t decided yet.”
MY BOSS BACHELOR PAD
West Hollyweird
5/18/55
Fone rings raked me and drilled through a dream. I was the Giant Ant, once again. I wrangled the receiver and scoped the nitestand clock. It read 8:12 a.m.
I said, “This is Otash.”
A man said, “It’s Jack, Freddy. Don’t ask questions, just get out here, immediately.”
It was Jack. He came off panic-pounced and scream-screechy. I said, “I’ll roll now.”
* * *
—
I rolled, rapidamente. I hit the Beverly Hills Hotel in one hard heartbeat. I ran through the lobby and out to Jack’s bungalow. I banged the door. Jack opened up.
And stood stunned-o. In his tattered tartan skivvies. Note his dumb-dunce demeanor. Dig his dilated eyes. He’s on some pillhead pilgrimage. He’s Mongo Lloyd, late of the loony bin. He’s broiled off brain cells by the billions. He’s holding a wet washcloth.
“What are you doing, Jack?”
“I’m wiping fingerprints off the walls. That way, they’ll think she hasn’t been here. I sprinkled cornflakes all over the bedroom floor, so if they come in the back way, I’ll hear them.”
I stepped inside and shut the door. I double-bolted it. A table radio rumbled. I switched it off.
“Who’s ‘she’ and who’s ‘they,’ Jack? Lay it out slow.”
Jack said, “I stripped the bed and sent the sheets to the laundry. I pulled two of her hairs off my hairbrush and flushed the butts she smoked down the toilet. Nobody saw her enter or leave. She hid in the bedroom when room service came. I’m a pro at this kind of thing, so—”
I slapped him, hard. Once, twice, three times. I raised red welts and blood dots. I grabbed his pencil neck and pinned him to the wall.
“Tell me what this is. Tell me who ‘she’ and ‘they’ are.”
Jack trembled and trickled tears. I hankie-wiped his face and put my hand over his heart. His pulse popped to two hundred plus. His skivvies drooped, sweat-wet.
“This call girl. Janey something. She spent the night before last here. They found her body this morning. It was on the early news. She was dumped, off of Mulholland and Beverly Glen.”
Shattering shit fuck. Jack the K., off to Shaft City. Robbie Molette’s cold-complicit. He pimped Janey to Jack. Adieu, Janey. No bait-girl gig for you.
I pulled pills from my pockets. Jack gob-gobbled them. He’d pass out, pacified. He’d wake up goosed out of his gourd.
“Clean up the cornflakes, and stop wiping the walls. Call Jerry Geisler and tell him the truth. Tell Jerry to call Ernie Roll, and I’ll call Bill Parker
. We’ll hang a shroud on this deal and make sure you don’t get hurt.”
Jack said, “You’re a pal, Freddy. I knew you’d come through.”
Nothing’s free, rich boy. The ticket’s fifty g’s at the get. The PD’s payoff goes up from there. Parker’s got his eye on the FBI. It’s common drift. Gay Edgar Hoover hates you. This could be goooooooood.
Jack weaved to the bedroom. Cornflakes crunched underfoot. He collapsed on the bed and burrowed under the covers. Muffled snores drifted up.
* * *
—
Fifty g’s. Lois and me. A madcap month in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Last nite’s kiss multiplied mucho million times. I’ll slip some bad bacillus in Barb Bel Geddes’ coffee. Lois will revise and reprise her role and bring Broadway to its knees. We’ll jump to Jamaica on Cat’s closing nite. And, in the meantime, we’ve got Manhattan.
I popped to the porte cochere. I’d conked Jack comatose. I should call Parker and Ernie Roll and jump-start this. The valet saw me. I saw my Packard pimpmobile. Four big men lounged upside it.
Ever yours—the Hat Squad.
I walked up, slooooooow. The Giant Ant ankles, acquiescent.
Max Herman said, “Hi, Freddy.”
Red Stromwall said, “How’s Senator Jack, Freddy?”
Harry Crowder said, “Too bad about Miss Blaine, Freddy.”
