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 laffed. “Drat?”
“Well, yes.”
“Should I decode that?”
“Well... Jimmy and Rock were pals on Giant. I was hoping that he might provide...”
“A perspective on Rock’s bent, and your conundrum? Maybe buffer you and me getting down to brass tacks?”
The martinis materialized. Phyllis mainlined half of hers. She said, “Drat. What have I gotten myself into?”
I lit a cigarette. “You love him, right?”
“What’s not to love? He’s every Minnesota farm girl’s dream. But this girl has lived in Hollywood for a while, and I’ve heard the rumors, and I know how to read signs.”
“How discouraged are you?”
Phyllis laffed. “Not that much. Part of me knows that it’s more than a little bit of a lark.”
I mainlined my martini. It payload-packed the dexies. I rippled resurgent and revitalized.
“I’m on your side, and Rock’s side. ‘Love conquers all,’ and all that happy horseshit. The magazine’s on your side, and Rock’s side, but the magazine is Confidential, with all the skank that implies. We’ve got to dispel one set of rumors, and create a contradictory, second set to eclipse it. Bob Harrison’s committed to an eternal triangle scenario. That means we need to find a bait girl, and L.A.’s the bait girl capital of the world. And, for what it’s worth, I like your idea of a catfight at the Mocambo.”
Phyllis popped the olive out of her drink and snarfed it. I tossed my olive on her place mat. She snarfed it, quick-quick.
“Rock’s a sweetie pie. Who am I to demand perfection in a man?”
“You’ve got every right to demand more than you damn well might have to settle for.”
Phyllis said, “Ouch.”
I said, “I’m sorry. That was harsh.”
Phyllis went Pshaw. “It’s not like I’m a hundred percent discouraged.”
“Give me the good news, then.”
“Rock took an inkblot test once, in the Navy. He saw butterflies and snakes, which symbolize a feminine nature and the penis. He took a second test, after the war — and this time he scored much more butch.”
I sighed, sad-ass. “Shit, don’t break my heart.”
Phyllis snatched my martini and drained it dry. Her eyeballs boinged. Now, she’s all rectitude — ripped to the gills.
“It’s a lark, right?”
“Right.”
“And there’s no guarantee it’ll remain a lark, right?”
“Right.”
“So I should be prepared for any and all outcomes, right?”
“Right.”
“Didn’t you say something about us getting down to brass tacks?”
I leaned close. Phyllis leaned close. We deep-dialed our eyes and cleaved close. She wore Chanel No. 5. I wore Lucky Tiger. Our separate scents sizzled and merged, molto bene.
“You’ll want out sooner or later. You won’t want him hurt in the press, but you’ll want your fair share of the pie. I’ll handle the entrapment and all the other shitwork for ten percent of the initial property and revenue split, and ten percent of your alimony, in perpetuity.”
Phyllis kissed me. She found the fit and held my head and leg-clamped me under the table. The kiss lingered loooooong. We wrapped ourselves into it. Our scents merged that much more. Some geeks at adjoining tables whistled and clapped.
11:00 p.m. Googie’s is late-nite lulled. The dinner crowd’s thinned threadbare. Phyllis split. I brooded and brain-broiled my Rebel Without a Cause caper.
My dexie decibel helped. Vodka shots sheared the rough edges. I worked the pay phone. I called Harry Fremont and my contact at Sheriff’s R & I. Dig: Get me homo-hive roust sheets on Jimmy Dean, Sal Mineo, Nick Ray. Check for juvie sheets on Natalie Wood. Solicit hometown paper per Nick Adams.
The counter man divvied dish. Nick Ray placed take-out orders nitely. Juan the fry cook schlepped the shit up to Nick’s boss bungalow at the Marmont. The orders came in late. There was bupkes tonite. I told Juan to burn a batch of burgers and send them up now.
The Marmont was four blocks west on Sunset. I shagged my Packard pimpmobile and crawl-cruised on over. I saw three hunky hot rods stashed just off the Strip. Craaaaazy chrome creations. Kool kandy-koat kolors.
One ’40 Ford coupé. One ’46 Merc. One cholo-chopped Chevy van, replete with flame paint job. All three flew flags for the “Nick’s Knights Kar Klub, Limited.”
The flags wiggled on whip antennas and flat-out flew in the wind. I fantasized shivering shit.
Nick Ray in tight toga and a simpering Caesar haircut. He’s holding a movie megaphone and sporting a spiked collar. He’s Mr. Fasco Fantastico at the all-boy bacchanal. As real-life proof — there’s Nick’s Knights, poised and posed by their sleds.
Three hunky monkeys. Ruff trade tricksters and buff B-boys. Black leather jackets, pomade pompadours, and pegged pants. Rodent Robbie ratted these punks. They were Nabob Nick’s crowd-scene extras. They went out on “chickie runs” and “panty raids.” Nudnik Nick held swishy sway over them.
I pulled up and parked on the bungalow access road. Juan the fry cook’s junk jalopy was parked just ahead. I walked up to bungalow row. I peeped whipped-wide windows. I saw sapphic soixante-neuf and Marilyn Monroe blowing Joe DiMaggio. I saw a dusky dominatrix whip producer Sam Spiegel. I saw Funky Führer Nick Ray blaspheme, bloviate, and bluster to his actor acolytes.
He’s the Father Führer, the Daddy Despot, the Doofus Duce who’s exhumed mad Mussolini. He’s brewing up bracing bromides. It’s populist pap across all specious spectra. He’s stamping it Stalinist. He’s looping in Lenin and marginal Marx. It’s the actors’ art to subsume the rule of law and the ordered society. It’s ART to sack sacred synagogues, chain church doors, and retorch Joan of Arc at the stake. It’s sicknik sexual liberation, by way of the maladroit Marquis de Sade. He’s pitching Sex/Sex/Sex/ and Love Me/Love Me/Love Me — and I will beatifically bestow upon you the gilded gift of MOTIVATION — which will unlock all the doors of your life.
His kiddie korps is digging it. They’re bopped back in beanbag chairs. They’re biting the burgers I bought them. They’re big-eyed behind Big Nick’s bullshit. There’s Jimmy Dean and Natalie Wood. There’s sloe-eyed Sal Mineo. That blond cat’s Nick Adams. I’ve seen that Dennis Hopper hump on TV. They’re Nihilist Nick’s hip Hitler Jugend, ten years post — V-E Day.
I unpeeped the window and broomed back down to my sled. Memo to Chief Bill Parker: I got your derogatory profile, hanging a hard fucking yard.
Something was brew-brew-brewing. It had to break up and boil over, soon. I hunched low and peeped the hot rod punks. They popped hoods and adjusted fan belts. They poured quik-start in quad carburetors and goosed the gas loud. They made big noise. They torqued and toxified the air outside the Chateau Marmont. Then the moment of Achtung!!!!! arrived.
The punks froze. Eyes right, all Kameraden. There’s Nick Ray in a cool khaki jumpsuit. He’s Rommel, reborn. He’s got an Iron Cross pinned to one pocket. He’s wearing a Desert Korps hat. He’s got a movie camera strapped to one shoulder. Jimmy Dean and Nick Adams stand behind him. They’re his suck-up subalterns.