Widespread Panic

by James Ellroy

  I drained my drink. “You’re asking me to feed you cues. Okay, here’s the first one. The shit I pulled for you and the magazine was wrong. You take it from there.”

  Bob made the jackoff sign. “You’re jerking my chain, son. You don’t get to take my money for as long as you did, and make me the bad guy.”

  I said, “I’m the bad guy. I knew it when I put the hurt on Johnnie Ray.”

  Bob shrugged. “I’m not going to ask you, and you’re not going to volunteer. I’ll tell you what gets me, though.”

  I went so?

  “Here’s what gets me, son. Whoever it was was some sort of insider, and that fucker sided with that pious son-of-a-bitch Parker, against me.”

  I stood up. “Here’s a cue, dad. I’d rather be him than be you.”

  SHELL GAS STATION

  Beverly and Hayworth

  10/15/57

  The wheelman lot. Legions of the lost light and live here. We scrounge for scraps. We dive for divorce dough. I’m El Daddy-O by default and decree. I’m a licensed PI. I’m a DA’s Bureau special deputy. My ex-Confidential status still stamps me a stud. Bondage Bob fired me. I’ve still got my Ranch Market gig. Bob’s got me doing clean-up jobs on a per diem basis. I’m closing out listening posts, tomorrow. Taps, bugs—they’ve got to go. Bob’s divesting and dumping his properties. His profits have dipped looooooow.

  He’s Mr. Wholesome now. He told the judge and prosecutors that. Call him Messrs. Bland and Blasé.

  I slid low in my sled. I yawned and yodeled Old Crow. I popped two biphetamine and lashed the late-morning blahs. I shared my shit with Robbie Molette. He’s my new sidekick, thus my new Jimmy D. Nasty Nat Denkins dozed in the backseat. He crossed the wheelman color line. He’s now Mr. Darktown Divorce. He’s still got his gig at KKXZ. Confidential still subsidizes the station.

  Robbie said, “What’s the deal today?”

  I lit a cigarette. “France’s Parisian Room, over on Washington and La Brea. The mark’s an ofay stiff. The girl’s colored. She hops cars at the Parisian and peddles it part-time. The mark’s terrified of exposure. He’s a preacher at a drive-in church in Van Nuys. The wife wants a divorce. Nat’s playing a kitchen cook and bringing lunch over. The pad’s right behind the Parisian. We’ll take down the door and take the pictures. The girl’s in on it. There’s three of us and one of him. We’ll kick his ass and take him to Wilshire Station. The wife and her lawyer want criminal charges filed.”

  Robbie yaaawned. He cricked and uncricked his neck. He slept on the lot. He slept in his ’49 Ford. He left his mom and dad’s house. He’s now Mr. Apostasy. He quit boning his kid sister and peddling her beaver pix. The Janey Blaine job tested and torqued him. He cleaned house and wound up here.

  I said, “I’ve been teething on Janey. Who she knew, who she tricked with, who she might have met in Beverly Hills that nite.”

  Robbie picked his nose. “We’ve been through all that. I’ve been through it with you and the Hats, and Max and Red braced my dad at Metro and polygraphed him. He came up kosher, and you and the Hats made Fat Boy for the snuff. I don’t want to keep on plowing up this old dirt.”

  Nasty Nat stirred. “Fat Boy was framed. He’s Emmet Till and the Scottsboro Boys, reborn. I’m referencing him on my ‘Cutie’ tonight.”

  I said, “Tell me why.”

  “Those Chicom space suits the PD bought spontaneously combusted, in this Police Academy storeroom. Whoosh, they go up in flames. They were defective from the jump. No bad deed goes unpunished.”

  Robbie said, “I never thought Fat Boy did it. He always worked with a partner, and he robbed the women first.”

  I laffed. The pay phone rang. Nat reached out his window and wrapped the receiver.

  He said, “Yeah, we’re here.” He listened. He hung up.

  “It’s on. The girl says she’s afraid of the mark. He’s gone kinky on her.”

  * * *

  —

  The Parisian Room. A mock-moderne job with Frenchy accoutrements. The standard counter hut and outside park-and-eat slots.

  We pulled in and parked. The girl walked out. She wore a white blouse and pink pedal pushers. She was gawky good-looking, in her own wild way. She wore a black lace hairnet. Her name tag read Babette.

  She pointed up to a back-rear apartment. It was second floor/stairway access/ three pads in a row.

