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.
Dalton Trumbo. Commie Caporegime. Bugged and tapped at his worker’s wigwam off Whitley Drive. Hollywood Ten hard-on. Gallivanting gadfly. Dig this name on his call-in list:
The Caryl Chessman Defense Committee. Dig Bernie Spindel’s margin notes:
“CP-financed. Popular front-group remnant. Evolved from the Free the Rosenbergs Committee. Frequent celebrity call-ups to target’s home phone. Names noted on specific call sheets.”
I culled the call sheets. They coughed up baaaaaad Burt Lancaster and cheesy Chuck Heston. There’s Calypso King Preston Epps. He’s hard on the heels of his hit “Bongo in the Congo.” There’s Liz Taylor. There’s Hugh Hefner. There’s Mr. Mumbles himself — Marlon Brando.
Marlon mauled my main mujer, Joi Lansing, at a party. It was fall ’53. I’ve ground that grudge for four years now.
I went straight for the call-in tapes. I was hopped up on hate now. I’d rereprised my role of the cornholed cornuto. I got a hot hit off the call-tap list: Marlon Brando at the Caryl Chessman Defense Committee.
I found the tape and wrapped it into a tape rig. Dig the date: 10/9/57. That’s just last week.
I got cozy. I lit a cigarette and sucked my flask. I punched play. Red rake Trumbo schmoozed Mumbles Brando.
Static cut through the call. I amputated the amenities and sundered some chitchat. Voices vibrated two minutes in.
Brando: “...and they’ve got that burglar-killer guy, slated to burn on the eleventh. What’s his name, again?”
Trumbo: “Donald Keith Bashor. The Party was thinking of sending some pickets up, but this guy was just too vicious. He killed two women, and messed around with the good-looking one, postmortem. We want him to burn, because it explicates the callous nature of fascist injustice. In fact, we want everyone to burn, including Caryl. The more the merrier. They’re martyrs to the cause. We can really play that angle up in the press.”
Brando: “You’re right about that. And, you know, there’s these rumors floating around that Caryl will be coming down soon for a hearing. I’m laying some groundwork on that. Can the Party bounce for two hundred protestors, at ten clams a pop? That’s two grand, all in all. I’m leading a protest outside the Hall of Justice, downtown. Me, Preston Epps, maybe Liz Taylor. That’s on the seventeenth, and I’m not floating this gig out of my pocket.”
Trumbo: “I’ll get you the bread, don’t worry. That’s what front groups do — they front their comrades money.”
Brando: “Rumors... yeah, I dig that concept. Hey, have you heard the one about the third victim? That Caryl bit her nipples off, and she’s been in the funny farm ever since? That she couldn’t testify at Caryl’s trial, because she was far-gone catatonic?”
Trumbo: “The fascist lie machine dreamed that one up. Of course, they made her a real baby doll, with tits out to here. Too bad she didn’t really exist.”
The call staticked up and stuttered out. Mumbles mumbled. Dial tones ditzed and dimmed Trumbo out.
I went back to work. Caryl Chessman click-clicked in my head. It felt like a fever. It’s mutating and metastasizing. It’ll maim me unless I do something soon.
I boxed up the Ingrid and Trumbo tapes. I called Confidential’s messenger service and told them to roll up here now. I added notes to Bill Parker:
“The Ellmore woman’s a mother lode for Headquarters Vice. Duplicate and forward the Trumbo tapes to your Intel Division, plus State and Fed HUAC. More to come/F.O.”
That fever. Festering, mutating, metastasizing. I could feel it. I could feel him — this malignant microbe inside me.
I called my answering service. I had one message:
Mr. Nat Denkins called. He said Miss Blind Item called him and will call the show tonight.
Festering. Mutating. Metastasizing. The malignant microbe inside both of us.
I messengered the bug-and-tap boxes to Bill Parker. I blew off my other work gigs. I popped home and perched by the phone. I’m Stage Door Freddy, resurrected.
She didn’t call. The wait wilted, withered, and wiped me out. I boozed, I chain-smoked, I popped pills to push the clock forward. A paradoxical effect popped me. They slowed the clock down.
I made midnight. The clock climbed to 1:00 a.m. I ran my radio. The Synagogue Sid Trio blatted and blasted their intro. They went topical tonite. The microbe moved within them. Dig their composition: “I Got Dem Caryl Chessman Blues Again, Mama.”
Bass sax, flügelhorn, drums. A crash-out crescendo. Then the silken sound of coins slid down a slot. Then her voice: “Hey, Nat — what’s shakin’, baby?”
Nasty Nat said, “Miss Blind Item, her own self. Man, it has been way too long!”
My heart thudded and thumped and threatened to blow on the spot. Lois said, “Over two years, sweetie.”
“Sooooo, are you back to finalize your beef against Confidential? Is that what brings you to town?”
“What’s to finalize, Nat? That trial last summer pretty much emasculated it.”
Nasty Nat said, “Yeah, Confidential’s been declawed and devenomed, that’s for sure. Hhhmmmmm. Let’s see now. Could the purpose of your visit be the fact that Caryl Chessman will be coming here for a court appearance later this month, and because there’s a big protest rally scheduled at the Hall of Justice tomorrow, with Marlon Brando and numerous other celebs slated to appear?”
Lois laffed. “You’ve lost me there, Nat.”
“Hey, baby. You’re an actress, I hear tell, and I know you’ve done some things in New York. You ever cross paths with the Mumble Man?”
Lois said “Weeelll, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say we shared a history.”
My heart shook, sheared, and shuddered — and almost shut down on the spot.
Nasty Nat said, “Here’s a question, Miss Item. Chessman’s court appearance hasn’t been announced in the press, but it certainly has been a persistent rumor. How did you hear about it?”
Lois laffed. I saw her bleached-blue eyes bounce and almost cross craaaazy.
“Well, Nat. I flew out for a fund-raiser for your attorney general, Pat Brown — who’s running for governor next year. Mr. Brown mentioned the appeal, and also the fact that Vice President Nixon will be touring South America next spring, where Communist-backed protests against Chessman’s death sentence and American foreign policy in general have already been announced, which poses the question, ‘How can one evil man command such attention, and what can we do about it?’ ”
Well now, baby. Here’s where it gets really gooooooooood.
Outside the Hall of Justice
Downtown L.A.
10/17/57
Oooga-boooga. There’s the protest. That’s two hundred college kids. Note the Party putzes passing out ten-spots. They’re buying a Commie cacophony. The kids are chugging out chants: “Chess-Man is Inn-O-Cent!!! Stop the Death Machine!!!”
There’s Brando. He’s in with the kids. He’s signing autographs and popping a placard high in the sky. He’s the solo celebrity. He’s top-lining this gig. He’s wrapped in a fulsome phalanx of fans. He’s a hog for their loooooooove.
The Spring Street sidewalk shook with their shouts. I curb-crawled and slid my sled inch-by-inch slow. I looked for Lois. I saw her not. I circled Spring to Temple and drove around the block. I saw counterpickets congregate. Their signs said Burn Chessman Now!!! They were weary working stiffs. The college kids packed more panache.