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.
The Parisian Room. A mock-moderne job with Frenchy accoutrements. The standard counter hut and outside park-and-eat slots.
We pulled in and parked. The girl walked out. She wore a white blouse and pink pedal pushers. She was gawky good-looking, in her own wild way. She wore a black lace hairnet. Her name tag read Babette.
She pointed up to a back-rear apartment. It was second floor/stairway access/ three pads in a row.
She said, “Don’t be too long. He’s on his lunch hour, and he always moves these things along. And he damn sure always jumps on me first thing.”
Robbie winked at her. She rolled her eyes and skipped off. Nat doffed his street duds and slipped on his cook-waiter’s whites. I checked the camera and fitted in a flashbulb strip. Robbie eyeballed the second-floor stairway. He said, “Okay, she’s in.”
A real cook-waiter waltzed up. He handed Nat a big bag of burgers and fries. Nat paid him off.
I watched my watch. I gave the loser lovebirds five full minutes to find that funky fit. The girl screamed, three minutes and eight seconds in.
It rang real. I gunned my sled and peeled through the rear-exit alley. I came up by the stairway and double-parked, snout-out. Robbie moved, Nat moved. I went No and waved them back. I went Sit and This Is Mine.
I got out and ran up the stairs. Scream #2 rang real. The pad was three doors down. I did a spring-and-pivot move and flat-kicked the jamb juncture.
The door caved. I saw them. He had her flat-pinned to the couch. He was naked. She was naked. A foot-long rubber dick extender condom-covered his schlong. He blew on a lit cigarette. He lowered it and burned her back.
She writhed and screamed. He lowered the cigarette and reburned her back. I jumped him and pulled him off. He flailed and sissy-swatted me. His fake dick poked me. I pulled my belt sap and backhanded him in the face. I got his nose and his teeth and broke bridgework. I ripped one nostril loose. His fake dick dipped and wilted. I kneed him in the balls. He puked on my Sy Devore coat.
Somebody Jap-jumped me. A dogpile ensued. It was Robbie and Nat, neighbors and cops. A fat cop applied a headlock. I got loosey-goosey ecstatic. I saw Lois as I went out.
Blackout.
I’ve had them before. I know the messed-up MO. You booze and abuse for weeks running. An altercation ensues. Somebody cuts off your carotid artery. You see shit that is and shit that ain’t there.
Like Lois. Like the backseat of a beat-to-hell prowl car. Like the Wilshire Station drunk tank. Like Jimmy Dean at Ten-Inch Tommy’s — and these bad boys butting Kool Kings on his neck.
Like Max and Red. Holy shit, Freddy — don’t you ever quit?
I came to at Ollie Hammond’s. Max and Red sat facing me. My neck hurt. Somebody snatched my Sy Devore coat. Where’s Robbie and Nat? What’s the dispo on the sicknik sadist and that colored carhop?
Drinks appeared. We imbibed. Max said, “We squared you up. Your boys took your car back to the lot. We got the girl settled in at Queen of Angels, and we booked shithead for Rape 1 and Mayhem. He’ll do a doomsday dime somewhere.”
Curb-to-curb service. Freddy O.’s our boy. Bill Parker wants something. They’re here to ask.
I said, “I appreciate all this. Thanks. Now, let’s go out and kill some 211 guys and blow off some steam. Maybe clear some pending homicides on the books.”
Max said, “Freddy’s miffed.”
Red said, “It’s a delayed reaction to Fat Boy.”
Max said, “We did a favor for Freddy’s pal, Jack. It’s called ‘snipping loose ends while you punch a shithead’s ticket that deserved to be punched in the first place.’ ”
Red said, “Freddy knows the rules. He’s got scalps on his belt. He’s just momentarily aflutter with Senator Jack and his vision of ‘an America that provides for all her people.’ ”
I laffed. I raised my drink. I went Touché.
Max said, “What did Jack pay you, Freddy? Don’t disappoint us and tell us you didn’t shake him down.”
I said, “The bite was fifty g’s. I got the package. Too bad it was all counterfeit.”
Max and Red roared. I re-roared. Montego Bay, Manhattan, the mountains on the moon. O bird thou never—
Red lit a cigarette. “The Chief has a job for you. It pays three grand, cash, no counterfeit. It piggybacks a job you’re embarking on for Bob Harrison.”
I drained my drink. I faked a cough and dipped two dexies.
“He’s got me packing up listening posts, and disarming the bug-and-tap feeds. Let me hazard a guess. The Chief wants me to play the recordings extant and compile intel files.”
Max said, “Freddy was never dumb. He’s always known up from down.”
Red said, “I like Freddy, but I wouldn’t go that far.”
I blew smoke their way. “Sure, I’ll do it. I’m starting the gig for Bob tomorrow.”
Max twirled his glass. “You know what the Chief likes. You can’t go wrong with sex, politics, and California Penal Code violations.”
I noshed a bread stick. It was stagecraft. It covered my mean megrims and trembling tremens.
“I need a favor. I don’t think it’s a big one to ask.”
Max went tsk-tsk. “Snow job alert. I sense one coming.”
Red went tsk-tsk. “The shaky hands are always the tell.”
“I need a look at the Caryl Chessman master file, and the PD file on Janey Blaine.”
Max said, “No. Whatever you’re thinking of, whatever you may be planning, no good can come of it. The Chief looks askance at your fixation with dead and brutalized women.”
Red said, “No more dead-woman crusades, Freddy. That’s over and out. Chessman’s a dead issue, and Janey Blaine’s been avenged. You should know — we killed the man who killed her.”
Listening Post
Argyle North of Franklin
10/16/57
Shitwork. Divestment duty. I’m a wage slave. Lift that barge, tote that bale.
There’s six posts. Pack the furniture/box the bug-and-tap mounts. Take last listens. List damning dish Bill Parker would drool for. Look through bug-and-tap logs. Bootjack hot bug-and-tap tapes for Big Bill.
I started here. The Argyle post ran a loooooong-range transceiver. We bugged and tapped mid-Hollywood and the hip Hollywood Hills. Our bug-and-tap targets totaled twenty-four houses and apartments.
Film folk. Sullen subversives. Furtive fuck pads and nifty nests of stewardess call girls. Fly me — I’m Pam, Lizzie, Sally, Nancy, Kathy et al.
I scanned the logs. The indices listed bug-and-tap targets and their addresses. Tap callers were listed. Their call dates and times were marked. Two names nabbed me, straight off.
Ingrid Ellmore. Pan Am stew and poon panderess supreme. Ingrid invented the all-nite pajama party. She owned a six-bedroom A-frame on Bronson Hill. You got six girls/180-proof absinthe/all the poppable pills in the PDR. Ingrid had a heated pool. Ingrid had sauna and steam rooms. Two yards bought you the Debauch of the Damned. Ingrid rocked round the clock.
Ingrid’s call-in list. Note some names. AG Pat Brown, Mayor Norris Poulson. Baseball boss Leo Durocher. Sheriff Gene Biscailuz. TV titan Sid Caesar. Bumptious Buddy Hackett and lounge lizard Louis Prima.
I boosted three bug-and-tap boxes. I’d listen in and cherry-pick some choice shit for the Chief. This was a listen-at-your-leisure deal. The second name shrieked Listen Now!!!