by James Ellroy
Big Sid slammed me so hard on the back that my head almost hit the linen tablecloth. “Freddy, baby, we killed them! Four hundred and fifty simoleons!” Big Sid leaned over and explained to his daughter: “Freddy’s my new gravy train. And vice versa. What a swing!”
Lorna Weinberg smiled. I smiled back. She patted her father’s hand and looked at him with exasperated fondness. “Dad’s a fanatic, and a hyperbolic personality. He loves to classify people with colloquialisms. You must forgive him.” She said it lovingly, but with the slightest air of condescension to her father—and of challenge to me.
Big Sid laughed, but I took the challenge. “That’s an interesting perception, Miss Weinberg. Are you a psychologist?”
“No, I’m an attorney. And you?”
“I’m a police officer.”
“In L.A.?”
“Yes.”
Lorna smiled guardedly. “Are you as good at police work as you are at golf?”
“I’m better.”
“Then you’re a double threat.”
“That’s a colloquialism you’d better elaborate on.”
“Touché.” Lorna Weinberg’s eyes bored in on me. They were dancing with a bitter mirth. “I’m a deputy district attorney, for the city of Los Angeles. We have the same employer. I would rather be a deputy public defender, but that’s the rub of the green, as Dad would say. I deal with policemen every day—and I don’t like them. They see too little and arrest too often. What they can’t understand or won’t accept, they arrest or beat up. The jails in Los Angeles are full of people who don’t belong there. My job is to prepare cases for the grand jury. I wade through tons of reports from overzealous detectives. Frankly, I see myself as watchdog on arrest-crazy police agencies. This gets me a lot of flak from my colleagues, but they accept me, because I’m damn good at what I do, and because I save them a lot of work.”
I breathed it all in, and gave what I hoped would pass for an ironic grin: “So you don’t like cops,” I said. “Big deal. Most people don’t. Would you rather have anarchy? There’s only one answer, Miss Weinberg. This is not the best of all possible worlds. We have to accept that, and get on with the administration of justice.”
Big Sid noted the fire in his daughter’s eyes, and hurried off in the direction of the bar, embarrassed by the intensity of our conversation.
Lorna did not relent. “I can’t accept that, and I won’t. You can’t change human nature, but you can change the law. And you can weed out some of the sociopaths who carry badges and guns.
“For example, my father told me you were curious about that man who caddied for you today. I know about him. He’s one of your victims. An attorney who’s a member of this club once represented Dirt Road Dave in his suit against the Los Angeles Police Department. During the Depression he had stolen some food from a grocery. Two policemen saw him do it and chased him, and when they finally caught him they were angry. They beat him unconscious with their billy clubs. Dave suffered internal hemorrhaging and almost died. He sustained irreparable brain damage. The A.C.L.U. sued your police department, and lost. Cops are above the law and can do what they please. Abe Dolwitz, the attorney, looks after Dave somewhat, but Dave’s only lucid half the time. I imagine the other half of the time is a nightmare for him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand that you’re moving into areas way beyond your bailiwick, counselor. I understand that your opinion of cops is academic and one-sided and removed from the daily context we work in. I understand your compassion, and I understand that the problems you’ve described are insoluble.”
“How can you be so jaded?”
“I’m not. I’m just realistic. You said that cops see too little and arrest too much. It’s the opposite with me. I’m in the job for what I see, not the crummy salary I make.”
Lorna Weinberg dropped her voice condescendingly: “I find that very hard to believe.”
I dropped mine to match hers. “I don’t really care, counselor. But one question. You called me a ‘double threat.’ What in the world is threatening about golf?”
Lorna sighed. “It keeps people from thinking about the important things in life.”
“It also keeps them from thinking about the unimportant things,” I countered. She shrugged. We were even. I got up to go, chancing a parting shot: “If you hate golf so much, why do you come to this club?”
“Because they have the best food in L.A.”
I laughed, and took Lorna Weinberg’s hand casually. “Good day, Miss Weinberg.”
