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ABOUT THE AUTHOR<br />
<strong>James</strong> <strong>Ellroy</strong> was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels--The Black Dahlia, The Big<br />
Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz--were international bestsellers. His novel American Tabloid<br />
was Time magazine's Novel of the Year for 1995; his memoir My Dark Places was a Time magazine<br />
Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.<br />
BAD BOYS IN TINSELTOWN<br />
"L.A. Come on vacation; go home on probation."<br />
Somebody dropped that line on me twenty-five years ago. The line dropper was not an academic or a<br />
media pundit. A street freak or a honor-farm bunkmate probably shot me those words. He probably<br />
heard them on an old Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce record and passed them off as original wisdom. It's a<br />
throwaway line with a rich historical subtext and snappy implications. It's a travelogue ad for the hip, the<br />
hung, and the damned.<br />
That line implies that L.A. is a magnetic field and that all L.A. migrations are suspect. That line indicts<br />
your desire to come to L.A. and categorizes you as an opportunist with a hidden sexual agenda. That line<br />
is a cliché and a prophecy. It foretells your brief sensual riches and your grindingly protracted fall and<br />
retreat.<br />
You can reinvent yourself en route. You can assume your desired identity and make attitude count for a<br />
thousand times its hometown value. You can live in a community of people who came to L.A. to be<br />
somebody else and envy the few who make money at it and blow you off as a loser. You can blame your<br />
fall and retreat on the city that magnetized you and duck the issue of your own failure.<br />
People will understand and empathize. They know that L.A. is big, bad, and beautiful and full of the<br />
power to mortify. That power carries a built-in escape clause. L.A. rejects can cite it without the<br />
appearance of unseemly self-pity. The clause grants forgiveness through mitigation and holds L.A. up as a<br />
city beyond any individual's control. There's enough truth in the clause to keep anyone from questioning<br />
his desire to come to L.A. in the first place.<br />
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I'm from L.A. My parents made the migration and spared me the grief of making the jaunt on my own. I<br />
possess certain L.A. migrator tendencies. I migrated east to enact them. I'm sure that my parents would<br />
have understood the move.<br />
My father arrived in the mid-'3os. He was a tall, handsome guy with a gigantic schvantz and an inspired<br />
line of bullshit. He had won a few medals during World War I and hyperbolically embellished his exploits.<br />
He jumped on every woman who'd let him and firmly believed that every woman who didn't let him was<br />
a lesbian. He landed in L.A. with a flash roll and some snazzy threads and gravitated toward the movie<br />
biz. His career as a Hollywood bottom feeder topped out in the late '40s. He got a gig as Rita<br />
Hayworth's business manager and allegedly poured the pork to Rita on many auspicious occasions.<br />
My mother won a beauty contest and flew to L.A. in December of'3 8. She was a 23-year-old<br />
registered nurse from the Wisconsin boonies and the Elmo Beauty Products' newly crowned "America's<br />
Most Charming Redhead." She toured L.A. with the most charming blonde, brunette, and gray-haired<br />
winners, took a screen test, and flew back to her job in Chicago with $i,ooo in prize money. L.A. kicked<br />
around in her head. She learned she was pregnant, aborted herself, and hemorrhaged. A doctor<br />
acquaintance fixed her up. She got the urge to start over in a sexy, new locale. She took a train back to<br />
L.A., found a pad and a job and met a schmuck who may or may not have been an heir to the Spalding<br />
sporting-goods fortune. She married the guy and divorced him within a few months. She met my father in<br />
'40 and fell for his good looks and line of bulishit. My father deserted his wife and shacked up with my<br />
mother. They were married six years into their shack job and seven months before my birth.<br />
They told me stories, took me to movies, and encouraged me to read books. They force-fed me<br />
narrative lines. I grew up in the film noir era in the film noir epicenter. I read Confidential, Whisper, and<br />
Lowdown magazines before I learned to ride a two-wheel bike. My father called Rita Hayworth a<br />
nympho. My mother wetnursed dipsomaniacal film stars. My father pointed out the twoway mirrors at<br />
the Hollywood Ranch Market and told me they were spy holes to entrap shoplifters and disrupt<br />
homosexual assignations. I saw Plunder Road and The Killing and learned that perfectly planned heists<br />
go bad because daring heist men are selfdestructive losers playing out their parts in a preordained<br />
endgame with authority.<br />
Johnnie Ray was a fruit. Lizabeth Scott was a dyke. All jazz musicians here hopheads. Tom Neal beat<br />
Franchot Tone halfdead over a blonde cooze named Barbara Payton. The Algiers Hotel was a glorified<br />
"fuck pad." A pint-size punk named Mickey Cohen ran the L.A. rackets from his cell at McNeil Island.<br />
Rin Tin Tin was really a girl dog. Lassie was really a boy dog. L.A. was a smog-shrouded netherworld<br />
orbiting under a dark star and blinded by the glare of scandal-rag flashbulbs. Every third person was a<br />
peeper, prowler, pederast, poon stalker, panty sniffer, prostitute, pillhead, pothead, or pimp. The other<br />
two-thirds of the population were tight-assed squares resisting the urge to peep, prowl, poon stalk,<br />
pederastically indulge, pop pills, and panty sniff. This mass self-denial created a seismic dislocation that<br />
