Widespread Panic
- Автор: Эллрой Джеймс
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Alfred A. Knopf
- ISBN: 978-0-593-31934-5
- Жанр: Мистика
Электронная книга - «Widespread Panic». Краткое содержание книги:
Confidential presaged the idiot internet — and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank. It mauled misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Mattress Jack Kennedy, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson — Frantic Freddy outed them all. He was the Tattle Tyrant who held Hollywood hostage, and now he’s here to CONFESS.
“I’m consumed with candor and wracked with recollection. I’m revitalized and resurgent. My meshugenah march down memory lane begins NOW.”
In Freddy’s viciously entertaining voice, Widespread Panic torches 1950s Hollywood to the ground. It’s a blazing revelation of coruscating corruption, pervasive paranoia, and of sin and redemption with nothing in between.
Here is James Ellroy in savage quintessence. Freddy Otash confesses — and you are here to read and succumb.
Billy Eckstine dropped by to schmooze. The mellifluous Mr. B. was mad for miscegenation. He played all the colored clubs on 46th and Central. He loved Confidential and lauded its sheer linguistic flair. He called it the “scatterbrained scat of white men working hard to be hip.” Billy was right. I told him I’d insert the quote in the next issue. Billy went on to coonfide his own recent affairs. And, Freddy, dig — all these bints want to see themselves linked to me in Confidential.
“All these bints.” As in Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, ex — U.S. Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. Lezbo basketball player Joan “Stretch” Perkins — hiding her secret yen for men from her sapphic sisters on the USC team. Plus the Misty June Christie, Anita O’Day, four boss bitches on work furlough from Tehachapi, and smack-back Chet Baker’s willowy white wife.
I laid two yards on Billy. He showed me a pic of Stretch Perkins. She’s sinking a loooooong hook shot against UCLA. I emitted low growls. Stretch ran six-six and 190. Billy grokked my Landing Strip antics. He affirmed that Stretch dug threeskies. He said he’d set Joi and me up with her.
Low growls and bilious boredom. Billy bopped off. Jilted lovers bopped up. They ratted out their cheating wives and hubbies as the Black Dahlia killer. The Dahlia was stale bread. I fobbed them off with a five-spot apiece.
It was 2:00 a.m. My dope cocktail coursed through me. My thoughts tumbled and tossed. That A-bomb blast blazed behind my eyelids. I saw three big squarejohns in gray suits by the bar. They vilely vibed fuzz. I thought of William H. Parker, still running spot tails on me. I blinked, the squarejohns squiggled, they might have been A-bomb/dope fantasia.
I thought about the magazine. Sales were up 16 percent for January ’54. Shame shot through me. I thought about my thump job on Johnnie Ray. Johnnie was tight with Joi. They koffee-klatched and gal-talked. Johnnie threatened to sue Confidential. He refused to desist. I had one rancid recourse. Johnnie gave Joi the blow-by-blow. Joi was righteously repelled. She resisted my rigorous romancing and refuseniked threeskies with Liz Taylor. Maybe Stretch Perkins would loosen her libido and liberate her heart.
Another jacked-up Joan jumped me. Joan Hubbard Horvath. Ralphie’s widow. I had two grand in my pocket and no place to go at 3:00 fucking a.m.
So, I cadged an envelope from my waiter.
So, I went by the penance pad.
Lower Hollyweird. Camerford between Vine and El Centro. A smudgy small wood-frame job, just short of a shack.
I parked across the street and bopped over. I popped the envelope in the mailbox and bopped back to my sled. A light popped on. The Horvath hut glowed internal and infernal.
I’m a devious dipshit. I made too much noise on purpose. Hey, lady — I killed your husband. It’s been five years and eleven days now. I’ve never seen your face.
Just newspaper pix. Pixilated pokes at you in wilted widow’s weeds. The Herald ran headlines. Wounded Cop Survives Shoot-out. Gunman Slain In Escape Attempt.
There’s a biiiiiiiig pic of Fractious Freddy. There’s zero per throwdown guns and Ralphie’s unarmed status.