Eddie Benson said, “We found your prints on Miss Blaine’s purse, Freddy. The Chief would like to discuss that with you.”
* * *
—
City Hall. The Demon DB. Sweatbox #3. The Hats held me hostage in the hot seat. We’ve been here before.
The bolted-down table. The bolted-down chair. The ashtray. The fat phone book. It’s the you-will-confess confessional.
The Hats straddled chairs. I kicked my chair back. Max passed out cigarettes. Red revealed his flask. It made the rounds. We took two pops each.
Red went aaahhh. “Breakfast of champions.”
Max said, “Explain your prints on Miss Blaine’s purse.”
“I had drinks with her last night, but I left early. I moved her purse out of the way.”
Harry said, “Where, when, and who else was there?”
I said, “Frascati, in Beverly Hills. It was a ten p.m. wingding. The other guests were Rock Hudson and his fiancée, Phyllis Gates.”
Eddie said, “Rock’s a fag. Don’t tell me—you were cooking up some ruse for the magazine.”
“That’s right. I brought the Blaine girl in as the bait.”
Max said, “Why’d you leave early?”
“I had a date.”
Harry said, “Where, when, and who with?”
“About eleven-thirty. The Chapman Park Hotel. A woman named Lois Nettleton.”
“How long were you with Miss Nettleton?”
“Until two a.m.”
Harry sighed. “If the alibi is kosher, it clears you.”
Max sighed. “We should bring Freddy up to date.”
Red sighed. “Freddy deserves to be updated.”
Harry lit a cigarette. “We’ve had you spot-tailed from the moment the Chief signed you up for his Confidential caper.”
Eddie twirled the flask. “For example, I saw your outburst at Googie’s last night. Voldrich lost two pints of blood and went into shock. I stiffed the call to Queen of Angels. Voldrich is a noted sack of shit, so I told the dispatcher to dawdle.”
I laffed. “Give me the particulars on Janey.”
Red checked his notebook. “It’s rape and manual strangulation. The TOD is one a.m. She was dumped on Lindell Street, at the foot of the Mulholland embankment, right off Beverly Glen. It looks like she was killed in the bushes and dumped from there. A dog walker found her at four-fifteen. It made the a.m. Herald by a rat’s snatch-hair margin. Doc Curphey’s doing the autopsy now.”
I point-by-point parsed it. She might have stayed late with Rock and Phyllis. She cabbed to Frascati or took her own car. She knew the guy. She tricked with the guy. It all went bitching baaaad.
“Vehicle at the scene? Did she have a car? Tracks in the dirt up on Mulholland or down at the dump site?”
Harry checked his notebook. “No vehicle at the scene, that we know of. We’ll be running the canvass in an hour or so. She owned a ’50 Buick Super, which is parked in the driveway of this little house she rented in Culver City. We’ve run the cab logs already. There were no drop-offs or pickups at Frascati from eight p.m. on.”
I pondered it. Harry said, “You were spot-tailed the night of the fund-raiser. In case you didn’t know, the public places at the hotel are riddled with surveillance ports, so I was able to observe you, Senator Kennedy, and Miss Blaine—which, in retrospect, looks like a staged-date sort of deal. BHPD, by the way, has a roust sheet on Miss Blaine. She was soliciting at the bar at the Beverly Wilshire.”
Max sighed. “You see what we’ve got, Freddy. The big question is, who hipped you to the Blaine girl and got this whole thing going?”
Eddie slid the flask over. I glug-glugged, deep-deep.
“You won’t believe it, but I’ll tell you anyway. It was that little dipshit, Robbie Molette, that you rousted on my Art Pepper gig. He’s a busboy at the hotel, and his old man’s a wage slave at Metro. He’s recruited some contract girls at the studio, and Robbie’s peddling them to the guests at the hotel, along with his other jive criminal enterprises.”
Max said, “Holy shit. That jerkoff.”
Red said, “Nice family. Daddy and junior peddle poon, and Robbie sells nudie pix of his own sister.”
Harry said, “And, he sells maryjane to all the hophead kids working on film shoots. Remember? He revealed that when we were squeezing him, last week.”