skewed L.A. about six degrees off the central axis of planet Earth.<br />
I knew an inchoate version of this at age 9. I knew it because I came from L.A. and my parents told me<br />
stories and lies. I knew it because I read books and went to movies and eschewed the gospel of the<br />
Lutheran Church in favor of a scandal-rag concordance. I knew it because my mother was murdered on<br />
June 22, 1958, and they never got the guy who did it.<br />
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My mother's death corrupted my imagination and reinforced my sense that there were really two L.A.'s.<br />
They existed concurrently. I bebopped around in the cosmetically wholesome Outer L.A. I conjured the<br />
Secret L.A. as a hedge against Outer L.A. boredom.<br />
The Secret L.A. was all SEX. It was the shock and titillation of a child slamming up against the fact that<br />
his life began with fucking. It was my father's profane laughter and scandal-sheet deconstructionism. The<br />
sheets rendered beautiful people frail and somehow available. Common lusts shaped and drove them.<br />
Their pizzazz and good looks made them more and less than you. If the wind blew a certain way on a<br />
certain night, you could get lucky and have them.<br />
The Secret L.A. was all CRIME. It was Stephen Nash and the kid he slashed under the Santa Monica<br />
Pier. It was Harvey Glatman and the cheesecake models he strangled. It was Johnny Stompanato<br />
shanked by Lana Turner's daughter two months before my mother's death.<br />
CRIME merged with SEX on 6/2 2/5 8. My Secret L.A. obliterated the Outer L.A.<br />
I've been living in it for thirty-nine years. I've reconstructed L.A. in the '50s in my head and on paper. I<br />
did not come on vacation or go home on probation. I lived in the literal L.A. and dreamed my own<br />
private L.A. I left the literal L.A. sixteen years ago. It was simply too familiar. I left the Secret L.A. one<br />
book and one memoir ago. I made a conscious decision to drop L.A. as a fictional locale. I had taken it<br />
as far as I could.<br />
I've been jerked back to L.A. '53. A man made a movie and reinstated my L.A. life sentence.<br />
Curtis Hanson is serving life himself. His sentence carries binding permanent-residence clause and a<br />
work-furlough waiver. He's got ten five-year hash marks on his jail denims and the beach pad<br />
characteristic of all successful L.A. lifers. He splits town to make films and comes back to L.A.<br />
rejuvenated. He's serving his life sentence voluntarily.<br />
He made Losin' It in Calexico, California, and Mexicali, Mexico. He made The Bedroom Window in<br />
Baltimore and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle in Seattle. He made The River Wild in Montana and<br />
Oregon, and Bad Influence in present-day L.A. It's the Faust tale retold for yuppies and hipsters and a<br />
symphony in bold colors and smog-kissed pastels. It doesn't look like any other L.A. film.<br />
Hanson has provocative L.A. roots. He's second-generation L.A. stock. His birth certificate is stamped<br />
"Reno, Nevada." His father, Wilbur, was working on a government road crew there when Curtis was<br />
born.<br />
Wilbur Hanson was a conscientious objector. He refused to fight in World War II and served out his<br />
draft commitment with a pick and shovel. The Hanson family moved back to L.A. in '46. Curtis and his<br />
older brother banged around a big, run-down house at Fifth and Hobart. His mother rented out their<br />
spare rooms. His father taught at the Harvard Military School and chauffeured rich kids to school for<br />
extra money.<br />
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Wilbur Hanson was a gifted and thoroughly dedicated teacher. He took his students on field trips and<br />
gave them more time than he gave his own sons. The Harvard School was an upscale dump site for the<br />
sons of the Hollywood elite. Darryl E Zanuck's son matriculated there. Old Man Zanuck got a hard-on<br />
for Wilbur Hanson. He didn't want no fucking CO teaching at his kid's school. He applied the big<br />
squeeze and had Wilbur Hanson bounced from Harvard.<br />
Wilbur Hanson caught a Red-scare bullet but dodged another one. He got certified to teach in the L.A.<br />
city school system. He was not excluded on the basis of his expressed pacifism or his documented CO<br />
status. The family moved out to the San Fernando Valley. Wilbur Hanson began teaching at a school in<br />
Reseda.<br />
Wilbur and Beverly June Hanson encouraged their sons to read. Beverly June loved movies and dragged<br />
Curtis and his brother to bargain matinees all over the Valley. He had seen dozens of film noir flicks<br />
before he knew the term "film noir." He watched Dragnet, M Squad, The Lineup, Racket Squad, and<br />
Mike Hammer every week. School bored him. His real curriculum was films, novels, and TV shows. His<br />
major course of study was narrative. His minor course of study was crime.<br />
He wrote a story called "The Man Who Wanted Money" and read it to his fifth-grade class. His teacher<br />
found the story and Curtis's general crime fixation disturbing and ratted him off to his parents.<br />
Curtis had a dual-world thing going. He had his family/school world and his film/book/TV-show world.<br />
He figured he'd grow up, become a screenwriter and director, and pull off a two-world merger.<br />
He developed a dual-L.A. thing. It grew out of a dual thing with his dad and his uncle Jack.<br />
Wilbur Hanson was a morally committed schoolteacher with $1.98 in the bank. Jack Hanson was a<br />
morally desiccated rag merchant who sucked up to movie stars and showbiz players.<br />
Dad had a shack in the Valley. Uncle Jack had a big pad in Beverly Hills. Dad spent most of his time<br />