  She said, “Don’t be too long. He’s on his lunch hour, and he always moves these things along. And he damn sure always jumps on me first thing.”

  Robbie winked at her. She rolled her eyes and skipped off. Nat doffed his street duds and slipped on his cook-waiter’s whites. I checked the camera and fitted in a flashbulb strip. Robbie eyeballed the second-floor stairway. He said, “Okay, she’s in.”

  A real cook-waiter waltzed up. He handed Nat a big bag of burgers and fries. Nat paid him off.

  I watched my watch. I gave the loser lovebirds five full minutes to find that funky fit. The girl screamed, three minutes and eight seconds in.

  It rang real. I gunned my sled and peeled through the rear-exit alley. I came up by the stairway and double-parked, snout-out. Robbie moved, Nat moved. I went No and waved them back. I went Sit and This Is Mine.

  I got out and ran up the stairs. Scream #2 rang real. The pad was three doors down. I did a spring-and-pivot move and flat-kicked the jamb juncture.

  The door caved. I saw them. He had her flat-pinned to the couch. He was naked. She was naked. A foot-long rubber dick extender condom-covered his schlong. He blew on a lit cigarette. He lowered it and burned her back.

  She writhed and screamed. He lowered the cigarette and reburned her back. I jumped him and pulled him off. He flailed and sissy-swatted me. His fake dick poked me. I pulled my belt sap and backhanded him in the face. I got his nose and his teeth and broke bridgework. I ripped one nostril loose. His fake dick dipped and wilted. I kneed him in the balls. He puked on my Sy Devore coat.

  Somebody Jap-jumped me. A dogpile ensued. It was Robbie and Nat, neighbors and cops. A fat cop applied a headlock. I got loosey-goosey ecstatic. I saw Lois as I went out.

  * * *

  —

  Blackout.

  I’ve had them before. I know the messed-up MO. You booze and abuse for weeks running. An altercation ensues. Somebody cuts off your carotid artery. You see shit that is and shit that ain’t there.

  Like Lois. Like the backseat of a beat-to-hell prowl car. Like the Wilshire Station drunk tank. Like Jimmy Dean at Ten-Inch Tommy’s—and these bad boys butting Kool Kings on his neck.

  Like Max and Red. Holy shit, Freddy—don’t you ever quit?

  I came to at Ollie Hammond’s. Max and Red sat facing me. My neck hurt. Somebody snatched my Sy Devore coat. Where’s Robbie and Nat? What’s the dispo on the sicknik sadist and that colored carhop?

  Drinks appeared. We imbibed. Max said, “We squared you up. Your boys took your car back to the lot. We got the girl settled in at Queen of Angels, and we booked shithead for Rape 1 and Mayhem. He’ll do a doomsday dime somewhere.”

  Curb-to-curb service. Freddy O.’s our boy. Bill Parker wants something. They’re here to ask.

  I said, “I appreciate all this. Thanks. Now, let’s go out and kill some 211 guys and blow off some steam. Maybe clear some pending homicides on the books.”

  Max said, “Freddy’s miffed.”

  Red said, “It’s a delayed reaction to Fat Boy.”

  Max said, “We did a favor for Freddy’s pal, Jack. It’s called ‘snipping loose ends while you punch a shithead’s ticket that deserved to be punched in the first place.’ ”

  Red said, “Freddy knows the rules. He’s got scalps on his belt. He’s just momentarily aflutter with Senator Jack and his vision of ‘an America that provides for all her people.’ ”

  I laffed. I raised my drink. I went Touch
é.

  Max said, “What did Jack pay you, Freddy? Don’t disappoint us and tell us you didn’t shake him down.”

  I said, “The bite was fifty g’s. I got the package. Too bad it was all counterfeit.”

  Max and Red roared. I re-roared. Montego Bay, Manhattan, the mountains on the moon. O bird thou never—

  Red lit a cigarette. “The Chief has a job for you. It pays three grand, cash, no counterfeit. It piggybacks a job you’re embarking on for Bob Harrison.”

  I drained my drink. I faked a cough and dipped two dexies.

  “He’s got me packing up listening posts, and disarming the bug-and-tap feeds. Let me hazard a guess. The Chief wants me to play the recordings extant and compile intel files.”

  Max said, “Freddy was never dumb. He’s always known up from down.”

  Red said, “I like Freddy, but I wouldn’t go that far.”

  I blew smoke their way. “Sure, I’ll do it. I’m starting the gig for Bob tomorrow.”

