by James Ellroy
Standing and smoking and staring into a book.
The goon said, "What's that?" The kid said, "It's a flicking thesaurus." Danny said, "Limp-wristed lawyer lollygags at lavender lovefest! Pinko plutocrat paralyzed as cops cop preadult playmate!" The kid said, "Cute, but remember--a C-note down and no ass action."
"Come here, Dick."
I pulled the drapes. I turned around slooooow.
Vivid Viv in a sheer peach peignoir. Embroidered: crossed cocks and pointy pudenda and fierce fertility gods.
"Come here, Dick."
She wanted to siphon my seed. SHE was the succubus!!!
I panicked. I tore through my pockets for garlic cloves or wolfsbane. Viv jumped on me.
She tore at my jacket. She tore at my shirt. She tore at the power pack packed on my pectoral muscles.
She stopped. My microphone flopped free and dropped down to my cummerbund. She saw the wires and the tangled-up tape.
The succubus shrieked. She clawed my chest and kicked me in the balls.
The succubus went for my eyes.
I blocked her hands. I judo-chopped her. I caught her on the neck and dumped her flat. I ran--
I got out the door. The nut-ward guy and the goon counterattacked. They jumped in their car and blocked off the driveway.
I went for my car keys. They were gone. I lost them when I grabbed for garlic cloves or wolfsbane.
Somebody whispered, "Get back in there and fuck her!" Danny Getchell whispered, "Don't run!" Somebody whispered, "Quiet-- or she'll hear us!"
I ran to the Packard Caribbean. I found the keys in the dash. I hit the gas and rammed my dad's car.
It spun into the big backyard. It spun off wet grass and spun into a swimming pool. It sunk down to its tailpipes.
I hit my headlights. I saw a trellised fence and a dark golf course. I punched the gas and plowed through the fence and spun fishtails and wild figure 8's.
II
5
I made it up to the Strip. I leveled nine golf holes and left three miles of grassy tire tracks behind me.
The Packard was mud mottled and stained grass green. I ditched it with the valet outside Ciro's. I walked in and caught three bars of "You Belong to Me."
It tremolo'd and trickled through the foyer. I stepped into the main room and caught it full on. Joi Lansing held the room hostage. Blonde hair and spray-painted spangles in a hot spotlight.
I stood at the back and scoped the room long-distance. Harvey Glatman stood behind some drapes draping off a side exit. He stared at la Lansing. He had his hands full.
He held out a little camera. The drapes popped and puckered off his pelvis. Harvey was pounding his pud.
I looked left. I looked right. The room rocked to a torch-song tempo. Jack Webb sat ringside. He wept into a Rob Roy and tossed red roses onstage. Joi ignored him. Two toady types consoled him.
They screamed "LAPD." The scene outside the Woodard house screamed "BACKUP SHAKEDOWN." I was set to crucify a Commie. Hush-Hush was set to humble him as a homo. The package screamed "LAPD."
Joi whispered. Joi warbled. Joi torched Jack Webb's heart and tossed it away.
I couldn't brace her yet. I got the Packard and laid tracks for the San Gabriel Valley.
I found the location. I watched Private Hell 36 wrap. The shoot had to shoot into my whole web of intrigue.
They shot at a trailer park in downscale Duarte. I parked in a vacant lot across the street. I found binoculars in the backseat and freeze-framed my focus. Arc lights gave me added eyeball oomph.
The trailers were beat-up and slapped down in rows sans tow hooks and cars. They looked empty. The crew stood on a pavement patch off to the left. They looked itchy.
They dispersed at 12:01 A.M. They peeled out in individual cars. They left their arc lights up. Two people stayed behind and paced the pavement.
Ida Lupino. Steve "the Schvantz" Cochran.
Ida smoked and sucked on a hip flask. The Schvantz sniffed a dress rack. It was standing by a trailer marked #36.
I waited. I watched.
12:08 A.M.:
A car pulls up. Freddy O and Johnny Stompanato get out.
Ida shoots Freddy a tongue kiss. Johnny Stomp shoots the Schvantz a mean look. Stomp enters #36 and exits with a small movie camera. The Schvantz dumps it in Freddy 0's car.
12:13 A.M.:
An LAPD van pulls up. Six women hop out. They're dressed in jail denims. The driver hops out. He's dressed in LAPD blue.
