by James Ellroy
Donna squeezed my hands. “You can’t will it. And I can’t keep shooting people and getting embroiled in your crazy life all the time.”
Sadness slid up and slammed me. My python sidled south and de-perked.
“Twice in twenty-one years? That’s not all the time.”
Donna sighed. “I’m almost fifty years old. How did my life get so wild and fucked up?”
I HIT A mocha mecca on Mariposa and Wilshire. I jacked up some java. The joint was serve-yourself-cyberspace—two terminals, pay-as-you-play, computer hookups.
I Internet-invaded. I walked Web sites. I hit Donny DeFreeze name combinations. I pulled the punk’s page up. Dig— DeFreezeworld.net.
Script scrolls. Excerpts from:
“Eldridge Cleaver, Revolutionary Rapist”: “You don’t understand, baby. Dis be de ’60s. Every time I rapes a white woman, it be a blow against The Establishment and The Man.”
“Black Panther Shootout—People’s Revolt Against LAPD”: “You gots to dig it, baby. Dis be 1969. We be waging war on de pigs.”
“SLA Insurrection—Southside Gundown with LAPD”: “Listen to me, baby. Dis be soul brother Cinque DeFreeze talkin’. It be 1974 now. We’s kidnapped Patty Hearst, now it be time to lay some race war on Mr. Charlie.”
“Palestinian Payback: The End Justifies the Means”: Listen, my Islamic brother! It is now 2003! The time has come to smite the American insect! Hear me now, my fedayee!”
“Harvey Glatman, Sex-Fiend Saint”: “You fuzz don’t get it. It’s 1958, diggit? Those three kool kittens I strangled prophesy the ’60s. I predict some king-size chaos, you sound me?”
Puerile pap. Punk pontification. Anticop communistic. Nigger dly nostalgic. Left-wing lunacy.
Glamour Girl Slayer: Harvey Glatman, posing as a fashion photographer, bound, raped, and murdered aspiring starlets. (Los Angeles Times Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)
Harvey Glatman—glaring non sequitur. Glatman glommed three women ’57–’58. He posed as a photographer. He leeched off lonely hearts listings. He photo-fucked and vilely violated his victims. He was a rope freak and a bondage buffoon. He dumped his devastated damsels in the desert. His fourth victim fought him off. He fried 9/59 at Big Q.
?????
The A-rab stuff stung me. A dune-coon coonection dug in.
DeFreeze rented a lipstick-red Lamborghini. It was one cool coontach—let’s coontemplate this.
He rented it from Khalid’s Kustom Cars/Khalid Salaam, owner.
?????
I MAINLINED MORE mocha and made tracks for Malibu. I knew Casa de Suenos. I worked off-duty security there, circa ’77. It was a spanking-white Spanish pad by the sea.
Sea breezes bristled. Night air nudged my noggin. Coffee coursed through me. I popped up Pacific Coast Highway. I saw the pad, pulled a U-turn, and parked.
There’s the casa. Let’s be casual. It’s perched on PCH, two doors down.
I walked over. I lugged my evidence kit. I popped by the porte cochere. There’s the lipstick Lamborghini. There’s a boss Bentley sedan. There’s a beaming Beemer. The plate reads “Lou P.”
Probably the property of: prick private eye Lou Pellegrino.
Be bold now—bring it on brazen.
I laid my kit on the Lambo. I prepared print powder. I tricked up transparency strips. I powdered the driver’s-side door and lifted two latents.
I stashed the strips. I closed my kit. I loped around the pad left to right. A walkway whipped back to the water. I walked it and watched window light. I kicked up mounds of mortar dust. I perv-peeped that light.
I saw cheezy furniture—rock-bottom rental stuff. I saw loads of leftist wall pix. There’s sick Cinque. There’s rape-o Cleaver. There’s blasphemous Black Panther shots.
I bopped back to the beach. I ducked by a deck. Bedroom light bounced.
There’s demented Donny DeFreeze. He’s full-out fucking on a futon. He’s making it with a mid-60s mama. She’s careful-coiffed. She’s wrinkle-ridged. She’s age-addled but fuckable-fit.
She’s got her eyes shut. Donny’s drilling her draconian. His eyes hop with hate.
3.
I shot to the shelter. Pit bulls pounced. A dog daisy chain developed. Donny DeFreeze diminuendoed and disappeared. I settled in for an eight-dog nite.
I fed the pits burrito bites. Brandon Marti made good on that manuscript. I found it on a shelf.
Her Lonely Places: Donna Donahue Deconstructed by James Ellington.