“Good day, Officer,” Lorna said, her voice now richly ironic.
I found Big Sid, thanked him for the pleasure of his golfing company, and promised to call him soon for another game. Big Sid’s offer of friendship was touching, but my encounter with Lorna Weinberg left me feeling aggressive and enervated.
I picked up my clubs and walked out to the parking lot to look for my car. It wasn’t in the main lot for members, or the one for club employees. I walked out the gate onto Pico. Wacky was getting to be too unreliable to trust.
I crossed the street, deciding to kill time by taking a walk around the outskirts of the 20th Century-Fox studio. I walked north, past a large expanse of vacant lots.
The sky was darkening, black clouds competing for primacy with a brilliant blue sky. I hoped for rain. Rain was a good catalyst. It was good to look for women on rainy nights—they seemed more vulnerable and open when foul weather raged.
I was almost up to Olympic when I spotted my red and white ’47 Buick in an alley behind the studio’s prop department. It was rocking and there were moans coming from inside. I walked up and peered in the driver’s side window. It was fogged from heavy breathing, but I could still plainly see Wacky and Siddell Weinberg writhing in a hot nude embrace.
I felt the perfect calm that settles on me when I get very angry. I took a five-iron out of my bag and opened the door of the car. “Police officer!” I called as Wacky and Siddell started to shriek and attempted to cover themselves. I didn’t let them. I poked my five-iron roughly between them, probing, kneading, and pushing at where they were joined. “Get the fuck out of my car, you stupid shitheads!” I screamed. “Now! Get out! Get the fuck out!”
Somehow they disengaged themselves and tumbled out the door. Siddell was sobbing and trying to cover her breasts with her arms. I threw their clothes out after them, and hurled Wacky’s holstered .38 and handcuffs over the fence into the prop department. As he tried to pull on his pants I kicked him hard in the ass.
“Don’t fuck with me, you asshole! Don’t fuck with my career, you fucking disgrace of a cop! Take your fucking fat pig and get the fuck out of my life!”
They stumbled off down the alley, pulling on clothes as they went. I looked into my car. There was a half-empty fifth of bourbon on the floor. I took a long drink and threw it after them. The dark clouds had almost completely eclipsed the blue sky.
I retrieved the bourbon bottle and drank while awaiting the rain. I thought of Lorna Weinberg. When the first raindrops fell I discarded the bottle and started the car, with no particular destination in mind.
Aimless driving consumed three hours. Lorna Weinberg, Wacky, and Dirt Road Dave consumed most of my thoughts. They were depressing thoughts, and my random driving reinforced my grim state of mind.
The rain was coming down in sheets, driven by a fierce north wind. It turned dark early, and for no logical reason I was drawn to the winding, treacherous Pasadena Freeway. Maneuvering its abrupt turns on rain-slicked pavement at top speed got me feeling better. I started thinking about my opportunities for advancement and the wonder-seeking that working Vice would afford me.
That provided me with a destination. As soon as I hit Pasadena I turned around and drove back to L.A., to Wilshire Division, to some Vice hot spots old-timers had told me about. I drove by the hooker stands on
West Adams where knots of Negro prostitutes, probably hopheads, waited under umbrellas on the off chance that a customer would brave the rain and supply them with money for dope. I cruised by the known bookie joints on Western, then parked and watched bettors come and go. They seemed as desperate as the hopheads.
I got the feeling that Vice wonder would be sad wonder, pathetic and hopeless. The neon signs on the bars and nightclubs I passed looked like cheap advertisements for loneliness eradicator.
It was almost nine o’clock. I stopped at the Original Barbecue on Vermont and took my time with a sparerib dinner, wondering where to go look for women. It was too late and too wet to chance anything but bars, and women who were looking for the same thing I was. That made me sad, but I decided that while I cruised I could peruse the bar scene from the standpoint of a rookie Vice cop and maybe learn a few things.