The girls hit the dress rack. The girls hit #36. The girls exit looking vampy and dressed va-va-voom. The Schvantz licks his chops.
12:26 A.M.:
The girls get back in the van. Ida and the Schvantz hop in Freddy O's car. Freddy and Johnny Stomp hop in. The LAPD man pulls down the arc lights and straps them to the roof of the van.
12:34 A.M.:
The car pulls out. The van pulls out. I pull out behind them.
We drive three blocks east. The car and the van pull into a courtyard motel. I pull into a vacant lot fifty yards east.
The Larkcrest Motel. Abandoned. One light in one room lit. A long string of dark doorways and windows.
I grabbed my binoculars. I crept into the courtyard. I peeped the scene perspiringly close.
12:46 A.M.:
The girls hit the lit-up room. The cop hauls the camera and arc lights in. Ida and the Schvantz hit the room.
12:50 A.M.:
Johnny Stomp walks around the courtyard. He opens the doors and turns on the lights in every other room.
Six rooms are now lit. Six rooms remain dark.
12:59 A.M.:
Freddy 0 hauls a box from his car. He circuits the six lit-up rooms. He drops a bottle of booze and two paper cups on six bright blue bedspreads.
1:04 A.M.:
The cop climbs in his van. He unloads a dolly. It holds six movie cameras. The cop circuits the six dark rooms. He dumps six cameras on six bright blue bedspreads. He shuts the doors behind him.
I got the picture. I got it in SIN-emascope.
The cop climbed back in his van. I snuck way into the courtyard. I hunkered down and entered a dark room on his blind side.
I flicked a light on. I flicked it off fast. I saw a 2-way peek built into the wall. I fumbled in darkness and bumbled into a door.
I opened it. I entered a lit-up love room. The 2-way looked out on the bed. I pulled the microphone and power pack off my chest and taped itto the bottom of the mattress.
I snuck back to the vacant lot sloooooooooow. I grabbed my binoculars. I waited. I watched. I patiently peeped the courtyard. I listened to grunts and groans in Ida Lupino's room.
1:36 A.M.:
Ida's door opens. Johnny Stomp walks out. I get a two-second tantalization.
Ida's got her camera in tight. A blonde's got the Schvantz trapped in her tonsils.
He's huge. He's a pineapple impaled on a pipe threader.
Stompanato shut the door and lit a cigarette. I waited. I watched. I patiently peeped the courtyard.
2:08 A.M.:
Six cars pull in. Six middle-aged men jump out. They've got smirks on their lips and guns on their hips. They whoop. They holler. Johnny Stomp greets them.
I zoomed in on their cars. I latched my lenses on their license plates and memorized them.
I ran to my car. I peeled out. I heard Ida Lupino yell, "Cut! That's a take!"
3:26 A.M.:
I peeled into the alley behind Ciro's. There's Joi Lansing.
She's dressed in a Girl Scout getup. She's dumping red roses in a trash bin.
She blinked into my headlights. I doused them. She said, "Jack, Jesus Christ."
I got out of the car. A flashlight flashed me. Joi said, "Jesus, Dick Contino."
I didn't know what to say. I hummed three bars from "Lady of Spain."
Joi laughed. "I don't know what you're doing here, but at least I know thatJack didn't send you."
I leaned on the trash bin. Joi flipped off her flashlight. A late moon lit
the alley low and languorous.
"How do you know Jack didn't send me?"
"Sergeant Joe Friday and you?"
I laughed. "You haven't asked me what I'm doing here."
Joi lit a cigarette and looked me over. "You're wearing a tuxedo, and you look like you've been crawling in dirt. Your shirt's unbuttoned, and it looks like you've shaved your chest. I couldn't begin to guess, and as long as Jack didn't send you, I don't care."
I laughed. I coughed away a cloud ofJoi's smoke and tossed her a teaser.
"I heard you and Jack broke up. I think I read it in Hush-Hush."
Ba-boom, bam, bingo:
Joi went bug-eyed and choked on a chestful of Chesterfield.
I let her cough up some composure. She came back strong.
"Over's over. Jack didn't want to get married and have kids, and I did. I wouldn't be playing den mother to a bunch of Mexican brats in Boyle Heights if I didn't. Jesus, I mean, look at this outfit."