The pits piled on. A terrier territory enclosed me. I scrunched up a dog-dandered pillow. Let’s rack out and read.
Ellington wrote elegant. His Donna jones-jumped. He rocked home wild riffs.
“Per Donna Donahue’s physical force. It is manifestly powerful and stems from facial features that suggest strength of character, kindness, decency, and a concurrent playfulness and reticence. Here paradox reigns. Suggestions run bipartite. ‘I am an open book’/‘It’s an open book I’ll never let you fully understand.’ ”
Ellington elaborated. He riffed on “mid-range celebrity” synced to “television viewer demographics” synced to a “rapidly fluctuating media culture that feeds off a fickle yearning for the newness and nearness of youth.” He states: “Ms. Donahue retains an implacable hold on men as she ages and her presence more and more strongly suggests a sensuality grounded in wisdom.” Her never-married status denotes her as an “opportunist of love” who operates from a “passion for the moment” undercut by a stern desire “never to dilute her oneness through subservience to any man,” a reluctance perhaps influenced by “astute childhood readings of the Donahue family dynamic and early awareness of parental dysfunction.”
Woo hoo! Call this cat one deep Donnaphile!
“Los Angeles is a media center and rumor mill. Two oft-told bits of Donna Donahue lore pertain to her participation in chains of violent events in 1983 and last fall in 2004. The details recounted in rumor—varied and wholly disparate in nature—all relate to her sporadic involvement in covert investigations initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department.”
Ring-a-ding! Rip it to Rhino Rick! Lay it on LAPD!
Ellington riffed on that rumor. Donna had scintillating secrets. She staked a clandestine claim on her own heart and held hungers back. She pulsed for possibility. She downscaled and dimmed her romantic expectations. She lived as a lightning rod. She wished up wild and wicked webs and waltzed through them worshipful and wistful for more. She feared her spirit to spark cataclysm. She prized the prosaic in calamitous counterpoint.
Ellington nailed Donna. Ellington nailed the distance between us. Ellington nailed me.
I MARCHED THROUGH the manuscript. I dog-eared Donna-deep pages. Pit bulls slipped into slumber beside me. I slid into sleep.
A-rabs assaulted my ass. Some shit-for-brains Shiites fucked me with fatwas à la Salman Rushdie. Donny DeFreeze cornholed a camel. Saddam Hussein handed Harvey Glatman a harem and strands of stranglers’ rope. Sleazy sleeper cells. Lurid lap dances. Rhino herds gorge on Palestinian pitas and Muhammad’s Meatball Subs. That sissified psychologist says, “Rhino, you’re sick.”
Demons descend on Donna. Some asshole ayatollah damns her with a death decree. Big-toothed bats bombard her. Surreptitious serpents surf up her legs.
I stirred. I stood. The pit pile disbursed. I saw Her Lonely Places. It hit me haaaaaaard. That text tells why she’ll never love me from here to heaven’s heights.
I lost it. I lobbed dog crates at the west wall. I dumped dog dishes. I kicked kibble bags. I bombed the back wall with bags of Barko Bits All-American Dog Chow.
The pit bulls loved it. They hopped, howled, and humped me. They licked me and laid on their love.
THE TIRADE TIGHTENED my wig. I dusted off dog dander and drove downtown.
I hit Parker Center. I laid the Lambo prints on a print tech. He promised rapid results. I talked to Tim and Dave. We down-and-dirty discussed our visits to the gentlem
en’s clubs.
I talked up Tanya’s tale. Tim and Dave dittoed me. They canvassed and caught the same feedback. Fuck—party-hearty Arabs/ death talk/deep depression. Slide me, Slick—is this sleeper-cell shit?
And—where did they dig up their dinero?
Dave dished out a hot lead. Danielle at Dawn’s Dugout—not at work yesterday. A boogie barkeep said she’s got some ace A-rab tips. Rhino, you roll on that—she shifts on at 6:00.
Our landline lit up. Tim took the call. Ping—Pac Bell reports. They ran the pay-phone calls. They got an instant incongruity. Four days, 49 calls to 432 East 49th Street/Hassan Sufeer, the Sufi subscriber.
DARKTOWN AGAIN— Coonecticut and Jigaboo Junction.
We caught the Coal Chute code 2. We climbed in close to the old SLA-shootout pad. Donny DeFreeze ruminations ripped me—the punk rang me wrong.
We hit the house. It was pulsating peach stucco stuck on sinking cinderblocks. We rang the doorbell. We racked up no response. We shoulder-shoved the door in.
Dig this—the dive’s deserted.