The joint on Normandie and Melrose was dead. Its main draw was the television above the bar. Slaphappy locals were laughing at the Sid Caesar Show. I left. In the next place, near L.A. City College, there were nothing but animated college kids, all coupled off, most of them shouting about Truman and MacArthur and the war.
I made my way southwest. I found a bar on Western that I had never noticed before—the Silver Star, two blocks north of Beverly. It looked warm and well kept up. It had a tri-colored neon sign: three stars, yellow, blue, and red, arranged around a martini glass. “Silver Star” flashed on and off in bright orange.
I parked across the street at Ralph’s market, then dodged cars as I ran toward the neon haven. The Silver Star was crowded, and as my eyes became accustomed to the indoor fluorescent lighting I could tell that the place served more as a pickup joint than a local watering hole. Men were making advances to women seated beside them. The gestures were awkward, and the women feigned interest in the spirit of booze-induced camaraderie. I ordered a double Scotch and soda and carried it over to a dark row of booths against the back wall, choosing the only empty one. My legs were too long to keep from jamming into the table, so I stretched them out and sipped my drink, trying to look casual while remaining alert, with my eyes on the bar and front door.
After an hour and two more drinks, I noticed a comely woman enter the bar. She was a honey blond in her middle thirties. She walked in hesitantly, as though the place were unfamiliar and potentially hostile.
I watched as she took a seat at the bar. The bartender was busy elsewhere so the woman waited to be served, fiddling with the contents of her purse. There was an empty stool next to her, and I made for it. I sat down and the woman swiveled to face me.
“Hi,” I said, “it’s kind of busy tonight. The barman should be with you by Tuesday afternoon, though.” The woman laughed, her face slightly averted. I could tell why; her teeth were bad, and she wanted to be fetching without exposing them. It was the first endearment in what I hoped would be a long night of them.
“This is kind of a nice place, don’t you think?” she asked. Her voice was nasal and slightly midwestern.
“Yes, I do. Especially on a night like this.”
“Brrr,” the woman said. “I know what you mean. I’ve never been here before, but I was driving by in a cab and it looked so warm and inviting that I just had to stop in. Have you been here before?”
“No, this is my first time, too. But please excuse my bad manners. My name is Bill Thornhill.”
“I’m Maggie. Maggie Cadwallader.”
I laughed. “Oh, God, our names are so solid, like a trip to Great Britain.”
Maggie laughed. “I’m just a Wisconsin farm girl.”
“I’m just a big-city hick.”
We laughed some more. It was good laughter; we were playing our roles with both naturalness and refinement. The bartender came and I ordered a beer for myself and a stinger for Maggie. I paid. “How long have you lived in L.A., Maggie?” I asked.
“Oh, for years. What about you, Bill?” From that added intimacy I knew it was going to be. Relief and ardor flooded through me.
“Too long, I think. Actually, I’m a native.”
“One of the few! Isn’t it some place, though? Sometimes I think I live here because anything can happen, do you know what I mean? You can be walking down the street and something crazy and wonderful might happen, just like that.” The wonder in a nutshell. I started to like her.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said, and meant it. “Sometimes I think that’s what keeps me from moving away. Most people come here for the glamour and the movies. I was born here, so I know that’s a lot of baloney. I stay here for the mystery.”
“You put that so well! Mystery!” Maggie squeezed my hand. “Wait a second,” she said as she finished her drink. “Let me see if l can guess what you do. Are you an athlete? You look like one.”
“No, guess again.”
“Hmmm. You’re so big. Is it an outside job?”
“No hints. Guess again.”
“Are you a writer?”
“No.”
“A businessman?”
“No.”
“A lawyer?”
“No.”
“A movie star!”
“Hah! No.”
“A fireman?”
“No.”
“I give up. Tell me what you do, and I’ll tell you what I do.”
“Okay, but prepare yourself for a letdown. I sell insurance.” I said it with boyish mock humility and resignation. Maggie loved it.
