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.
Bob agreed. He added, And we’ll double-cross Rock on his wedding nite and expose his boy bent. We yukked the irksome irony. I dumped the dirt on the Steve Cochran gig. Bob pooh-poohed the Nazi-Jap fetish trove and called Steve a history buff and no more. He himself paid five thou for a swastika-print bikini once worn by Leni Riefenstahl. His girlfriend turned heads at that big Polio Fund pool party.
“And, Freddy — I heard Cochran leans left, if anything.”
I closed with the cloying clue of “Celebrity Smut.” Bob told me to work the listening post my own self. “And — if it pans out, we’ll send in a female ringer to entrap Steve — Claire Klein might be good.”
Bob signed off with “Sayonara.” I offered “auf Wiedersehen,” boss. I shit, showered, shaved, and made myself march to the mirror. I saw myself and saw where all this was going. Freddy, what thou hath wrought. I called Harry Fremont and made a lunch date.
I drove home. A basketball hoop was nailed beside my front door. Stretch sank long hook shots. She wore her USC silks. Neighbor kids watched. Lance the Leopard lounged in my doorway. Kids patted him and fed him potato chips.
I snuck up behind Stretch. I said, “If you convince me you’re really nineteen, I’ll toss your hair and kiss your neck.”
Stretch laughed. She dropped the ball and pulled her hair to one side. The kids scoped the exchange. What’s this repob? She’s bigger than him.
“I was born January 18, 1935, at Good Samaritan. That means you can go ahead.”
I caressed her bare shoulders and kissed her neck. I stood tiptoed to do it. The kids clapped. Lance the Leopard looked over and growled.
Stretch sank three long ones and swiveled. She grabbed my belt and pulled me inside my own pad. Lance followed us in. He detoured to the front bathroom and guzzled toilet water. Stretch waved to the kids and kicked the door shut.
I crapped out on the couch. Stretch stretched out and laid her head on my lap.
“My mom showed me the Mirror. Did you have fun at Ciro’s last night?”
“Do you live with your mom and dad?”
“I live with my mom. My dad was killed on Saipan, when I was eight. What did you do in the war?”
“I was a drill instructor at Parris Island. I trained Marines who got killed at Saipan, but I never went overseas myself.”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew I’d get killed, and I didn’t have the stones to take the risk.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m fearful and selfish, and I have to get whatever it is that I want, and that’s as far as I’m going with this line of questioning.”
Stretch balled my hands into fists and kissed the knuckles. She kicked off her sneakers and dangled her feet off the couch. Lance hopped on my favorite chair and licked his balls.
“You’re watchful, too. You forgot to mention that. And you’re diffident and circumspect around me. And none of the girls at Linda’s hates you, even though you broke half the liquor bottles during that Beverage Control raid in ’48. And you’re chagrined for digging on me, even though you spy on people and expose them in print, and beat the crap out of people who threaten to sue your low-life magazine.”
I smiled. “I stole the bottles I didn’t break, and Billy Eckstine bought them off me at half price.”
“Billy likes you. I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.”
“Billy’s Billy, and he’s not all moonlight and roses. He tried to promote you to me and my recently ex girlfriend.”
Stretch pried my fists loose and placed my hands on her breasts. Hey there, you with the stars—
“Billy overrates me, in lots of different ways.”
“You’re nineteen, and you’re looking around. I get that you’re bold — and you think the rules don’t apply to you. That’s as far as I’ll take that line of chat, until I see you start making mistakes.”
“You’re saying the only thing that you can teach me right now is efficacy?”
“I’m saying that for some people, opportunity is love, and you might be one of them.”
The dizzy duo at the listening post. Leashed Leopard and Large Lady. Race Rockwell and Ward Wardell swooooooned.
Stretch wore a tweed skirt, saddle shoes, and a pink oxford shirt. Lance wore a spiked collar that Bondage Bob bought him for Christmas. I brought three pizza pies and a cold case of Brew 102.
Stretch loomed and she-lorded it over three big men. Lance roamed the rooms and let people pat him. Race fed him anchovy pizza. Ward showed off our new corkboard. There’s Operation Rock Wife bold-bannered — with nude pix and dippy dossiers tacked below.
We snarfed pizza pie and went to work. Race worked the Hunan Hut tap, I worked the Cochran line. Ward worked Call-Girl Line #1. Stretch got Call-Girl Line #2. Cool kicks motivated me. It was the lez line. Bernie Spindel and I hot-wired the crib — Flores south of Sunset. The sinsational sapphic scene sang dusk to dawn and entrapped occasional big-name babes and butches. Let’s see how Stretch registers and reacts.
We pulled chairs up to the consoles. We plugged in. We donned headphones. Lance noshed pizza crusts and crapped out on the floor.
I sat close to Stretch. We played kneesies and lazy-linked hands. I got two hours of dead air. Some unknown male called Steve the Stud at 8:19 p.m. Steve called him “Cal.” They schmoozed Private Hell 36. Steve dished Howard Duff and wife Ida Lupino. Duff was a souse. La Lupino was a snout trout. She blew him behind the food truck. Dorothy Malone sizzled. “I’ve got this celebrity smut angle I’m working on. She’d be a prime candidate.”
Bingo!!! — Celeb Smut Lead #1/8:27 p.m.
The call capped at 8:33. Dead air dinged in its weary wake. I watched Stretch work the lez line. Her headset was clamped tight. She notched notes in her fone log. She evinced deep delight and entrenched ennui.
Boredom banged me. I snagged Claire Klein’s buff shot and dossier off the corkboard and sat back down. Stretch snatched the buff shot and studied it. She winked and went Oooh-la-la. She said, “Rock should marry her.”
I winked back. Claire was boss-built and credibly credentialed. Born: New York City, 8/11/21. World War II Wave lieutenant. Court-martialed and DD’d on a pandering beef. Emigrated to Palestine, ’47. Seduced and tortured Arab spies for the Irgun and the Stern Gang. Shit — the A-rabs are my put-upon people!!!!!
Claire hits America. She moves to L.A. and gets a California teaching credential. She teaches algebra at Le Conte Junior High. She gets part-time studio work. Claire’s a climber. She takes scalps and moves on. Bob Aldrich, Otto Preminger, Henry Hathaway, Willy Wyler. She visits Burt Lancaster’s torture den. Burt wants to spin her on his wall-mounted dartboard and toss darts at her legs. Claire won’t play. Burt comes on coercive. Claire shows him the shiv strapped to her left leg. Burt amps up the ante. Claire drops names.
Mickey Cohen, Lou Rothkopf, Sammy Dorfman, Baldy Stein. The kosher kowboys in the L.A. rackets. All zany Zionists. All demented and dyspeptic. Burt backs off — Claire’s bad to the bone and calamitously connected.
Steve the Stud’s phone rang. Log it — 10:21 p.m.