No pricey prayer rugs. No camel-furred furniture. No couscous or kebab casserole ware in the kitchen. No mattresses, no minarets, no mini-mosque accoutrements.
We tossed the pad. We closet-climbed. We rolled room to room. We crawled crevices and crannies. We found this:
Takeout-food debris. Stale stuff stuck in Styrofoam containers. Putrefied pita pockets, picked-at pizza, moth-munched meatball marinara.
Escort-service brochures. Bright fotos. Wild wenches with whips—white women all. Bleached blondes blooming in pink peignoirs. Comely Caucasoids to whore with hordes of dark-skinned scoundrels.
A strand of rolled-up rope, flaring out a floor beam. Blistered and blood-bleached.
Scary. A scalding find. Scorched skin that tore off at a touch.
We room-to-room rocked and re-tossed. No more shit showed up. Dave buzzed the Feds. He said we sailed through this safe house—grok this grave alert.
We bopped outside. Porch monkeys perused us. We hopped house to house. We canvassed. We blew block to block. We paraded our pix and caught this:
The house—a hajj hive and camel cave from jump street. Two Arabs in attendance—the coarse cats in the Identikits. Wild-ass white women wending by, all hours of the nite. The A-rabs—“dey moves out yesterday.”
Call it cold:
Two mosque minions morte—Rashad and Fire Face. The insidious Islamics learn this and leave for the lurch.
My cell phone rang. I caught the call. The print guy delivered on Donny DeFreeze—match-up and major rap sheet.
WE DROVE BACK to Parker Center. The print guy shot me the sheet. CII on Donny DeFreeze—real name Jomo Kenyatta Perry.
Born in Berkeley, 12/8/72. Father unknown. Mother: sulky SLA succubus Nancy Ling Perry.
Named after monstrous mau-mau Jomo Kenyatta. Hellbound-hatched before the Patty Hearst snatch. Two extortion busts, Alameda County.
Nancy Ling Perry, a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army and participant in the 1974 robbery of the Hibernia bank in San Francisco. Killed in the SLA shootout. (Photo courtesy of the LAPD)
He beats both beefs. They’re fruit shakes. He’s a shakedown shill. He keesters cats while his comrades catch it on camera.
He humps homos. They’re closet clowns in deep cover. The cops catch on. The fruitcake Freddies freak and refuse to cooperate.
The rap sheet ran rife with rumors. “Subject is said to have moved to the Los Angeles area.” “Subject is said to harbor strong left-wing, anti-American sentiments.” “Subject is said to strongly identify with radical groups of the 1970s, particularly those of the black-nationalist ilk.”
Despicable Donny. Noxious negrophile. Leftist-loser legacy. Butt banger. Pro-Sambo, anti-Uncle Sam. This jejune jungle bunny manqué, “Jomo Kenyatta.”
My thoughts jumped and jumbled. Donny. Donna. Lou Pellegrino —Hollywood shakedown man—
DAWN’S DUGOUT: A dank dump in the soiled San Gabriel Valley. A raunch ranch off Rosemead Boulevard.
I ambled in ambivalent. I was terrorist-torqued and ditzed on Devil Donny DeFreeze. I wanted to clear my multiple murder case. I wanted to rid Donna of Dirty Donny and bop back bold to her bed.
The Dugout defined the word “dive.” Down-and-dirty divas danced disco despair on a wraparound runway. Horndogs huddled at ringside tables. Said tables tilted and tipped. The horndogs pounded their puds under tabletop cover. Their hamsters hopped in their hands.
I badged a big bouncer. He bid me back to the dressing room. Danielle lounged on a lavender loveseat. She wore a white bikini. She skimmed skank in the National Tattler. She was all augmentation and titillating tattoos.
I said, “LAPD.” She said, “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
The bouncer bopped off. I straddled a stray chair and eyeballed Danielle. She was hickey-hived and herpes-sored and rug-burned from ruts on shag carpet. She was twenty-two going on dead.
She popped a pimple on one patella. Pus puffed putrescent. I noted her needle-notched arms.
“I said, ‘Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.’ I tested clean my last three times. You can ask my PO.”
I shook my head. “It’s not about you.”
“So. So, like, who is it about?”
I pulled my pix. “A barman here said you had some recent dealings with Arabs.”
Danielle tossed her Tattler. Danielle rolled her eyes righteous. Danielle rubbed her rug burns rough.
“These two guys kept coming in and throwing money around. They, like, kept spending these fortunes. I lap-danced them, like, maybe fifteen times, but I wouldn’t do them, ’cause I didn’t like their vibe.”