with schoolkids. Uncle Jack hobnobbed with Hollywood swingers. Dad took kids on uplifting field trips.<br />
Uncle Jack owned Jax--the grooviest, sexiest, most altogether bonaroo boutique on Rodeo Drive.<br />
Curtis spent weekdays in the Valley and weekends in Beverly Hills. Uncle Jack loved having him around<br />
as a companion for his son. Curtis's two worlds were regulated by his school duties and divided by the<br />
Hollywood Hills. Uncle Jack gave him access to a world within his world. It was the fast-lane world of<br />
aggressive people out to get all they could and flick the cost. That worldwithin-a-world dovetailed with<br />
Curtis Hanson's crime fixation. Uncle Jack's movie-biz fixation dovetailed with Curtis's ambition to grow<br />
up and become a filmmaker.<br />
Jack Hanson was noir personified. He was a movie-biz toady straight out of The Big Knife. He hoarded<br />
money and paid his people the minimum wage. He was arguably the cheapest cocksucker who ever<br />
walked the face of the earth. He opened up the Daisy in the mid-'6os. It was the first members-only<br />
dance club in Beverly Hills. Jack sold memberships to showbiz hipsters and employed it as his vehicle to<br />
suck his way further into the in crowd.<br />
Curtis watched. Curtis took mental notes. Curtis finished school and got a chump job with Cinema<br />
magazine. He drove copy to the typesetters and film to the photo lab. The magazine started to go<br />
belly-up. Curtis convinced Uncle Jack to take over the operating costs and let him do all the work.<br />
He did it. He wrote the critical pieces and feature interviews and took the photographs. He took some<br />
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shots of Faye Dunaway and was paid with a plane ticket. He flew to Texas and watched the filming of<br />
Bonnie and Clyde.<br />
It was a period film and a crime film. Curtis Hanson wrote it up in Cinema magazine. He prophetically<br />
called it "the most exciting American film in years."<br />
I read that issue of Cinema magazine thirty years ago. I was 19 and strung out on pills and Thunderbird<br />
wine. I was breaking into houses in a ritzy L.A. enclave and stealing things that wouldn't be missed. I was<br />
shoplifting and reading crime novels and going to crime movies.<br />
Hanson got me hot to see Bonnie and Clyde. I saw it and wigged out on it. I stole the money that paid<br />
for my ticket.<br />
A year ago, I drove out to Lincoln Heights to watch a day's filming of L.A. Confidential. It was<br />
mid-August and very hot and humid.<br />
A northeast-L.A. street was doubling for a street in south L.A. Nineteen ninety-six was doubling for<br />
1953.<br />
Period cars lined the curb. A dozen equipment trucks and trailers were parked just out of camera view.<br />
Twenty-odd technicians and gofers were standing near a catering van. They were snarfing cookies and<br />
ice-cream bars in the hundred-degree heat.<br />
The focal point was a shabby wood-frame house. It was a near perfect match to the house I'd described<br />
in my novel. I visualized the scene I wrote in 1989.<br />
A cop vaults a backyard fence and walks up a flight of outside stairs in broad daylight. He slips the catch<br />
on a second-story door and enters a cramped apartment. He sees a woman gagged and tied to a bed<br />
with neckties. He walks into the living room and shoots her presumed assailant in cold blood.<br />
My cop was named Bud White. He was a huge man with a football-injury limp and a gray flattop. The<br />
movie Bud White is an actor named Russell Crowe. He is a compact and muscular man with dark hair<br />
and a quasi-flattop.<br />
I watched Crowe nosh an ice-cream bar and bullshit with extras in cop uniforms. The actors playing<br />
Lieutenant Ed Exley and Captain Dudley Smith were standing across the street. My Exley was tall and<br />
blond. Guy Pearce, the film Exley, is medium size and dark haired. My Smith was burly and red-faced.<br />
<strong>James</strong> Cromwell, the film Smith, is pale and imperiously tall.<br />
I felt like I was entering a brand-new L.A. world and a multimedia extravaganza. Period snapshots and<br />
scandal-rag headlines formed the visual borders. The audio track was the sound of my written words<br />
spoken by the actors around me. My mother's ghost was somewhere in the mix. She was eating popcorn<br />
with a spoon and humming Kay Starr's 1952 hit, "Wheel of Fortune."<br />
I reeled behind a jolt of heat and a thousand quick-cut blips of my own private L.A. I had written L.A.<br />
Confidential as an epic hometown elegy. It was established fact and half-heard scandal and whispered<br />
innuendo. It was the world of horror I had first glimpsed the day my mother died.<br />
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It was Mickey Cohen and his henchman Johnny Stompanato. It was Hush-Hush magazine, my stand-in<br />
for Confidential. It was sex shakedowns and perverts modeled on Stephen Nash and Harvey Glatman. It<br />
was the "Bloody Christmas" police-brutality scandal and the twisted story of a theme park disingenuously<br />
disguised to remind readers of Disneyland.<br />
L.A. Confidential was conceived and executed as a large-scale novel. It was not written with an eye<br />
toward movie adaptation. I did not expect it to bushwhack me six years after its publication.<br />
I read the screenplay. Two writers had taken my milieu, my characters, and a good deal of my dialogue<br />
and fashioned their L.A. world within my L.A. worlds.<br />
I walked into the wood-frame house. I was entering their visual world now. I passed the bedroom<br />
where the woman would be gagged and bound with neckties. I found Curtis Hanson framing a shot in the<br />
living room.<br />
He saw me and smiled. He said, "What do you think?"<br />
