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.
Connie snapped très awake. She blinked, blank-faced. She didn’t recall what she’d said.
“Did you learn anything provocative? I’d hate to think that I let Joan down.”
I said, “You did swell.”
A-Bomb party. The U.S. Army’s set to launch at 9:00 p.m. It’s a tête-à-tête this time. It’s my bungalow roof. Stretch, me, frozen daiquiris and corn chips. My transistor radio for the countdown. Two cozy deck chairs.
We held hands. Stretch lounged low and leveled out our height disparity. The radio murmured musings on mach 10 and beyond. Supersonic rockets are now passé.
I said, “You’re not a Communist or a psycho killer, are you? My friendship’s not sending you over the bend?”
Stretch said, “Uncle Freddy’s having conscience pangs. He’s sleeping with this nutty old lady in Hancock Park, when he could be here with me.”
I laffed and lapped my daiquiri. The nite was cool. Stretch wore her USC letter coat. I wore a Beethoven sweatshirt that Claire left at Googie’s for me.
“She’ll break it off soon. It was a situational sort of deal. You and I are eternal.”
Stretch laffed. “Older man, younger woman. That’s a news flash. It’s on a par with ‘dog bites man.’ ”
I laffed. We swung our hands. The radio reporter cut to a commercial. Bucky Beaver hawked Ipana toothpaste.
“I saw that note you tacked to the board. Really, how blithe. ‘Rain check, okay?’ And don’t tell me C.K. isn’t the dread Claire Klein.”
I said, “She’s ephemeral. Forget all the bad things I told you about her. Don’t listen for her on the tap lines. She got out, right on cue.”
Stretch squeezed my hand. “You’re being disingenuous, but I’ll let it slide, because we’re about to witness history.”
The radioman rang out the countdown. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one — blastoff.”
I missed the mushroom cloud and the mauve-and-pink sky. Stretch strong-armed me into a kiss.
The Malinow-Silverman Cemetery
4/9/54
Ashes to ashes, baby. Ask the rental rabbi. Sammy Ahlendorf eats the dust.
LAPD quick-processed the stiff and released it. The graveside service was bilingo and brief. The rabbi ululated in Hebrew and extolled Sambo in English. He was a bomb builder, a macher, a mensch.
I stood graveside. The den mother stood with me. Grave diggers grappled the casket into the ground. The rabbi lit a cigarette and split the gig. It was a rush job. Who’s this Ahlendorf schmendrick?
Connie and I came in two cars. She insisted on it. We walked toward the street and the Big Splitsville. Connie lifted her veil and dropped my hand.
“You brought a whirlwind into my life. We were united in common cause for a moment — and one that I’ll never forget. But the walls between us stand too high to breach, darling. It’s best that we end this thing now.”
I said, “Stay strong, Red. It was a gas knowing you. You’re History’s child. Someone has to carry the torch, and I’m glad that it’s you.”
Connie touched my cheek. “Oh, Freddy — I knew you’d understand.”
I winked. “Rain check, okay?”
Connie winked back. Her eyelash stuck. She pulled out a hankie and wiped it free.
“Always, love. For you, the world.”
I walked away. She walked away. I felt ghastly and relieved.
The Ranch Market. My eye in the sky. It felt feckless and familiar and gooooood.
It’s where I plot and plan and scrounge and scheme. It’s a shakedown shack. It’s a divorce-work dive. It’s a scandal screen that sifts gold. The hard heart and sick soul of Confidential thrive here. I’m a police informant now. It’s where I’ll plot and plan and scrounge and scheme to take Confidential down.
It’s ghastly. I’m relieved. It’s an opportunity.
I popped three dexies and gargled Old Crow. I put my feet up on my desk and scratched my balls. Bernie Spindel walked in. He carried earmuffs and a tape spool.
I said, “Qué pasa, baby? It’s a good day to be alive, n’est-ce pas?”
Bernie went Oy. He spooled the tape through my desk rig and earmuffed my head. He said, “It’s our standing mount at the Miramar Hotel. I’ll destroy the tape after you hear it.”
I molded the muffs down and got comfy. Bernie flipped switches. I heard mattress moans and fucky-fucky exertions. I matched moans to my megamillions of women. Oh yeah — it’s Joi Lansing in the sack. Oh shit — that’s Steve Cochran with her.
Steve Cochran. Joan Hubbard rats his ass. He’s Commie #114.
Steve and Joi light cigarettes. I hear match flare and exhale. There’s fucky-fucky/goo-goo sounds. Oh shit — there’s two full minutes’ worth.
Joi says, “Your scars are healing, baby. That plastics guy knows his stuff.”
Steve says, “I hate to say it, but so does your ex. I never bought that bill of goods the Sheriff’s fed me. Some World War Two buff in a red devil mask? That dog don’t hunt. It had to be Freddy.”
Joi said, “Let it go, baby. He’s just a stooge and a gofer. What’s that you always call him? The ‘running dog of capitalism.’ ”
Steve dog-bayed. Steve said, “Guys like Freddy are the fuckboys of the American Oligarchy. They’ve spawned this whole atomic nightmare we’re enduring. Freddy’s the ne plus ultra of the fascist gestalt. He’s Camus’ l’étranger. He’s the guy who goes to his death knowing exactly jack shit.”
Joi laffed. Joi giggled. Steve tickled her — I knew those squeals.
Steve said, “Credit where credit is due. It’s Freddy who got me started on this big roll of mine. He blew up Joanie Horvath’s husband, and got me thinking that maybe Joanie herself should go. For one, she was an FBI snitch, which mandates death in my book. That’s why I bugged her pad. Two, she’d snitched me once already, and with Joe McCarthy in town, I figured she’d mount the revival.”
Joi said, “You ‘revivaled’ her, baby.”
Steve said, “You mean I derivaled her.”
They laffed. Steve was swarthy and dark-haired. I recalled that bandage he wore two months back. Joan scratched him. In that exact spot. I read the autopsy protocol.
Joi: “Don’t tell me too much, baby.”
Steve: “You’re right. Mum’s the word.”
Joi: “And you be careful. Freddy’s pussy-whipped, and he’s got this thing for dead chicks. He might come after you.”
Steve hooted. He coursed contempt. He pilloried my pathos. He decreed my damned destiny.
“I’ve got Freddy fail-safed. Charlie Fullerton told me that he torched that Fed post. I lifted some of his prints off his office at the Ranch Market, and placed them on a booze-bottle accelerant at the crime scene. If Freddy acts up, I can hang Treason on him. And that bottle is now in a Fed evidence vault.”
Joi laffed. Steve said, “Ralphie to Joanie to now. The big karmic circle. When the revolution comes, your ex will be the first one to go.”
I hit the off-switch. Bernie went Oy and walked out.
I felt reckless and feckless. I felt striated and stretched bare. Phantasmagoric ’54 had me morally massacred and fearfully fucked-up.
Rain check, okay?
I made the rounds that night. Rock Hudson was having people over. Jimmy and Liz were there. Johnnie Ray saw me — and scrammed out the back door. Claire left some undies behind. Jimmy told me and showed me. I took a few farewell sniffs.