I flashed Fire Face. Danielle nodded no. I showed the Identikits. Danielle yipped and said, “Yes.”
“Those are the guys?”
Danielle flipped them the finger. “Like I’d do two A-rabs, after 9/11 and all.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“Yeah, about these ‘adult movies’ they were making. I said I don’t do fuck flicks, ’cause, like, my dad might see them. He rents all this, like, sex shit on the Internet. He’s sort of a perv, but he’s my dad, and I love him.”
I said, “What else did you talk to them about?”
“Nothing. They wanted me to do them, I said no. They wanted me to act in these fuck flicks, I vibed bad shit and said no. I can read vibes and auras, and, like, these guys were no good. All this was like last week, and they haven’t been back.”
An intercom popped. “Danielle, you’re on in two minutes.”
I stood up. Danielle stood up. She slithered and slipped off her bikini. She silicone-sizzled and bounced in the buff.
We floated back floorside. More horndogs hand-humped, more tables tipped. The door dipped. A man walked in. He was sweaty and swarthy and beaky Bedouinesque. Danielle said, “Fuck, that’s—”
HIM. This mosque monster, this camelhead killer, Mr. Identikit—
He saw me. His hands hopped and held heat. Ten feet between us. These two Glocks gleamed.
He fired. Muzzle smoke smacked me. Powder particles parsed out, pfffft. The shots shattered chandelier glass. Danielle ducked. The horndogs horror-howled.
I pulled my piece. I fired fast. My shots whipped wide. They striated off a straight line and struck a stereo rig. A sound system exploded. A disco dirge dimmed and died.
I fired. He fired. Muzzle light blazed and blinded us. Shots shivved and ripped runway wood and dinged off course in the dark.
Ricochets rang wrong, banged the bar and broke bottles. Lap dancers lurched off laps and laid on the floor. Nude dancers dove off the runway.
I fired. He fired. Blinding blasts, nuke noise, chandelier shrapnel. Hammer clicks, empty clip, his hammer clicks.
I ran to him. I rubbed my eyes. I tipped tables and nailed nude women in the dark.
I GOT MYsight back. The A-rab got away. A shooting team showed.
They yelled. They yodeled this “you again” numb
er. It was Sheriff’s jurisdiction. Twelve deputies dipped by—puerile patrol pups all.
They horned out and hit on the dancers. They stood around and strung together statements. A Sheriff’s crime-lab crew crawled the floor and spun up spent shells.
I ducked out. I dunked down to Darktown. Dusk dimmed East 49th Street. The porch-monkey parade was indoors.
I slid up to Sufi Sufeer’s safe house. I picked the lock and slipped in. I re-tossed the rooms rapidamente.
I tore though the first toss and rang up no new results. I walked the walls and worked the wood for fake panels. I tapped. I honed my ears for hollowness. I roamed room to room. I hit solid wood, warped wood—whoa, what’s this?
The living room. Thorough thumps/hollow hits/one panel pulsates.
I probed and pried up a loose piece of wood. The edge caught and cut my fingers. I yanked, I pulled, the panel popped free.
Inside: a hollowed-out hidey hole. One shelf of hidden booty.
More rope. Blood-blistered again. More scorched skin that tore off at a touch.
Polaroid pix. Fucked-up fetishistic. Bound-and-gagged women. Naked and nervous-eyed. Scared and skin-scorched in rough wraps of rope.
Stringy stretch marks. Awful augmentations. Hickey hives, needle notches, rude rug burns—lap-dance-Lola types.
I POUNCED on a pay phone. I dialed Dave at home. He knew about Dawn’s Dugout. I shared Danielle’s fuck-film revelations. He said the shooting board scheduled a second session with me.
You shoot too much. You got shrink-wrapped by Doc Kurland. Your latest shootout sure says shrinkage to me.
Dave digressed. The Feds kicked back on Hassan Sufeer: no wants, no warrants, no known terrorist ties. A Fed forensic team was set to surf the safe house tomorrow. I said I re-tossed it. I found more bloody rope. I found fetish fotos. It vibed tie-ins to gentlemen’s clubs.
Dave said he’d call the clubs and try to clear clues. He’d stress fuck flicks, fetish fotos, and misogynistic mayhem. Put the pix on my desk—we’ll canvass clubs with them.
I hung up and headed to Parker Center. I felt Donna-deprived, Donna-depressed, Donna-driven. I ran the radio. I stuck to all-news stuff. Some Sheriff’s shit shouted per the “Dawn’s Dugout Disaster.”