I said, "It looks inspired."<br />
I had dinner with Hanson that night. We met at our mutual favorite restaurant.<br />
The Pacific Dining Car is a swanky steak pit on the edge of downtown L.A. It's been there since 1 921.<br />
It's dark and wood paneled. It's a self-contained time warp in a city of time warps and dark continuums.<br />
Hanson's uncle Jack brought him to the Car for steak dinners that his father couldn't afford. My father<br />
brought me to the Car on my tenth birthday, in 1958. I met my wife at the Car. A minister married us a<br />
few yards from my favorite booth.<br />
I sat down in the booth and stretched my legs. I was exhausted.<br />
I'd watched Bud White shoot the rape-o two dozen times. I'd watched Hanson refine and perfect the<br />
scene. I felt dispersed. I was losing track of all my L.A.'s.<br />
Hanson showed up a few minutes later. A waiter brought us our drinks automatically.<br />
We discussed the day's shooting and the thematic shifts between my novel and his film. Our conversation<br />
drifted back to L.A. in the '5os and the dark corners we had peered into as children.<br />
I said, "There's a phrase that puts it nicely."<br />
Hanson said, "Tell me."<br />
I said, "L.A.: Come on vacation; go home on probation."<br />
Hanson laughed and said, "It's inspired."<br />
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October 1997<br />
BODY DUMPS<br />
DETECTIVE DIVISION/HOMICIDE BUREAU/LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S<br />
DEPARTMENT (EL MONTE PD ASSISTING). VICTIM: SCALES, BETTYJEAN. DOD: 1/29/73.<br />
DISPOSITION: MURDER/187 PC. FILE #073-01946-2010400 (UNSOLVED)<br />
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The victim was a 24-year-old white female. She lived at 2633 Cogswell, El Monte. The city was<br />
downscale. The racial mix was white trash and low-rent Latin.<br />
The victim was married to William David Scales--a 26-year-old white male. They had a 4-year-old<br />
daughter and a 3-monthold son. The victim was unemployed. Her husband installed insulation.<br />
8:00 P.M. Monday, 1/29/73:<br />
The victim leaves her apartment. She's alone. Her stated intention: to deposit some checks at a bank<br />
night drop and shop at Durfee Drugs and Crawford's Market. She takes off in her husband's Ford<br />
pickup. Scales stays home. He watches the kids and checks out the Laugh-In TV show.<br />
The bank is a block from the market. Durfee Drugs is one mile west. Their apartment sits equidistant.<br />
It's a tight local spread. Scales figures his wife will be gone one hour.<br />
9:00, 9:30, 10:00. No Betty Jean. The baby wants food. Scales feeds him and slaps on fresh diapers.<br />
He's ticked off and worried. He's working on pissed off and scared. He starts running abandonment<br />
tapes.<br />
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Betty left me and the kids. Betty stuck me with the kids. Betty's got a boyfriend. They're at his place or a<br />
bar or a motel. They're bopping at the Nashville West.<br />
He calmed down. He switched tapes. Betty needs some time by herself.<br />
To unwind. To cut loose. To visit her girlfriends.<br />
He called Connie, Terry, and Glenda. They said they hadn't seen Betty, He ran tapes from 10:30 to<br />
midnight. He called the El Monte PD and the California Highway Patrol. He described his truck and his<br />
wife. He asked about car wrecks.<br />
No go:<br />
Your truck was not involved in any reported collisions.<br />
He ran crash tapes to 2:oo A.M. He called the El Monte PD back. He got another No. The desk man<br />
said sit tight and wait by the phone.<br />
He tried to sit tight. The tapes kept spinning. He left his kids alone and walked by Crawford's Market<br />
and the Nashville West. They were closed. He didn't see his wife or his truck. He walked home. He<br />
called the girlfriends again. He got three more No's. He fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 5:30. He<br />
called Betty Jean's dad in Corona. Bud Bedford said he hadn't seen or heard from BettyJean. He said<br />
he'd shoot up to El Monte.<br />
Bill Scales and Bud Bedford connected. They drove by Durfee Drugs, the bank, and the market. They<br />
did not see Betty Jean or the truck. They drove to the El Monte PD. They filed a missingpersons sheet.<br />
Scales said his wife was devoted. She wasn't a runaround chick. She didn't smoke dope or chase men.<br />
She wouldn't just split unannounced.<br />
The cops told Scales and Bedford to sit tight. Don't think car wrecks or abductions. We're legally<br />
constrained until your wife is gone forty-eight hours. Think car wrecks or abductions then.<br />
Bill Scales thought it now. Bud Bedford thought it. They did not sit tight.<br />
They drove the #10 Freeway east/west. They drove the 605 north/south. They stopped at gas stations.<br />
They talked to attendants. They described Betty Jean and the truck. Scales got a bug up his ass. He<br />
knew his wife was kidnapped. He knew the guy stopped to gas up.<br />
More No's. No's straight across. No Betty Jean/no truck.<br />
Bedford went home. He'd divorced Betty's mother years back. He had to break the news and say it<br />
don't look good.<br />
Scales stuck the kids with a baby-sitter. He borrowed a car and went at the freeways systematically. He<br />
hit gas stations. He flashed a snapshot of Betty. He got a straight run of No's.<br />
Wednesday, 1/3 1/73:<br />
The missing-persons investigation kicked in pro forma. An APB went out. A Teletype detailed the truck<br />
and Betty Jean Scales:<br />
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WF/DOB 3/6/49, 54", 115, brown hair, brown eyes. Last seen wearing a red-pink top, brown Levi's,<br />
and white tennis shoes.<br />
1:30A.M. Thursday, 2/1/73:<br />
