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.
Rock said, “Claire’s got a history.”
I said, “Don’t I know it.”
Autograph hounds hit the table. Rock threw up his hands and winked at Claire. I’m in demand, babe.
Claire winked at me. Rock signed autographs. Claire slipped me a note under the table. I peeped the piece of paper.
Tipster Claire. The insidious insider. She’s got news on the celeb smut film.
The start date had been moved up. They shoot tonight. Here’s the address. It’s an abandoned motel in Cathedral City.
The Jolly Jinx Motel. A desert dump. Off a deep-rut road between Indio and Palm Springs. It’s sandwiched by sand dunes and next door to nowhere. It’s a baleful bank foreclosure, circa ’31.
It’s a film set tonite. Thirteen Women and Only One Man in Town. Steve “L’Auteur” Cochran mans the megaphone. The Jinx is a horseshoe-shaped hellhole. There’s twelve beat-to-shit bungalows, sans doors. Note the parked cars. Note the arc lights outside bungalows 8,9, and 10. Note the camera up on casters and the boom mike. There’s a cameraman and a soundman. I’ve seen them at Googie’s. They’re headed-for-hell hopheads and rancid racetrack touts.
Dig: it’s finito. The A-bomb wipes out the world. It’s Steve the Stud’s delicious duty to repopulate it. He’s got titillating talent to siphon his seed and assist. Joi Lansing, Anita O’Day, and Babs Payton. Plus ten call girls headed for Hollyweird stardom and felony smut raps.
I hid hip-deep in a high sand dune. I brought binoculars and Bernie Spindel’s sound-receiver. It was battery-juiced and sent sound to headphones-cum-earmuffs. The set was forty yards down. I had open-door and smashed-window sight lines. The arc lights and malignant moonglow made me Johnny-on-the-spot.
The courtyard was Cochran’s command post. Steve mingled with the thirteen lucky ladies. They wore crocheted bikinis cut hairpie looooooow. The girls scrolled script copies and learned their lines. They moved their lips and traded quips.
“How can we live with such devastation?” and “I don’t want our kids growing up with Strontium-90 in their bones.” Joi said, “First, we’ve got to have the kids. Do you think Big Steve’s up to the task? The motel is the Garden of Eden. Big Steve is our Adam, and all thirteen of us are his Eves.” Babs said, “I heard he’s hung like a barracuda.” Anita said, “People blame the Communists and the Soviet Union for everything bad in the world. But I say, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ ” And, dig: “It’s the good old USA who A-bombed the Japs.”
Ooohhh — Studly Steve’s script toes the repugnant Red line. Shuddering shades of Red Connie Woodard!!!
Steve walked actress to actress. He pulled down their bikini tops and looooooow-leveled the bottoms. The arc lights lit hairpie glow. Steve lined up the cast. They stood thirteen strong. The nite was cold. Goose bumps popped pandemic. Steve microphone-mauled his talent pool.
“Achtung, meine Kinder. Comrade Steve speaks, and your job as my Fertility Guard is to listen. We’re shooting scene one now. Bungalow nine has been decorated with some Nazi gear I’ve collected. Babs portrays Hilda, She-Wolf of the SS. My job is to impregnate and reindoctrinate her. Chop, chop, comrades. Babs and crew to bungalow nine. The rest of you huddle up in your cars and stay warm.”
Twelve girls beat feet out of the courtyard. Steve and Babs as Hilda hit Bungalow 9. The camera guy and sound guy followed them. The setup took six seconds. I had live sound and a smashed-window view. Roll it, Big Steve.
Lights, camera, action. Big Steve rolls it. The camera caught the swastika wall banners and the rising-sun bedspread. Steve as Adam and Babs as Hilda squared off.
Steve/Adam: “Look, you fascist bitch, you’ve got to atone for your sins and submit to reeducation, like Comrade Stalin did with the Moscow trials in the ’30s.”
Babs/Hilda: “Don’t sound me, muchacho. The Moscow trials were a shuck — and I know it because I subscribe to Klansman magazine. I’m hip to geeks like you. If you think you’re going to repopulate the world with me, you’d better stow the lecture and show me what I’m getting into.”
Steve/Adam whips it out. Man, what a schvantz!!!
Babs/Hilda says, “I’m impressed, but der Führer was bigger. Eva Braun told me he packed a hard yard. But I guess twelve inches is better than nothing, especially if the fate of the world is at stake.”
Steve/Adam says, “I’m radioactive, baby!!! You know what I want!!!”
Babs goes woo-woo and shucks her bikini. Big Steve dumps his duds. They forgo foreplay. They hop on the Jap bedspread and instigate insertion. Steve’s a two-minute man. It’s over that quixotically quick. Steve climbs to a climax and wails in rapturous Russian. Say what? Babs/Hilda chortles and lights a cigarette.
The whole night went listlessly likewise. Up to the pustulating point that it changed.
Babs/Hilda does it with Steve. Ditto Anita as Nuke-Bomb Nellie. Joi plays Evil Eve. She does it with Steve — and fails to jolt me jealous. The collective call girls strip and dog-pile Big Steve. Half the sizzle sex fizzles. Steve can’t get it up. He’s a wilted wonder boy. His beast is bushed. He’s auf Wiedersehen, adios, sadly sayonara. His priapus is proschai.
I watched for hours. My vulturous voyeurism nudged toward its nadir. It bid me to boredom. Man, what a drip-dry drag.
The camera guy and sound guy packed up their shit. Steve moped around the courtyard and mumbled to his muse. I bent my binoculars to Bungalow #7. I saw Anita O’Day and Babs Payton prep jolts of Big “H.”
They cooked it. They fed a spike. They tied off tourniquets. They geezed and went smack-back. They hit Cloud 9 as Steve entered the room.
He backhanded Babs. She hit the floor. Anita backed up to the bed. Steve stood over her. Anita brandished the spike. Steve grabbed it and stabbed her in the leg.
Anita screamed and sobbed. I heard it high up on my dune. Steve stormed out of the bungalow. He glowed radioactive red. The red was Strontium-90. It’s got a half-life of ten thousand years. I glowed rage-red myself.
Stretch was asleep. Lance the Leopard cleaved close to her and snarled at me. They ordered room service. Lance left paw prints on the white tablecloth.
I changed clothes. I put on black gloves, black slacks, and a black turtleneck. I stopped at an all-nite novelty store on my way over. I bought a rubber red devil mask.
I tried it on. I posed in front of the bathroom mirror. I’m George Collier Akin, reborn. I capered and preened.
Havenhurst was a short shot up Sunset. I got my sled and slid there in the slow lane. I cut south and parked. It was 3:00 a.m. His lair lights still glowed.
I put the mask back on. The Red Devil Bandit resurrects. I beelined to his door and rang the bell.
He opened up. He screeched and backed away. Size isn’t everything. I pulled my beavertail sap and bitch-backhanded him.
It tore him a high harelip and took out some teeth. The reverse shot ripped him a new widow’s peak. He hit the floor like Babs Payton did.
I picked up a Russian-helmet ashtray and dumped butts on his head. I hurtled high and drop-kicked him. I heard ribs crack. Rib bones sheared out of his shirt.
He screeched. His eyes rolled back. I forced open the lids and put my red devil face upside his. He sputtered and coughed up Camels and Kool Kings. I wiped ash off my red devil face.