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.
Wooooooooo!!!! Bravura breath control and artful articulation!!!! Bondage Bob’s flabbergasted and flushed.
He fidgeted. He licked his lips. He crossed his legs and went submissive sissy. I saw restraint-rope scars on his wrists.
“Nuisance suits are costing us twenty-five thou a month. Those Commie lawyers are coming out of the sewers like rats.”
I socked him my Second Soliloquy:
“Informants must be both credible and coercible, as well as vulnerable to exposure of their own misdeeds. I served as an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for close to a decade. I have access to every crooked cop in this town, and they will rat out any celebrity, socialite, Communist, miscegenist, or alluring lowlife that they know of for a simple retainer. The scum that they rat out will rat out six others to stay out of your magazine, and the mathematical equation that I am positing will extend indefinitely. I can tell that you’re thinking, Informants alone will not suffice, and that assumption is correct. You may know that we are entering a bold new era of electronic surveillance. I propose that we install standing, full-time bugs in every high-class hotel in Los Angeles. I will bribe the managers and desk clerks of said hotels to steer celebrity adulterers and queers to specific rooms, where their sexual activities and conversation will be captured on tape. The best bug man on earth is a hebe named Bernie Spindel. I will meet with him soon. Mr. Spindel would love to enter your employ, and has a gift for you. He bugged a bungalow at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica last week. The manager of the hotel is a masochistic child molester with a quite understandable urge to be punished for his aberrant behavior. I will physically chastise him on a monthly basis, which will deter him from hurting children, as well as keep him under my thumb. He will have strict orders to place all celebs in bungalow number nine. Bernie’s gift is a tape of Senator John F. Kennedy fucking Ingrid Bergman, and detailing his preposterous plans to run for president of the United States to her, while she yawns and prattles on about her kids. Be forewarned: the fucking is short-lived. I’ll be frank: Senator Kennedy is a two-minute man.”
Bondage Bob. He’s gaga, goo-goo-eyed, gone.
“So, we—”
I cut him off. “So, we also bug all the gay bathhouses. So, I have extortion wedges on the informants who supply the dirt for our most explosive pieces. So, I polygraph-test them to assure their veracity. So, I create a climate of fear in Hollywood, which is the most gorgeously perverted and cosmetically moralistic place on God’s green fucking Earth. Because, I have an unerring nose for human weakness and have sensed for some time that we have entered an era where the gilded and famous all secretly harbor a desire to be exposed. Because, I am willing to burglarize any psychiatrist’s office in order to get the dirt on their celebrity patients. Because, I am willing to quash lawsuits through the threat and application of physical force.”
Bondage Bob guuuuuuuulped. “What won’t you do?”
I saw Ralph Mitchell Horvath. I said, “Commit murder or work for the Reds.”
A pin-drop silence sizzled. I let it linger loooooong.
“Would you consent to an audition? To test your inside knowledge?”
I nodded. Harrison hit me. I bopped to his beat, beatific.
“Senator Estes Kefauver?”
“Whorehound. Shacks with Filipina prosties at the downtown Statler.”
“Sinatra. Give me the latest.”
“Caught his new girlfriend muff-diving Lana Turner, went on a six-day bender with Jackie Gleason, and wound up with the DT’s at Queen of Angels.”
“Otto Preminger?”
“Mud shark. Currently enthralled with a sepia seductress named Dorothy Dandridge.”
“Lawrence Tierney?”
“Brawling, psychopathic brother of noted grasshopper Scott Brady. Digs the boys at the Cockpit Lounge, and the occasional girl who looks like a boy.”
“John Wayne?”
“Quasi — drag queen. Fucks women and looks stunning in a size fifty-two-long muumuu.”
“Johnny Weissmuller?”
“King Schlong. Well known to have fathered nine kids out of wedlock, with nine different women. Current holder of the White Man’s World Record.”
“Duke Ellington?”
“Current holder of the Black World Record.”
“Van Johnson?”
“The Semen Demon. Sucks dick at the glory hole at the Wilshire May Company men’s room.”
“Burt Lancaster?”
“Sadist. Has a well-appointed torture den in West Hollywood. Pays call girls top dollar to inflict pain on them.”
“Fritz Lang?”
“Known to film Burt’s torture sessions, and screen them for a select clientele.”
“The Misty June Christy?”
“Nympho size queen. My shakedown bait Donkey Don Eversall gives her the big one on a regular basis. Donkey Don’s got a wall peek at his crib. My pal Jimmy Dean made an avant-garde film of their last assignation. It’s called The Stacked and the Hung. The premiere is Friday night, in my living room. You’re cordially invited.”
“Alfred Hitchcock?”
“Peeper.”
“Natalie Wood?”
“Child actress in transition. Rumored to be ensconced at a dyke slave den near Hollywood High.”
“Alan Ladd?”
“Dramatically underhung snatch hound. A man on the horns of a brutal existential dilemma.”
Bondage Bob. The big magazine mogul. He’s gaga, goo-goo, pulled into putty. He’s martini-mangled and mine.
“Mr. Otash, the job is yours.”
I said, “The bite is fifty grand a year, and expenses. My operating costs will go at least double that.”
Now, he’s green at the gills. Now, he knows there’s No Exit. It’s a fabulous fait accompli.
“Yes, Mr. Otash. We have a deal.”
We shook hands. We jacked gin and vermouth. Bondage Bob said, “Jean-Paul Sartre’s a pal of mine. He’ll love The Stacked and the Hung.”
That talking bug rocked across the rug and waved at me. I swear this is true.
Jimmy timed the fuck. It ran 1:46. Jack Kennedy and Ingrid Bergman banged the beast with two backs.
Pillow patter tapped the tape. Jack said, “Aaaaah, that was good.” Ingrid said, “Vell, for vun of us, perhaps.”
I roared. Jimmy howled. The market was 3:00 a.m. dead. We gargled Old Crow.
Jimmy said, “We wrapped GE Theater. I invited Ronnie Reagan to the premiere.”
I said, “He hates the Reds. I’ll hit him up for some snitch-outs.”
The tape groaned and ground down to squelch. Jimmy turned it off. I looked down at the floor. A dippy denizen bought this month’s Confidential.
Jimmy said, “When I’m famous, keep me out of the magazine.”
I said, “When you’re in it, you’ll know you’ve arrived.”
My first ops check arrived. I retained Bernie “the Bug King” Spindel. We spent a week whipping wires to wainscoting and laying mike mounts into mattresses. I bribed hotel honchos up the yammering ying-yang. We drilled, bored, spackled, threaded, planted, and wired all the high-end hotels. Regular retainers would result in records of sicko celebs sacking up in those rooms. Bondage Bob had bountiful bucks. We wire-whipped full-time listening posts at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Hotel Bel-Air, the Beverly Wilshire, the Miramar, the Biltmore, the downtown Statler. A Biltmore bellboy tipped us, right off. Gary Cooper and a jailbait jill jumped into that bugged bedroom. BAM!!! — our system socks in sync. Bedsprings bounce, voices vibrate, mikes pick up tattle text and lay it to the listening post. BAM!!! — my Marine Corps mastiff retrieves the tape. BAM!!! — the babe is sixteen and a Belmont High coed. Coop says, “You’re built, honey. Tell me your name again.” The girl gasps, “I’ve always loved your pictures, Mr. Cooper. And, wow, you’re really big.”