An El Monte PD unit spots the truck. It's parked in the lot at Vons Market. The location: Peck Road<br />
and Lower Azusa. The location: two miles north of 2633 Cogswell. The location: 2.5 miles north of<br />
Durfee Drugs, the bank, and Crawford's Market.<br />
A patrolman impounds the truck. He tows it to a yard in South El Monte. He talks to a clerk at Vons<br />
Market. The clerk says the truck was in the lot at least forty-eight hours. He noticed it around 4:oo<br />
A.M.--Tuesday, 1/30.<br />
Eight hours after BettyJean left her apartment.<br />
The El Monte PD contacts Sheriff's Homicide. The Scales thing vibes murder. Deputy Hal Meyers and<br />
Sergeant Lee Koury drive to the tow yard.<br />
They examine the truck.<br />
In the bed: metal scaffolds, a milk crate, an empty cardboard box, a leather tool holder, a matching belt,<br />
and a length of rope. In the cab: three bottles of baby formula in a small box. A purse, a white bra, white<br />
panties, one left-foot white tennis shoe, and a pair of brown Levi's.<br />
The box is on the floor. The clothes are stacked beside it.<br />
Koury and Meyers look under the seat. They find the matching shoe. A key ring is tucked inside. They<br />
note a blood spot on the canvas.<br />
On the seat: a red-pink sweater. Distinct bloodstains. A toolbox on the step by the passenger door.<br />
Blood spotted.<br />
More bloodwork:<br />
Smears on the seat back. Spatters on the inside of the passenger door. Drops on the step near the<br />
toolbox.<br />
Koury called the crime lab and told them to send out a crew. Meyers opened the purse. He found<br />
cosmetic items, three checks made out to William D. Scales, Betty Jean Scales's ID, and a checkbook.<br />
The last check logged in: $9.71, to Durfee Drugs, 1/29/73. Meyers checked the box on the floor. He<br />
found a cashregister receipt for $9.71. Koury called the EL Monte PD and told them to contact the<br />
husband.<br />
The lab crew arrived. A print man dusted the truck inside and out. He found no latent prints. He found<br />
wipe marks on the steering wheel and dashboard. A man scraped blood samples and cut a swatch out of<br />
the seat back. He found a long brown hair congealed in a blood smear.<br />
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1:30 P.M., 2/1/73:<br />
Koury and Meyers meet Bill Scales at the El Monte PD. Scales recounts his wife's Monday-night plans.<br />
He runs down his own actions and describes his marriage as stable.<br />
3:30 P.M., 2/1/73:<br />
Koury and Meyers drive to Durfee Drugs. They interview a clerk named Gloria Terrazas. Mrs. Terrazas<br />
ID's a photo of the probable victim and says she came in about 8:30 Monday night. She purchased some<br />
baby formula and paid by check. She came in and left alone. She behaved in a normal fashion.<br />
4:00 P.M., 2/1/73:<br />
Koury and Meyers drive to Crawford's Market. They grill the people working Monday night. They flash<br />
a photo of the probable victim. They say, "When was the last time you saw her?" They get a straight<br />
consensus: She did not come in Monday night.<br />
It looks tight and local. The probable victim leaves her pad and drives to Durfee Drugs. She never gets<br />
to Crawford's or the bank. Her deposit-ready checks are still in her purse. It looks like a snatch. The guy<br />
grabs her outside Durfee Drugs or en route to the bank and Crawford's. He hijacks the truck. He dumps<br />
her and dumps the truck at Vons Market. The truck was in the lot from 4:00 A.M. Tuesday on.<br />
Or it's the husband.<br />
6:oo P.M., 2/1/73:<br />
Koury and Meyers meet Bill Scales at the tow yard. Scales ID's his truck and the items in the bed. He<br />
points to the empty box. He says his staple-bat is missing. It's very heavy. Maybe the guy beat his wife to<br />
death with it.<br />
Koury and Meyers look at Scales real close.<br />
Scales looks in the cab. He spots some gravel on the floor. He extrapolates.<br />
Some clown kidnapped his wife. He beat her to death with his staple-bat and dumped her in the<br />
Irwindale pits.<br />
It's a good theory.<br />
Koury and Meyers make Bill Scales as one cold motherfucker.<br />
The Irwindale gravel pits ran northeast of El Monte. They bordered the 6o5 Freeway. They covered<br />
twenty-four square miles. They fused with flood-control basins and brushland.<br />
The pits ran fifteen to 150 feet deep. Paved roads connected them. Street access was cake. You could<br />
pull off east-west thoroughfares and drive right in.<br />
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The pits looked psychedelic. Scoop cranes hung over them all day and all night. Rainfall turned the pits<br />
into tide pools. Water collected and receded at a very slow rate.<br />
Heavy rain hit L.A. that winter. The pit floors were submerged. The pit line began 1 .5 miles east of<br />
Vons Market.<br />
The Scales thing vibed body dump. The cops figured she was down in the pits.<br />
Friday, 2/2/73:<br />
A search team goes in. Deployed: one Sheriff's helicopter, ten deputies, three El Monte PD men, and<br />
three Sheriff's Homicide men. The chopper flies low. The cops kick through wet gravel all day.<br />
Saturday, 2/3/73:<br />
The search resumes. Deployed: one chopper, seven deputies, two El Monte PD men, four Sheriff's<br />
Homicide men and 103 horsemen from the Sheriff's Mounted Posse. The search area is greatly<br />
expanded. It covers El Monte, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, Azusa, Arcadia, and unincorporated parts of<br />
L.A. County,<br />
The chopper flies low. The walking cops wear hip boots. The horses buck knee-high water. A storm<br />
hits at 3:00 P.M. The search is called off.<br />
The storms continued. Big rain on Sunday and Monday. The search was postponed indefinitely. They<br />
had to let the water recede.<br />