I tossed Teaser #2. "Politics had nothing to do with it?"
Joi dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. "I'm an actress, a chorus dancer, and an occasional singer. I've got about as much interest in politics as you do."
"You'd be surprised."
"Try me."
Try this:
"You went to L. Trent Woodard last year. You told him you had inside information on an LAPD plot to put out propaganda on TV I'm betting Jack Webb was in on it, and I'm betting you had second thoughts and just dropped the whole thing, and I'm betting Woodard can't put any more of the plot together."
Joi said, "Jesus, Mr. Accordion." She said it breathless and very Hush-Hushed.
I said, "I nailed it?"
Joi lit a cigarette and flicked ash off her Girl Scout sash. "I got ahold of some Dragnet scripts that Jack and Chief Parker wrote. They had Joe Friday running speeches on how the LAPD needed to round up all the bums in Los Angeles and deport them to Cuba permanently, and how they needed to establish debtors' prisons and work farms to take all the deadbeats off the streets. I told Jack, 'You and Bill Parker can't possibly be serious about proposing this sick shit,' and Jack said, 'It isn't sick, and we'll shoot those scripts when the time is right."
Puzzle pieces popped into place. I said, "Does Jack know you approached Woodard? Does he know that this sick shit convinced you to leave him?"
Joi shook her head. "No. He thinks the marriage issue queered things, and wait, it gets sicker."
I sniffed Jack Webb's red roses. Joi shut the trash bin and smothered the smell.
"I overheard Jack and Parker talking a few times. Their plan was to shoot the scripts and air them on Dragnet, to soften the public up. Then they'd get up a public petition to deport the bums and build the debtors' prisons and work farms. Now, dig this. Jack and Freddy Otash own a big construction firm under the table, and Parker's tight with that Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista. The plan was for the LAPD to sell the bums to Batista, so he could use them as slaves in his sugarcane fields, and Jack's construction firm would get the contract to build the debtors' prisons and work farms, and once they were built, the inmates would build the sets for all the movies Jack wanted to make. The only thing holding all this back was seed money. They needed a few quick million to get things going."
More pieces popped into place. I said, "The LAPD's tangling over money with the Sheriff's right now. Parker wants to get his hands on that seed dough."
Joi shivered. "William H. Parker is the devil with horns."
I said, "Freddy O's right up there."
"He is. He's got a big dirt dossier on all of Parker and the LAPD's enemies, and he's got this sick twist Harvey who does bug work and phone taps for him. Harvey's got this sick thing for me. He used to follow me around the set when I visited Jack."
Pieces PERCOLATINGLY popping into place--
"And Cal Dinkins was--I mean is--tight with Jack and Freddy?"
"Yes. Dick, how do you know all--"
"And the LAPD dirt dossier is sort of like the big Hush-Hush master file that Freddy 0's supposedly got?"
"Yes, but it's all one file, and Parker and Otash decide who gets smeared, and it's all so ugly that I wish I didn't know about it, and . . . and. . . and. . ."
Joi ran out of breath and lit a cigarette. I said, "I need a tape recorder, and I need to get some license-plate information."
Joi squawked like a squad-car squawkbox. She popped out a parcel of penal-code numbers, Dragnet-style.
"I know how to do things like that. Jack taught me. And I've got a tape gizmo inside."
I pulled a pen from my pocket. Joi pulled some paper from her Girl Scout skirt. She leaned over. I used her back for a blotter and jotted down my vehicle dope.
She ran into the club. I bayed at the big bright moon.
Pieces PALPITATINGLY popping into place. A bonaroo blonde to rescue and redeem me.
Joi jumped into the alley. She handed me a tape rig and a scratch-pad sheet.
"I got the vehicle information and ran an employment crosscheck. The six registered owners are all members of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department."
I bayed at the moon. I grabbedJoi and kissed her. She kissed me back hard. I tasted tobacco and sweet vermouth on her tongue.
We broke the clinch. Joi said, "Be brave and stupid. I go for guys like that."
I drove back to Duarte. I hit the Larkcrest Motel at 5:33 A.M. The courtyard was deserted and dead quiet.
I hit Love Hut #9 and pulled my power pack off the mattress. I pulled the tape spool out of the pack and popped it in Joi's tape rig.