“What’s so bad about that? I’m just a bookkeeper! What we do isn’t what we are, is it?”
“No,” I lied.
“So there!” Maggie squeezed my hand again.
I signaled the bartender, who brought us refills. We raised our glasses in a toast. “To mystery,” I said.
“To mystery,” she repeated.
Maggie finished her drink quickly. I sipped my beer. It felt like time to make a move. “Maggie, if this weather weren’t so damn rotten, we could take a drive. I know L.A. like the back of my hand, and there’s lots of beautiful places we could go.”
Maggie smiled warmly, this time not worrying about showing her teeth. “I feel like getting out of here, too. But you’re right, the weather is rotten. We could go to my apartment for a nightcap.”
“That sounds nice,” I said, my voice tightening.
“Did you drive? I came in a cab.”
“Yeah, I drove. We can take my car. Where do you live?”
“In Hollywood. On Harold Way. That’s a little street off of Sunset. Do you know where it is?”
“Sure.”
“That’s right, you know L.A. like the back of your hand!”
We both laughed as we left the bar and hurried across rainy Western Avenue to my car.
* * *
—
Driving north on Wilton Place, the rain started to abate. Maggie and I avoided flirting, and talked instead about things like the weather and her cat. I didn’t particularly like cats, but faked great interest in meeting hers. I kept wondering about her body. In the bar she had never taken off her coat. Her legs were well formed, but I wanted to know the size of her breasts and breadth of her hips before we were nude together.
Harold Way was a small, dimly lighted side street. Maggie showed me where to park. Her apartment building was postwar ugly with a Hawaiian motif. It was a giant boxlike structure of eight or ten units, stucco, with phony bamboo trim along the doors and windows. The entrances were along the side of the building.
Maggie and I chatted nervously as we walked down the long entranceway to her apartment. When she opened the door and flipped on the lights a fat gray cat jumped out of the darkness to greet us. Maggie put down her umbrella and picked him up. “Mmmm, my baby!” she cooed, hugging the captive feline. “Lion, this is Bill. Bill, this is my protector, Lion.”
I patted th
e cat’s head. “Hello, Lion,” I said naturally, not changing my voice. “How are you this fine winter’s evening? Caught any rodents lately? Are you earning your keep in this wonderful abode your lovely mistress has given you?”
My deadpan expression and voice sent Maggie into gales of laughter. “Oh, Bill, that’s so funny!” she gasped. She was slightly drunk.
I took the cat as Maggie locked the door behind us. Lion was very fat, probably not a ball bearing mouse trap. I looked around the living room. It was tidy, and a virtual ode to faraway places: Greece, Rome, France, and Spain were represented on the four walls, courtesy of Pan American Airways. I dropped the cat to the floor, where he started to sniff my trouser legs.
“It’s a nice apartment, Maggie. You’ve obviously taken a lot of care with it.”
Maggie beamed, then took my hand and led me to a plush overstuffed sofa. “Sit, Bill, and tell me what you’d like to drink.”
“Cognac, neat,” I said.
“One minute.”
While Maggie was in the kitchen I transferred my gun and cuffs from my belt to my coat pocket. She returned a moment later with two snifter glasses each containing a solid three ounces. She sat next to me on the sofa. We toasted silently. As the brandy hit my system I realized that I had little to say. There was nothing I could impart to this woman—who was probably ten years my senior—that she didn’t already know.
Maggie took the matter out of my hands. She finished her brandy and placed her glass on the coffee table. The cat scampered up to us and I playfully lunged at his tail. Maggie reached down to pet him and our shoulders brushed together. We looked at each other for a split second, then I grabbed her and we fell to the floor. She giggled, and I took my cue. I barked like some breed of gentle dog and covered her shoulders with gentle dog bites, barely pinching her skin beneath the fabric.
Maggie laughed and laughed. She tightened her arms around me. “Oh, Bill. Oh, Bill. Oh, Bill,” she squeaked between laughing fits.