Koury and Meyers called it a snatch, rape, and kill. They leaned on registered sex offenders. They<br />
logged in zero suspects.<br />
They door-to-doored by Durfee Drugs and Vons Market. They tapped out. Nobody saw anything.<br />
They interviewed the probable victim's father, mother, stepfather, stepmother, and brother. The father<br />
and mother ragged the husband:<br />
He's a lowlife. He's a tyrant. He's a cold son of a bitch. Bud Bedford says it flat out: He killed Betty<br />
Jean.<br />
Wednesday, 2/7/73:<br />
Bill Scales is summoned to the Sheriff's <strong>Crim</strong>e Lab. Sergeant Ben Lubon administers a polygraph test.<br />
Koury, Meyers, and an El Monte PD man observe.<br />
Lubon calls the result conclusive. The subject has no guilty knowledge of his wife's disappearance and<br />
possible death.<br />
The Scales job stalled out. No body and no workable crime scene. Koury and Meyers caught fresh<br />
murders. The new jobs demanded full-time work. The rain came and went. The pits were full of stagnant<br />
water.<br />
3:30 P.M. Sunday, 2/25/73:<br />
A perimeter road near a big pit mined by Conrock-Durbin. A five-gallon can on the side of the road.<br />
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A security guard stops his car and picks up the can. His dog jumps out of the car and runs into the pit.<br />
The guard whistles. The dog barks and ignores the command. The guard walks to the edge of the pit and<br />
looks down.<br />
She was nude. She was faceup at the bottom of the pit. The staplebat was fifty-seven inches from her<br />
left hand.<br />
She was badly decomposed. Immersion had intensified the decomp. Maggots had eaten her eyes and<br />
most of her membranous tissue.<br />
Her skull was caved in. Her hair fell out as she decomped. Maggots swarmed inside the cranial vault.<br />
Matted hair on the business end of the staple-bat.<br />
A dozen cops hit the crime scene. They grid-searched the pit. A chopper flew over. A photo deputy<br />
shot some wide-angles.<br />
The grid search tapped out. Zero: dirt, rocks, mud, and gravel. A deputy coroner requisitioned the<br />
body,<br />
He performed a postmortem. His stated cause of death: bluntforce trauma and resultant skull fractures.<br />
His semen smear turned up inconclusive. The vaginal membranes were waterlogged and badly<br />
decomposed.<br />
Everyone knew who she was. They tagged her Jane Doe #10 anyway. They needed a formal ID.<br />
They ID'd her off dental charts:<br />
BettyJean Bedford Scales. Born 3/6/49. Probable date of death: 1/29/73.<br />
Koury and Meyers worked the case part-time. They checked recent sex assaults with suspects at large.<br />
Their geographic focus: El Monte/Baldwin Park/Irwindale. 12/16/72:<br />
2:00 A.M. The Baldwin Park Post Office. 220 PC--Assault with Intent to Commit Rape.<br />
A white youth accosts a 44-year-old white female. He shoves her into her car at knifepoint. He rips off<br />
her bra, pulls down her pants, and fondles her buttocks. The victim screams. The suspect flees on foot.<br />
12/17/72:<br />
3:45 A.M. The all-night laundromat at 4428 Peck, El Monte. 220 PC--Assault with Intent to Commit<br />
Rape.<br />
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A male Latin accosts a 56-year-old white female. She works at the laundry and another laundry four<br />
blocks away.<br />
The suspect tries to push her into a storeroom. He states, "I want pussy! I want pussy! I don't want to<br />
rob you!" The victim pulls a safety pin off her coat. She stabs the suspect. The suspect screams and runs<br />
out the door. The victim calls the El Monte PD. A patrol team responds. She tells them: "I saw the same<br />
man at two o'clock this morning. He cruised by my other laundry and looked in the window."<br />
1/4/73:<br />
1:00 A.M. The all-night laundromat at 4851 Peck, El Monte. 207 PC--Kidnapping, 261 PC--Rape,<br />
245 PC--Assault with a Deadly Weapon, 10851 CVC--Grand Theft/Auto.<br />
A male Latin accosts a 26-year-old white female. He saps the victim. He forces her into her car and<br />
takes the wheel. He drives out the 605 Freeway, the 210 Freeway, and Highway 71. He stops on a side<br />
street and orders the victim out. He marches her into a brush field. He rapes her and forces her to orally<br />
copulate him. He marches her to her car and drives her back to El Monte. He forces her out of the car at<br />
Cherrylee and Buffington. He tells her he'll leave the car at Cherrylee and Peck.<br />
The suspect leaves the car at that location. He wipes down the steering wheel and dashboard.<br />
2/2/73:<br />
1:45 A.M. Lower Azusa and Peck, El Monte. 314.1 PC--Indecent Exposure.<br />
A male Latin accosts a 36-year-old white female. The victim is standing by a bus bench. The suspect<br />
displays his penis. He states, "I can't sleep tonight because I can't get anyone to fuck."<br />
The victim yells. The suspect walks away. A passing patrol car stops him. The suspect is carrying three<br />
pornographic books. The titles are Husband and Friend, A Widow 's Hun ger, and Cocker Conqueror.<br />
The suspect was arrested. He was grilled on the laundromat jobs. He was exonerated.<br />
The laundromat freak was still out there. His assaults preceded the Scales snatch by forty-two and<br />
twenty-five days. Vons Market was one hundred yards from 4428 Peck.<br />
Durfee Drugs was two miles south. The killer grabbed the Scales woman at 8:30 P.M. The laundromat<br />
freak worked the late shift. He didn't quite vibe for the Scales job.<br />
The post-office assault preceded the Scales snatch by fortythree days.<br />
Koury and Meyers worked fresh murders. They stopped checking sex-assault sheets.<br />
3/8/73:<br />
7:15 P.M. Baldwin Park Post Office. 2o7/286/288A PC--Kidnapping, Sodomy, Oral Copulation.<br />
A white youth accosts a 1 7-year-old white female. He flashes a knife and forces her to drive to a<br />