  Max twirled his glass. “You know what the Chief likes. You can’t go wrong with sex, politics, and California Penal Code violations.”

  I noshed a bread stick. It was stagecraft. It covered my mean megrims and trembling tremens.

  “I need a favor. I don’t think it’s a big one to ask.”

  Max went tsk-tsk. “Snow job alert. I sense one coming.”

  Red went tsk-tsk. “The shaky hands are always the tell.”

  “I need a look at the Caryl Chessman master file, and the PD file on Janey Blaine.”

  Max said, “No. Whatever you’re thinking of, whatever you may be planning, no good can come of it. The Chief looks askance at your fixation with dead and brutalized women.”

  Red said, “No more dead-woman crusades, Freddy. That’s over and out. Chessman’s a dead issue, and Janey Blaine’s been avenged. You should know—we killed the man who killed her.”

  LISTENING POST

  Argyle North of Franklin

  10/16/57

  Shitwork. Divestment duty. I’m a wage slave. Lift that barge, tote that bale.

  There’s six posts. Pack the furniture/box the bug-and-tap mounts. Take last listens. List damning dish Bill Parker would drool for. Look through bug-and-tap logs. Bootjack hot bug-and-tap tapes for Big Bill.

  I started here. The Argyle post ran a loooooong-range transceiver. We bugged and tapped mid-Hollywood and the hip Hollywood Hills. Our bug-and-tap targets totaled twenty-four houses and apartments.

  Film folk. Sullen subversives. Furtive fuck pads and nifty nests of stewardess call girls. Fly me—I’m Pam, Lizzie, Sally, Nancy, Kathy et al.

  I scanned the logs. The indices listed bug-and-tap targets and their addresses. Tap callers were listed. Their call dates and times were marked. Two names nabbed me, straight off.

  Ingrid Ellmore. Pan Am stew and poon panderess supreme. Ingrid invented the all-nite pajama party. She owned a six-bedroom A-frame on Bronson Hill. You got six girls/180-proof absinthe/all the poppable pills in the PDR. Ingrid had a heated pool. Ingrid had sauna and steam rooms. Two yards bought you the Debauch of the Damned. Ingrid rocked round the clock.

  Ingrid’s call-in list. Note some names. AG Pat Brown, Mayor Norris Poulson. Baseball boss Leo Durocher. Sheriff Gene Biscailuz. TV titan Sid Caesar. Bumptious Buddy Hackett and lounge lizard Louis Prima.

  I boosted three bug-and-tap boxes. I’d listen in and cherry-pick some choice shit for the Chief. This was a listen-at-your-leisure deal. The second name shrieked Listen Now!!!

  Dalton Trumbo. Commie Caporegime. Bugged and tapped at his worker’s wigwam off Whitley Drive. Hollywood Ten hard-on. Gallivanting gadfly. Dig this name on his call-in list:

  The Caryl Chessman Defense Committee. Dig Bernie Spindel’s margin notes:

  “CP-financed. Popular front-group remnant. Evolved from the Free the Rosenbergs Committee. Frequent celebrity call-ups to target’s home phone. Names noted on specific call sheets.”

  I culled the call sheets. They coughed up baaaaaad Burt Lancaster and cheesy Chuck Heston. There’s Calypso King Preston Epps. He’s hard on the heels of his hit “Bongo in the Congo.” There’s Liz Taylor. There’s Hugh Hefner. There’s Mr. Mumbles himself—Marlon Brando.

  Marlon mauled my main mujer, Joi Lansing, at a party. It was fall ’53. I’ve ground that grudge for four years now.

  I went straight for the call-in tapes. I was hopped up on hate now. I’d rereprised my role of the cornholed cornuto. I got a hot hit off the call-tap list: Marlon Brando at the Caryl Chessman Defense Committee.

  I found the tape and wrapped it into a tape rig. Dig the date: 10/9/57. That’s just last week.

  I got cozy. I lit a cigarette and sucked my flask. I punched play. Red rake Trumbo schmoozed Mumbles Brando.

  Static cut through the call. I amputated the amenities and sundered some chitchat. Voices vibrated two minutes in.

  Brando: “…and they’ve got that burglar-killer guy, slated to burn on the eleventh. What’s his name, again?”

  Trumbo: “Donald Keith Bashor. The Party was thinking of sending some pickets up, but this guy was just too vicious. He killed two women, and messed around with the good-looking one, postmortem. We want him to burn, because it explicates the callous nature of fascist injustice. In fact, we want everyone to burn, including Caryl. The more the merrier. They’re martyrs to the cause. We can really play that angle up in the press.”

