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.
He dumped his dish debris and went all punk passive. He shuddered and moved meek and mild. We tossed him in our K-car and drove him straight downtown.
Max and Eddie sat up front. Robbie and I hogged the backseat.
Robbie said, “It’s about Janey, right?”
Max said, “Robbie’s wising up.”
Robbie said, “I’m just letting you know in advance that I plan to cooperate. I’m looking to avoid a thumping like the one you put on me last time.”
Eddie said, “Tell him, Freddy.”
I said, “You’ve got two choices here, junior. You give up your dad’s girl biz, or I put the hurt on you myself.”
Robbie’s dentures dipped out. I dipped them back in. Max said, “He gets the picture. His family life as he knows it has just gone pffft.”
We drove downtown. We hauled him up to the DB and sweatbox row. Red radioed in. He said he and Harry just nabbed Nick Adams. Nick got bad-boy belligerent. They kicked his ass and sapped some sense into him.
We ensconced Robbie in Sweatbox #2. Max bought him a candy bar and a Coke. Box 3 was reserved for Nick Adams.
Eddie said, “I turned the hall speakers on. The Chief wants to observe.”
Robbie noshed his Nougat Deelite and chugged his Coke. Max, Eddie, and I straddled chairs. Robbie sat sidesaddle. He’s a passive putz. He’s here to help. He’s a fellow rat. Who do I have to betray to leave here unthumped?
Max said, “You’ve got your girl biz and your dope biz. Your dad runs the girl biz. He recruits, and you peddle the tail, exclusively at the hotel. You run the dope biz on your own, and you sell maryjane and pills to dickheads on film shoots. You suck up to film-biz guests at the hotel, and develop leads on the shoots in that manner.”
Robbie said, “Right with Eversharp.”
Eddie said, “For the record, did you kill Janey Blaine, or know who did?”
Robbie said, “No.”
I said, “What’s your best guess?”
Robbie glugged Coca-Cola. “I read the Herald. They said Janey left the restaurant alone. That means she’s on the hoof, alone, in deserted Beverly Hills at midnight. She left her car at home. Maybe she was meeting someone, maybe she got picked up. Here’s an insight. Janey was avaricious. Maybe a guy picked her up, and she sensed his interest. She offered him some snout for fifty clams, and it got all tangled up, and poor Janey got 86’d.”
Eddie said, “Give up your dad. For the record. Let’s get it out of the way.”
Robbie scratched his balls. “For the record, my dad has been exploiting his job as a grip at Metro for the purpose of recruiting wholesome, Ivy League — looking ingénue snatch, for the purpose of turning them as call girls, for a fifty-fifty split. He’s been pulling this shit since ’49. Before you ask, I’ll tell you he doesn’t keep a trick book or a girl book. He keeps it all in his head.”
Eddie said, “Describe his relationship with Janey Blaine.”
Robbie picked his nose. “He recruited her. That means he made her strip, and he poked her, one time only. He didn’t kill her. That’s ridiculous. He never leaves the house at night. He’s got home cooking, anytime he wants it — and he always wants it. My mom and my sister keep him well supplied.”
Max said, “Tricks harassing Janey. What have you heard about that?”
Robbie said, “Zilch. And that goes for all my girls. They work a high-class clientele, strictly at the hotel.”
I said, “Your dad doesn’t keep a trick book or a girl book. But you keep a picture book — because I’ve seen it. Here’s the question. Did Janey keep a trick book?”
Robbie licked his fingers. Yum, yum — Nougat Deelite.
“I don’t know, but here’s something you should know. I keep a trick list in my room at the house. Specifically, all the big-name guys who put the boots to my girls, and here’s the rub. My room got burgled a few days ago. Shit was subtly out of place when I got home, and the trick list was gone. Lucky for you, I had the list memorized.”
Max yukked. Robbie Molette. Accept no substitutes.
“Give us a preview. You can reconstruct the list on paper, later on.”
Robbie rescratched his balls. “Besides our pal Senator Kennedy, we’ve got Senators Johnson, Knowland, Smathers, Humphrey, and Governor Stevenson, who likes boys, but my biz don’t fly that route. We’ve also got Ike’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, DA Ernie Roll, Louis B. Mayer, Lew Wasserman, Jack L. Warner, and Darryl F. Zanuck. Not to mention Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Van Heflin, and that froggy guy, Yves Montand.”
Eddie went Oooh-la-la. Max whistled. My first thought: BLACKMAIL. Big-name men/call girls/some clumsy first approach. A list on paper? Prememorized names? It read AMATEUR NITE.
I tossed a tight changeup. “The Rebel shoot. Has anyone on it expressed interest in Janey or your other girls? The cast and crew are nothing but pervs and shitbirds. It’s a suspect pool we should explore.”
Robbie made the jack-off sign. “Nobody on the shoot knows about Janey or my other girls. I keep my two business worlds separate and compartmentalized. And, as far as Rebel Without a Cause goes, the shoot’s wrapping on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth. I’ll keep my ear down for you, but I’ve got to make one final haul off those weirdos, because once they go into postproduction, I’ll never see any of them again.”
Max said, “The Democratic fund-raiser. You were bussing tables there, so you saw your ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ scene play out. Here’s what interests me. Were there any unusual occurrences outside of that that you can think of?”
Robbie dry-drained his Coke. “Not really. Some stray paparazzi guy got loose and started shooting pix through an uncurtained window, and me and Manuel, this other busboy, got tapped to pick up all these used flashbulbs where he was shooting.”
I said, “We know that Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean have been talking up a Caryl Chessman flick. What else have you heard about that? The whole deal sounds unsavory to me.”
Robbie shrugged. “Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean are unsavory. The whole biz is unsavory. Chessman’s headed for the green room. If movie folks are gabbing up Chessman, it’s just that he’s a hot topic these days.”
The wall speaker sparked. Bill Parker said, “Otash, get out here.”
I walked out. Parker passed me his flask. I gargled Old Overholt and lit a cigarette.
Parker said, “The shoot’s closing down. I’m thinking we should recruit Robbie and do a big dope raid. It would do the magazine good in the short term, and we should net a variety of leads on a variety of criminal matters out of it.”
I said, “I agree.”
Parker went scoot. We popped down to Sweatbox #3 and peeped the wall window. There’s Nick Adams. He looks phone-booked and fit to be tied. Note the blossoming bloody nose and torn earlobe.
Parker said, “He confessed to the burglaries, and he gave up your friend Jimmy Dean as his accomplice. Red and Harry are out shagging him now. It may take a while. They’re chasing a hot lead on Fat Boy Mazmanian, too.”
I made the gimme sign. Parker passed his flask. I glug-glugged and got that glow.
“We’ve got the confession on Adams, Chief. That will stand up in court, and who knows what you’ll get from Jimmy. But we need to cut them loose, so they’ll be there if we run that dope raid.”
Parker popped digitalis. Straight, no chaser. Gas on his glow.