I sat on the bed. I hit the Play button. I heard bits of the Wllshire-Ebell bash and my clash with the succubus. I heard tape hiss and fuck sounds and a real male and a fake female climax.
I heard voices.
Male voice: "Sweetie, that was . . . Jesus."
Female voice: "I could tell it's been a while for you."
Male voice: "Yeah, well. . . the old lady's the old lady, but I guess that doesn't count."
Female voice: "Look, it's been a while for me too. I've been out of circulation."
Male voice: "What do you mean? I thought you got bit roles at M-G-M and lived here in L.A."
Female voice: "Yeah, I do. It. . . was. . . well, just a figure of speech."
Male voice: "I'm glad Stompanato sets up these stag nights. We all work hard, and we need to blow off some steam from time to time."
Female voice: "You must be really busy. Didn't it say 'Captain' on that badge you showed me."
Male voice: "That's right, Sweetie. I'm a captain on the inspector's list."
Female voice: "Tell me what you do. I just love to hear men talk about their work."
Male voice: "Well, I run the West Hollywood Substation."
Female voice: "That's my old stomping grounds. I used to work at a call house on Havenhurst, and the West Hollywood deputies were good to all us girls."
Male voice: "Well, you know how it is. One hand washes the other."
Female voice: "I think I know what you mean, but tell me more."
Male voice: "Well, on the q.t., all the call houses in the county kick loose donations to the Sheriff's Annual Rodeo Fund, so the money gets laundered that way. See, Gene Biscailuz is a good guy. He's not like that prick Bill Parker, and he knows a lot of deputies have drinking problems, so he shoots some of the rodeo money to a hospital where they can dry out. I've dried out there six or seven times myself. Pass me that bottle, will you, Sweetie?"
Female voice: "Tell me more."
I heard footsteps. I tossed the tap shit out a back window. The door blew off its hinges and landed on my lap. Two men charged me and beat me blank with big black saps.
I woke up chained to a chair. I saw a dress rack and an arc light. I recognized the dark little room.
Trailer #36 on the Private Hell 36 set.
Fred O and Johnny Stompanato stomped in front of me. They tapped black leather saps on their knees. I heard voices outside.
Jack Webb
and Ida Lupino.
My head hurt. I felt woozy. My teeth felt loose. I saw tooth marks on the two saps.
Otash said, "Why'd you ditch out on Viv Woodard?"
Stomp said, "Why did you steal her car?"
Otash said, "Where's the bug apparatus?"
Stomp said, "What did you and that Commie cooze discuss?"
I played it brave and stupid. I said, "Bah fungoo," with full Italian inflection.
Stomp sapped me. I spat two teeth on his Sy Devore suit. Fred O flashed a newspaper. I caught a headline: PROMINENT LAWYER A SUICIDE.
Otash dropped the paper. "Our vice guys caught Woodard with his pants down. He bailed out and drank some Drãno. The kid they caught him with gave Hush-Hush a statement. The story's going on the May cover, unless you convince the widow to sit on everything she might know about a certain police agency."
I said, "Fuck you, Fritz."
Otash sapped me. I spat two teeth on his Sy Devore suit. Otash sapped me again.
"Woodard's dead, Dick. You're not much use to us anymore, and you just might prove to be a liability. You killed a valuable buddy of ours, and brave and stupid guys like you are always better off dead."
"Brave" and "stupid" clicked with "dead" and cleared my clogged head. I screamed like a scared little baby.
Otash clamped down on my arms. Johnny Stomp rolled up my shirtsleeves. Harvey Glatman and the nut-ward guy popped in my periphery.
Somebody stuck a spike in my arm. I whooshed into ecstasy and darkness.
Light and dark came and went. Hypodermic needles slipped in and out of my arms.
I went wonderful places. I returned to Private Hell 36. I fucked the mermaid from the Chicken of the Sea tuna can.
Harvey Glatman photographed my arms. Ida Lupino shot me up and shot my needle tracks with 3-D film. My bladder burst. Somebody said, "Oh, shit."
I flew to Mars. The succubus siphoned my python and gave birth to trident-tailed twins. I apologized to her husband. He condemned my cowardice and deplored the damage I did. Howard dove for my dong. Linda Sidwell jumped on Jack Webb. Joi Lansing saw the Lupino loop and left me for the Schvantz.
I heard voices or ventriloquistic voodoo.