  Brando: “You’re right about that. And, you know, there’s these rumors floating around that Caryl will be coming down soon for a hearing. I’m laying some groundwork on that. Can the Party bounce for two hundred protestors, at ten clams a pop? That’s two grand, all in all. I’m leading a protest outside the Hall of Justice, downtown. Me, Preston Epps, maybe Liz Taylor. That’s on the seventeenth, and I’m not floating this gig out of my pocket.”

  Trumbo: “I’ll get you the bread, don’t worry. That’s what front groups do—they front their comrades money.”

  Brando: “Rumors…yeah, I dig that concept. Hey, have you heard the one about the third victim? That Caryl bit her nipples off, and she’s been in the funny farm ever since? That she couldn’t testify at Caryl’s trial, because she was far-gone catatonic?”

  Trumbo: “The fascist lie machine dreamed that one up. Of course, they made her a real baby doll, with tits out to here. Too bad she didn’t really exist.”

  The call staticked up and stuttered out. Mumbles mumbled. Dial tones ditzed and dimmed Trumbo out.

  I went back to work. Caryl Chessman click-clicked in my head. It felt like a fever. It’s mutating and metastasizing. It’ll maim me unless I do something soon.

  I boxed up the Ingrid and Trumbo tapes. I called Confidential’s messenger service and told them to roll up here now. I added notes to Bill Parker:

  “The Ellmore woman’s a mother lode for Headquarters Vice. Duplicate and forward the Trumbo tapes to your Intel Division, plus State and Fed HUAC. More to come/F.O.”

  That fever. Festering, mutating, metastasizing. I could feel it. I could feel him—this malignant microbe inside me.

  I called my answering service. I had one message:

  Mr. Nat Denkins called. He said Miss Blind Item called him and will call the show tonight.

  * * *

  —

  Festering. Mutating. Metastasizing. The malignant microbe inside both of us.

  I messengered the bug-and-tap boxes to Bill Parker. I blew off my other work gigs. I popped home and perched by the phone. I’m Stage Door Freddy, resurrected.

  She didn’t call. The wait wilted, withered, and wiped me out. I boozed, I chain-smoked, I popped pills to push the clock forward. A paradoxical effect popped me. They slowed the clock down.

  I made midnight. The clock climbed to 1:00 a.m. I ran my radio. The Synagogue Sid Trio blatted and blasted their intro. They went t
opical tonite. The microbe moved within them. Dig their composition: “I Got Dem Caryl Chessman Blues Again, Mama.”

  Bass sax, flügelhorn, drums. A crash-out crescendo. Then the silken sound of coins slid down a slot. Then her voice: “Hey, Nat—what’s shakin’, baby?”

  Nasty Nat said, “Miss Blind Item, her own self. Man, it has been way too long!”

  My heart thudded and thumped and threatened to blow on the spot. Lois said, “Over two years, sweetie.”

  “Sooooo, are you back to finalize your beef against Confidential? Is that what brings you to town?”

  “What’s to finalize, Nat? That trial last summer pretty much emasculated it.”

  Nasty Nat said, “Yeah, Confidential’s been declawed and devenomed, that’s for sure. Hhhmmmmm. Let’s see now. Could the purpose of your visit be the fact that Caryl Chessman will be coming here for a court appearance later this month, and because there’s a big protest rally scheduled at the Hall of Justice tomorrow, with Marlon Brando and numerous other celebs slated to appear?”

  Lois laffed. “You’ve lost me there, Nat.”

  “Hey, baby. You’re an actress, I hear tell, and I know you’ve done some things in New York. You ever cross paths with the Mumble Man?”

  Lois said “Weeelll, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say we shared a history.”

  My heart shook, sheared, and shuddered—and almost shut down on the spot.

  Nasty Nat said, “Here’s a question, Miss Item. Chessman’s court appearance hasn’t been announced in the press, but it certainly has been a persistent rumor. How did you hear about it?”

  Lois laffed. I saw her bleached-blue eyes bounce and almost cross craaaazy.

  “Well, Nat. I flew out for a fund-raiser for your attorney general, Pat Brown—who’s running for governor next year. Mr. Brown mentioned the appeal, and also the fact that Vice President Nixon will be touring South America next spring, where Communist-backed protests against Chessman’s death sentence and American foreign policy in general have already been announced, which poses the question, ‘How can one evil man command such attention, and what can we do about it?’ ”