I lit a cigarette and sat there. I played “Willow Weep for Me” in my head. Time tipped by. Joan Hubbard Horvath walked out on the porch. The front-room lights boffo backlit her.
She wore a dark wool dress and brown loafers. She sported a short shag hairdo and wire-rimmed specs.
She looked toward me. I looked at her. I’m a good whistler. I whistled “Willow Weep for Me” all the way through. I made the crescendo a cri de coeur and a long-suppressed sob.
Joan Horvath looked in her mailbox. The song went soooooooooo soft—
The Security Office at the Sleazoid Hollywood Ranch Market
2/15/54
Jimmy Dean and I lolled by the two-way mirror. We looked down at the dregs and the dreck and the dreamy drag queens dragging themselves through the aisles. Shifty shoplifters shot their gaze to our opaque eye in the sky.
Jimmy said, “Aisle six. That fat guy slid a Swanson’s TV dinner down the back of his pants.”
I lit a cigarette. “The checkstand guy will spot the bulge and nail him.”
“You’re abstracted today, Freddy.”
“I had a late night, and I don’t feel like messing with chumps.”
Jimmy pulled a chair up. I collapsed on my couch. Jimmy tossed a magazine on my lap.
“I talked to Billy Eckstine after you left Googie’s. He told me you’re entranced with a certain lezzie athlete. I heard she frequents Linda’s Little Log Cabin, and I thought you might appreciate page twenty-six.”
The Trojanette Sporting News. Glittery glossy and a boss booster rag. Page twenty-six: a fulsome foldout of Joan “Stretch” Perkins.
Woo-woo!!! She’s a Viking Valkyrie. She’s a blitzkrieg blonde with bleached-blue eyes. She’s bigger than Barb Bonvillain — richly revealed to be a man some quack diced and dehomoized.
There’s Strapping Stretch. She’s Stunning Stretch in USC crimson-and-gold silks. She wears no makeup. She looks heavenly wholesome. She’s smiling because she’s bigger than everyone — men insistently included. And I know and dig that that means ME — you towering temptress.
I tossed the magazine back to Jimmy. He said, “Something’s eating you.”
“Joi moved out last night, while I was at Googie’s. She left me a note: ‘Fuck you and go to hell. You’re a storm trooper, and the world is wise to your shit.’ ”
Jimmy yukked. “Joi’s vivid, but I found you a new roommate — at least for a while.”
“Stretch Perkins?”
“No such luck. Liberace called me. He wants you to look after his leopard while he goes on tour. You’re the only man for the job. The fucking leopard would kill anyone else.”
I yukked. “I’ll consider it. Tell me some other shit I don’t know, and make it entertaining.”
Jimmy lit a cigarette and blew concentric smoke rings. Gadge Kazan told me the trick got him East of Eden.
“I did two days on Ride Clear of Diablo, at Universal. Lew Wasserman knows we’re pals, and he chatted me up on the set. He said Rock Hudson’s going batshit with boys of all races, colors, and creeds, and Morty Bendish at the Mirror’s getting ready to blind-item it, and he’s passing the specific dirt and some motel-room infrareds on to some guys at Transom and Whisper. He wants you to put the squelch on it and find Rock a wife, so maybe the appearance of being married will put the skids to all those persistent and wholly accurate rumors.”
I roared righteous and laffed lewd. I folded my fitful funk and tossed Jilting Joi and Jittery Johnnie Ray aside. I popped two of Jack Kennedy’s Dexedrine and went rippled and revitalized.
“Call Lew, and put him on your side in all matters pertaining to your career. Tell him we’re in. I’ll lean on Bendish and the Transom and Whisper guys. We’ll negotiate the wife search when I glom the infrareds, and we’ll split Lew’s paycheck fifty-fifty. Hit the studio casting pools and hustle up some good-looking skirts who know an opportunity when they see one, and who know how to keep their mouths shut. No semipros, nothing garish. Withhold the ‘He’s a fruit’ punch line until we’ve narrowed down our list of candidates. Call Rock now and tell him to be discreet and order in his woof-woof, for the time being. Tell Lew that he’s the one to break the news to Rock — and to tell him the good news that as far as women are concerned, nothing lasts forever.”