Eddie said, “Including Rebel Without a Cause, which Freddy knows all about, because the Chief’s got him working up a derogatory profile on that lox, and I myself saw him bird-dogging the parking lot by the observatory, while they were shooting there.”
Spot tails. Enterprising entrapment. I’m keestered every which way. Chief William H. Parker. Accept no substitutes.
I said, “Here’s a word to the wise. Anything pertaining to that movie should go from the Chief, to me, and me to you. Robbie’s dirty, sure—and dirty as far as that flick goes. I’m just making sure that this work I’m doing for the Chief doesn’t get trampled on.”
Max sneered. “And I’m sure the same goes for Senator Kennedy, when and if we clear him on the Blaine job.”
Harry scoffed. “The Molette kid is pushing ass to a U.S. senator. I still find it hard to believe.”
Red moaned. “We’re buried on Fat Boy Mazmanian, and now we get reburied on this Blaine deal. Give us a ray of hope, Freddy. Tell us she confided in you, and you know all about her private life.”
I sucked the flask. “Nix. Robbie set the senator up with her, and I just met her last night. It’s a big canvass and known-associates job, when you’d rather be putting that Mazmanian shit in the ground.”
Red laffed. “Es la verdad, junior.”
I buzzed Harry. “Okay, you spot-tailed me at the fund-raiser. You were on the premises at the hotel. You observed the senator and Janey, so you kept your eyes open. I’m wondering if you noted anything inconsistent while you were there.”
Harry shrugged. “Some unruly news photographers, outside the main lobby. At least one guy got loose and started shooting pictures through that big window that looks out on the porte cochere. A BHPD guy told me there were a couple of dozen dumped flashbulbs on the ground where he was standing.”
Somebody knock-knocked the door. The Hats stood up, rapidamente. Bill Parker walked in. The Hats walked out. It took point-one-two fucking seconds.
Parker straddled a chair. “The senator brought in Jerry Geisler. Jerry called Ernie Roll. Ernie sent Miller Leavy over to take the senator’s dep
osition. It appears as if the senator was indisposed with a second call girl while the first call girl was being raped and murdered, which clears him for Doc Curphey’s presumed time of death. The second call girl has confirmed the senator’s assertion that they were together at the senator’s bungalow from eleven p.m. to four a.m., which handily covers all possible estimated times of death. Inexplicably, the senator wants you on this job. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. I am acceding to the senator’s request, and I forbid you to utilize your dubious influence with the senator to in any way derail my incursion against Confidential. You will also deploy your goon squad and have them make every effort to dissuade newspaper, TV, and radio reporters from publicizing the murder of Miss Janey Blaine. Per that purported homicide, Doc Curphey has revised his first estimate of Miss Blaine’s cause of death. He has officially announced that Miss Blaine died of injuries sustained by a fall from the Mulholland Drive embankment. Are you following me so far?”
I cracked my knuckles. “I am, sir.”
Parker lit a cigarette. “Ernie Roll wants you to work with the Hats. He’s issuing you DA’s Bureau credentials and swearing you in as a special deputy. This will pave the way for you to legally contact municipal, state, and Federal agencies and request records checks on each and every member of the cast and crew of Rebel Without a Cause. I am, of course, aware that the disreputable Robbie Molette sells drugs to them, and I am painfully aware that young Robbie pimped Miss Blaine to Senator Kennedy. I want you to compile dossiers on any and all members of the Rebel gang. This will assist you in preparing Confidential’s smear job on the movie, and assist me in assessing the derogatory profile that you are preparing for my eyes only. It will also, dare I say, assist you and the Hats in your sub rosa efforts to seek justice in the matter of your dear lost bait girl, Miss Blaine. Are you following me so far?”
I follow, boss. Find the guy. Kill him. Buttress Doc Curphey’s bullshit. Janey fell off a high hill.
“I follow, sir.”
Parker dry-popped digitalis. He chained Chesterfields and chased it. He smoke-smacked Sweatbox #3, wall to wall.