nearby park.<br />
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The area is secluded. The victim parks in the lot. The suspect forces her into the backseat and orders<br />
her to disrobe. She complies. The suspect gets in the backseat. He pulls down his pants and fondles the<br />
victim's genitalia.<br />
He gets an erection. He partially penetrates the victim's anus. He forces her to orally copulate him. He<br />
masturbates and ejaculates on the victim's chest. He tells her to get dressed. She complies. He marches<br />
her into the park and orders her to take off her clothes. She complies. The suspect grabs her clothes and<br />
flees on foot.<br />
3/13/73:<br />
9:35 P.M. Food King Market. 14103 Ramona, Baldwin Park. 242 PC--Battery.<br />
A white youth accosts a 2 5-year-old white female. He opens the passenger door of her car. He grabs<br />
the victim and tears her jacket. The victim pulls free. She runs from the car. The suspect flees on foot.<br />
3/14/73:<br />
7:15 P.M. Lucky Market. 13940 Ramona, Baldwin Park. 207/220 PC--Kidnapping/Attempt Rape.<br />
A white youth accosts a 29-year-old white female. He opens the driver's-side door of her car. He<br />
flashes a knife and says, "Slide over." The victim complies. The suspect takes the wheel and drives out of<br />
the parking lot. The victim asks him to state his intentions. The suspect says, "I'm going to make love to<br />
you."<br />
The suspect drives southeast. He stops at a red light. The victim tries to jump out. The suspect<br />
accelerates. The victim grabs the car keys. The suspect says, "Put them back or I'll kill you." The victim<br />
does not comply.<br />
The car decelerates. The victim jumps out. The suspect jumps out. A struggle ensues. The victim grabs<br />
the suspect's knife and stabs him in the arm. The suspect flees on foot. The victim retrieves her car and<br />
drives to the Baldwin Park PD.<br />
She reports the incident. Officer Henry Dock takes notes. She describes her assailant and the knife<br />
wound she inflicted. She's cut and scratched. Officer Dock drives her to Hartland Hospital. A doctor<br />
treats her cuts and scratches.<br />
Sergeant J. Morehead calls Officer Dock at Hartland. He says a knife-wound patient is there now. He<br />
matches the victim's description of her assailant.<br />
The victim observes the knife-wound patient surreptitiously. She ID's him 100%.<br />
He's 17. He's blond and skinny and acne afflicted. He goes to high school and lives with his parents.<br />
Officer Dock arrests the kid. A doctor treats his wound. Officer Dock transports the kid to the Baldwin<br />
Park Station. A detective interviews him. The kid is released to his parents. A 207/2 20 charge pends.<br />
The Baldwin Park PD contacts Sheriff's Homicide. They lay out the kid and his MO. They make him as<br />
a suspect in one rape and three attempt-rape priors. Koury and Meyers are working fresh cases. They<br />
don't key on the kid for the Scales job.<br />
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4/23/73:<br />
1:30 P.M. Durfee Drugs, El Monte. 220 PC--Assault with Intent to Commit Rape.<br />
A white youth accosts an 18-year-old white female. The victim is sitting in her car. The driver's-side<br />
door is open.<br />
The suspect appears at the door. He grabs the wheel and tells the victim to move over. The victim says<br />
no. The suspect restates his demand. The victim screams. The suspect puts one hand on her mouth and<br />
sticks one hand down the front of her bra. The victim digs in and pushes her weight against him. The<br />
suspect flees on foot.<br />
4/25/73:<br />
The kid is arrested and charged with the 4/23 assault. He turned 18 on 4/12. He's a culpable adult now.<br />
Four prior victims ID him. He's held at the Temple City Sheriff's Station. A station detective contacts<br />
Koury and Meyers. They interview the kid about the Scales job.<br />
The kid says he doesn't recall the rape and attempt rapes. He says he suffers blackouts. He snapped out<br />
of blackouts twice and found himself messing with women. He has problems with women. He's been<br />
seeing a shrink since his first bust on 3/14. He could have done things in blackouts.<br />
The kid consents to a polygraph test. Sergeant Ben Lubon administers it.<br />
The kid denies killing BettyJean Scales. He denies the rape and attempt rapes that the victims made him<br />
for. He says he was never at Durfee Drugs. Sergeant Lubon calls the test "inconclusive."<br />
6/12/73:<br />
Koury and Meyers reinterview the kid. He denies killing Betty Jean Scales. He says he was never at<br />
Durfee Drugs. Koury and Meyers press on the Scales job. The kid invokes his right to silence.<br />
The kid remained in custody. He was convicted for his 3/14 attempt rape. His sentence: an open-ended<br />
stretch of Youth Authority time.<br />
The Scales file was marked UNSOLVED. It was the second unsolved homicide in El Monte history. It<br />
followed another body dump by fifteen-plus years.<br />
The victim was named Geneva Hilliker <strong>Ellroy</strong>. She was my mother.<br />
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It was 6/22/58. The killer dumped my mother on a road next to Arroyo High School. He may have<br />
killed her there. He may have killed her at another location. It went down early Sunday morning. The<br />
road was a local tryst spot. It met established standards for short-term concealment. Street access was<br />
good. Shrubs cut down the street view.<br />
The killer raped her or had consensual sex with her. He strangled her with a cotton cord and her right<br />
nylon stocking. He dumped her in an ivy patch. She was fully clothed and disheveled.<br />
SHERIFF'S HOMICIDE FILE #Z-483-362 (EL MONTE PD ASSISTING)<br />
