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.
I sprawled. She stood. Her bed stood between us. I felt underdressed and outmaneuvered and called out in calm contempt. She’s verging on rude rebuke, and I still want to touch her.
“You’re wearing battle kit. I saw you at Jack Kennedy’s bomb party, and you didn’t evince this sort of flair. I’ve found some things out about you, and you know me by reputation. That stands as the basis of some sort of discussion. I’m a peeper, and you want me to see you. You left your diary and your letters out for me to read. You’re begging a stranger who’s assaulted your home and your person for intimate comprehension, and I want to know why.”
She messed with her Makarov. She had fast hands. She racked out the round in the chamber and popped out the clip. She tossed it on the red leather chair. My piece was stuffed under the cushion.
“ ‘Intimate comprehension.’ It works both ways, you know. Perhaps I should tell you what I know about you, so that we might turn this into an opportunity.”
I said, “Tell me.”
She said, “I was in love with Joan Horvath. You weren’t the only one inclined to park outside her house and moon. I’ve counted the money you left in her mailbox on more than one occasion, and I’m convinced that you intend to kill the person who killed her, since the man that you’ve already killed certainly didn’t do it. You have my consent for this, and my word that I won’t report the act, or any act that might have transpired between us up to this point.”
I said, “I’ve read your diaries. Comrade, your whole life’s a deception. Your word’s about as good as mine is, and that’s hardly an indictment.”
She put one knee on the bed. Tartan battle kit. The pleats/the wool/the scent. One long leg exposed.
“It’s all about Joan, you see. It’s your willingness to act, and my willingness to suborn your intention. I would never betray anyone who possessed the grit to do what you intend to do, despite my shoddy track record with veracity for its own sake.”
I stood up. Connie stood still. I reached under the seat cushion and grabbed my piece. I have fast hands. I racked out the chamber round, popped the clip, and tossed it all on the bed.
Connie said, “Say her name.”
I said, “Joan.”
She said, “Well, then.”
I said, “I intend to see you again.”
She said, “Yes, of course.”
I made for the door and brushed by her. I touched her back and nuzzled her hair. She leaned into me one mad moment.
Infernal Intermezzo:
My Furtively Fucked-up Life
3/23–4/4/54
It started like that. We were joined in Joan and forged in forgiveness. Sex saturated us. I’ve decided to dim the details by dint of decorum. “Freddy & Connie.” Initials cutely carved on a tree. I’m thirty-two, she’s fifty-two. You know what I am. Connie Woodard defies cloying classification. Commie, lezbo, sweltering switch-hitter. Take your punk pick. She’s all of it, some of it, none of it.
I’m being dizzy disingenuous. Connie’s a righteous Red. She’s a treasonous true believer with her hooks hitched into me. I’m foiled and fucked five thousand ways. Perdition, catch my soul. And she won’t let me all-the-way SEE her.
I needed names to know her and to know who killed Joan. Known associates, rancid Reds, fractured front-group front men. Fellow travelers, pusillanimous pinks, lily-livered leftists. Give me names/no, I won’t/Connie takes the farshtinkener Fifth Amendment. Tell me the names of your Commie cell mates. I’ve already memorized their initials. Who’s SA? Who’s RJC? Who’s EPD? I’ve scurvily skimmed your diaries — and I’m tweaked. I told you I killed the Red Devil Bandit in cold blood. You must reciprocate in kind.
No, Freddy. I’m your recidivistic refusenik. Besides, there’s one name that you’ve withheld from me.
Yes, that’s true. I refused to name Claire Klein. I equivocated here. I told Connie that a dangerous woman was orbiting her orbit. She wants to kill a man — but she won’t tell me why. She won’t name the man. She’s my other ripe refusenik. I’m not naming her. She’s one of the other two women that I love.
“Freddy & Claire.” “Freddy & Stretch.” More names cutely carved on a tree. Unconsummated communions. That’s fine for now. I’m beat-to-shit busy. I’ve got to find a man and kill him, myself.
Connie won’t name names. I vow to kill Joan’s killer. Connie won’t name names. I vow to jerk Joe McCarthy’s chain so that he won’t expose her. Connie still won’t name names. Why’s Jack Kennedy’s name in your address book? Oh, pshaw — Jack’s just an old pal. Why’s Steve Cochran’s name in your address book? Here, Connie withers and wilts me: he was my last tortured and torturing male lover — before you.
I’m thirteen days in with Constance Linscott Woodard. It’s tender and tortured. I’m beat-to-shit busy. I’m rolling lucky and unlucky thirteens.
Lucky 13: Harry Fremont frosted out my assault on Big Steve. He greased the Sheriff’s bulls investigating the caper. They put it off to a B and E man out to clout Big Steve’s Nazi gear. Unlucky 13: Thirteen Women and Only One Man in Town debuted a week later.
In Harry Cohn’s rec room. Popcorn and cut-rate booze. I’m there. Big Steve’s there. He’s beat-to-shit bandaged and mummified like Pharaoh’s granddaddy. Jack the K.’s there. Bill Knowland’s there. They yuk-yuk and wolf-whistle. Joe McCarthy’s there, his own self.
The flick made me squirrelshit squeamish. I’ve got no beef with the A-bomb. We should have mushroomed Moscow after we juked the Japs. Joi Lansing was my ex, and I had a wolfish wingding with Babs Payton. It was the sexploitation aspect. That’s what gored my goat.
Bondage Bob bagged me outside the rec room. He said he was killing the Cochran exposé. Big Steve was tight with some powerful pols. He pimped for Jack K. He juiced Jack’s pill habit. Freddy, let this one go.
I did. It rudely rankled me. I compensated, commensurate. I bore down big on the who-killed-Joan and the spare-Connie-from-Joe McCarthy fronts.
I gave Harry Fremont a gooooood gig. The rogue Feds had to have a long-range listening post. Find it for me, Dads. Lucky 13: Harry hit it, hard. Unlucky 13: I found bugs and taps in Connie’s living room and bedroom. Lucky 13: they were mismounted and mismatched and malfunctioned. The broadcast beams barely made it next door.
Lucky 13: Stretch worked my Sweetzer listening post. Unlucky 13: she picked up Lez Line #2 chat. Claire Klein tricked with V. J. Jerome. She pressed him on “Robin Redbreast” — but venal V.J. purported to know zilch. Claire pressured him on Connie Woodard. V.J. said, “Don’t sound me — she’s just a dilettante.” Stretch told me his tone was deadly demeaning. V.J., you speak with forked tongue.
Thirteen days. I want names. Claire wants names. V.J. won’t name names. Connie won’t name names, most of all.
I vow to find Joan’s killer. Connie won’t name names. I vow to save her from Joe McCarthy. Connie won’t name names. We make love. We pillow-talk around the whirlwind woman who brought us together. Connie won’t name names. She won’t say whether she and Joan did or didn’t do the deed and were or were not rapture-rapt lovers.
I read Connie’s diaries. The sex sent me. It remained kiss and swerve, breath and scent. I read through years of Commie collusion. Delusion deluged me. Pathos pounded me. Connie and her cell siblings suck up Soviet yak-yak and proudly proclaim it as truth. They dialecticize purulent purges, cold conquest, mass murder. Connie says she’s Sovietizing me. I roll my eyes. It makes her laugh. She covers her mouth then. Some Central Committee of Kremlin kreeps might be listening.