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.
Max said, “You’re fucked, Freddy. Metro’s been spot-tailing you since February.”
Red said, “We know everyone that you’ve seen and everything that you’ve done.”
Harry said, “The moment of truth approaches, Freddy.”
Eddie said, “Your camel-fucking ass is grass.”
I said, “Maybe we can pin my grief on some random lowlifes. The Herald’s always willing to go that route for you guys.”
Max phone-booked me. He threw a top-of-the-head/leave-no-marks shot. He cracked my cranium gooood.
“We know every sleazy thing that you and your goons have pulled for Confidential. We saw you and Bernie Spindel hot-wire Steve Cochran’s place, and we saw you pull that red devil stunt with him the night of the film shoot. We know all about your wingding with the den mother, who seems a little long in the tooth for a young stud like you. We tailed you to your interviews with Samuel Ahlendorf, that geek Crawshaw, and Ellie Donnell. We boom-miked your assault on Agent Fullerton, and we saw you blow up the Fed post.”
Red phone-booked me. He threw a cause-great-pain/leave-no-marks shot.
“You’re fucked, Freddy. We know all of your shit, inside out.”
Harry phone-booked me. “You’re not our pal anymore, Freddy. You’re just some jamoke that’s outlived his usefulness.”
Eddie phone-booked me. “We’ve got you for Treason, Sedition, and boocoo Smith Act violations. You’ll burn, just like the Rosenbergs.”
Max phone-booked me. He employed his love-tap/this-ain’t-so-bad swing. “We’d appreciate it if you’d recount your interviews with Ahlendorf, Crawshaw, and Donnell. That would go a long way toward earning our favor.”
Red phone-booked me. He tossed a love-tap uppercut.
“We’ll let you think about it. We’ll put you up in a tidy cell, away from the riffraff. I know the Chief is looking forward to speaking with you.”
Harry phone-booked me. “Freddy O.’s wild ride has just ended.”
Eddie phone-booked me. “R.I.P., Freddy.”
They tossed me in a holding cell. My bunk was bare-bones. My hurt head hit a hard pillow. It caromed me into a coma.
I wasted Ralph Mitchell Horvath. Joi gobbled Steve the Stud’s schvantz. I beat up Johnnie Ray. I peeped ten thousand houses. I popped penance payments in Joanie Horvath’s mailbox.
I must have cried. I soaked my pillow down to the mattress. My head felt homogenized. My cerebellum sang sad songs. My cranium creaked.
William H. Parker racked the door and sat on my bunk. He wore his full four-star blues.
“The Los Angeles Police Department now owns you. As of this moment, Confidential has ceded its claim. We will let you skate for everything that you have done. You will skate for your assault on Agent Fullerton, and for blowing up the listening post. You will skate for your rogue actions on the Joan Horvath snuff. You will skate for any and all of your illegal actions while in the employ of Confidential. We will allow you to avenge Joan Horvath, however you deem fit. In recompense for the above stated mercies, you will enter my direct employ.”
Parker paused. His Bible gaze burned my soul. The Book of Revelation 3:17–18: And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. So, I advise you to buy gold from me — gold that has been purified by fire.
I said, “Yes.”
Parker said, “You will sign a detailed confession regarding your work for Confidential. You will serve as my personal informant and agent provocateur, and assist me in my efforts to destroy the magazine. We are going to bankrupt it, expose the breadth of its evil, and slay it dead in Federal court. As of now, you are my personal snitch, rat, stool pigeon, and squealer. Say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ immediately. Your answer will dictate the course of the rest of your life.”
I said, “Yes.”
Tough tasks. Deep duties. My vows to first fulfill. WOMEN said it all.
Joan, Claire, Connie. Linked in cause and effect. Calamitous causation. Let’s extract the truth thereof.
I bopped to Beverly Hills and beat feet to my bungalow. I stood by my wall graph and linked lines in black ink. I linked Joan to Connie, straight up.
Connie knew every Commie in captivity. Joan’s killer lurked there. The ’30s and ’40s CP in L.A. Comintern cads coursing through. Fractious front groups established and unions usurped. How many dark-haired/heavy-bristled white men lurked and looted within?
On to Claire. Let’s craft a chronology. Let’s link lines. Let’s answer this quivering question: who’s the man that Claire wants to kill?
A nihilist notion nudged me. It was all circumstantial and based on thirdhand dish. Claire’s out to get Sammy Ahlendorf. Here’s my line links:
Lez Line #2. Stretch monitors it. Babs Payton dishes per her three-ways with Claire. Claire tricks with Russian consulate humps. She speaks Russian. Ahlendorf is Russian — but emigrated here in ’36. Claire pumps out the code name “Robin Redbreast.” V. J. Jerome says it’s a former Red named “Sammy.” Samuel Ahlendorf belonged to Connie Woodard’s cell. Claire carries a Makarov pistol. Claire hates Reds and has finked them to HUAC. Babs dishes this: Robin Redbreast was a crazy Commo in the ’30s and ’40s. He’s stale stuff in the ’50s. His expulsion from the Manhattan Project underlines this.
Then, there’s this:
Sammy digs Russian revolutionary art. He rankly revealed it to me. Ellie Donnell told me the tale of Meyerhold’s maiming and murder. Meyerhold was a fitful formalist. He renounced socialist realism and pissed off the punk Politburo. Meyerhold is snuffed, circa ’39–’40. His wife Zinaida Raikh is torture-stabbed and slain. A Wave officer braces Party Girl at an all-Party bash in L.A. It has to be Claire. She presses Party Girl per the whole Meyerhold deal. Claire’s armed with supple suppositions now. She’s got Sammy gun-sighted. That’s a probable certainty.
Harry Fremont was tight with a U.S. Customs cop. I called and asked him to run passport checks on Claire and Sammy A. Check for Russian excursions. Post-’36 for Sammy. He might be using forged Party passports. Look for variants on the Robin Redbreast code name. Do this per Claire: check birth certificates per her surname and DOB. Check her parents’ surnames. Check Claire’s passport traveclass="underline" ’39 and ’40. She was of legal age then. Did she connect to Robin Redbreast in Russia? Meyerhold was a sweltering swordsman. Did he siphon his seed in ’20 and ’21 in New York? Did he somehow spawn spectacular Claire? I pledged Harry a grand and told him to get back to me faaaaast. He told me it was all far-fetched. Yeah, but you never know.
I ink-linked lives. Claire, Joan, Connie — shakedown shills, rabid Reds, knock-kneed succubi. I ran them all through the Book of Revelation and found that they fit right there.
The fone rang. I picked up. Harry said, “I’ll never doubt you again.”
“Tell me why.”
“Claire and Robin Redfield — that’s the name on Ahlendorf’s passport — crossed paths in Moscow in late ’39 and ’40, but they traveled separately.”
I said, “Don’t stop now.”
Harry said, “Who’s stopping? Customs ran the Klein skirt’s DOB in New York. The guy was smart, because he cross-checked ‘Claire Klein’ with birth-parent names, and got Meyerhold and Zinaida Raikh. The Meyerholds granted custody to Mendel Klein and his wife, Clara, who were both big Party and radical-theater people. They gave the baby their name, and it all fits, just like you said it would.”