The cops traced her Saturday night.<br />
She left the house at 8:oo P.M. She was alone. She drove to the Five Points strip in El Monte. She<br />
checked out Mama Mia's Pizza--"like she was looking for someone." She was seen at the Manger Bar.<br />
She was alone.<br />
10:30 P.M. Saturday, 6/2 1/58:<br />
My mother and a swarthy white man dine at Stan's Drive-In. They sit in his car--a '55 or '56 Olds.<br />
11:15 P.M., 6/21/58:<br />
My mother and the Swarthy Man hit the Desert Inn--a nightclub that caters to Okies and middle-aged<br />
drunks. A blonde woman walks in with them. The three drink, dance, and talk. They leave at midnight.<br />
2:30A.M. Sunday, 6/22/58:<br />
My mother and the Swarthy Man hit Stan's Drive-In again. They're alone. They sit in his car. The<br />
Swarthy Man has coffee. My mother has a late snack.<br />
10:10A.M., 6/22/58:<br />
Pedestrians spot my mother's body.<br />
It's tight and local.<br />
The house is 1.5 miles from Five Points. The pizza joint and bar are just south. Stan's Drive-In sits at the<br />
hub. The Desert Inn is seven blocks west. The dump site is 2.8 miles northwest.<br />
My parents were divorced. I spent that weekend with my father. I didn't see my mother walk out. I<br />
didn't panic at her absence or fear that she'd never return. I was 10 years old. I didn't know the term<br />
"body dump." I did not endure a rain-prolonged deathwatch or view my mother's decomposed remains.<br />
I was a cold little kid. I hated and lusted for my mother and went at her through postmortem surrogates.<br />
I buried her in haste and burned flames for other murdered women. My mother's death corrupted and<br />
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emboldened my imagination. It liberated and constrained me concurrently. It mandated my mental<br />
curriculum. I majored in crime and minored in vivisected women. I grew up and wrote novels about the<br />
male world that sanctioned their deaths.<br />
I ran from my mother. I put years and miles between us. I ran back to her in 1994. I was 46 years old.<br />
Fate intervened. It sparked a confrontation.<br />
A friend called me. He said he was writing a piece on unsolved murders in the San Gabriel Valley. It<br />
would spotlight the Sheriff's Unsolved Unit. My friend would see my mother's file and know things that I<br />
didn't know.<br />
The call announced an opportunity. I could see my mother's file.<br />
My friend set me up on a hot blind date. I didn't know that I would take an epic fall for my mother.<br />
I saw the file. I read the reports and saw my mother dead at Arroyo High School. It was shocking and<br />
revelatory. I knew that her death shaped my curiosity and gift for storytelling. It was long-standing<br />
knowledge. It was coldly reasoned and mockobjectified. I sensed the full weight of it now. I sensed that<br />
it carried a debt of recognition and homage. I sensed that I came out of her in a way that superseded all<br />
ties of shared blood. I sensed that I was her.<br />
A Homicide detective showed me the file. His name was Bill Stoner. He was 53 years old and set to<br />
retire. He had thirty-two years on the Sheriff's. He broke the Cotton Club Case and the Mini-Manson<br />
Case and worked on the Night Stalker Task Force. He worked Homicide for fifteen years.<br />
Stoner impressed me. I appraised him as he appraised me. I glimpsed a powerful and orderly intellect. I<br />
sensed that he balanced a vital compassion against strict levies of judgment. I sensed that he could teach<br />
me things.<br />
Stoner retired from active duty. He remained on the Sheriff's reserve force and retained his full cop<br />
status.<br />
I decided to reinvestigate my mother's homicide. I asked Stoner to help me. He agreed.<br />
The investigation spanned fifteen months. I stayed in L.A. and worked with Stoner full-time.<br />
We studied every paper scrap in the file. We contacted the surviving witnesses. We hypothetically<br />
reconstructed my mother's final movements io,ooo times. We installed a toll-free tip line and logged<br />
hundreds of worthless tips. We stalked the Swarthy Man extrapolatively.<br />
Was he a salesman passing through El Monte? Did he book racetrack bets at the Desert Inn? Did the<br />
Blonde work with my mother or frequent the same cocktail bars?<br />
We extrapolated. We targeted local lifers and retoured the late '50s. We combed the San Gabriel<br />
Valley. We hit El Monte, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, Duarte, Azusa, Temple City, Covina, West Covina,<br />
and Rosemead. We stalked my mother back to Chicago and rural Wisconsin. We found people who<br />
knew her sixty years ago.<br />
We did not find the Blonde or the Swarthy Man. We heard the oral history of bumfuck L.A. County.<br />
People told us intimate things. I mimicked Stoner's inquisitor's stance and learned when to talk and when<br />
to listen. I was a voyeur/observer with a vindictive streak in deep camouflage. Cops liked me because I<br />
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knew I wasn't one of them and didn't want to be. They liked me because I loved and hated along their<br />
lines of rectitude.<br />
Bill Stoner became my closest friend. Our commitment ran bilateral and exceeded the investigation. Our<br />
worldviews meshed and expanded to encompass two distinct visions. We discussed crime for hours<br />
running. Bill told cop stories. I described my petty-crime exploits and county-jail stints twenty years<br />
back. We laughed. We satirized macho absurdity and admitted our complicity in perpetuating it. Bill gave<br />
me things. He empiricized L.A. crime. He embellished it with great verve and let me place my mother in<br />
context.<br />
We talked about her. We did not defer to her status as a murder victim or my mother. We bluntly<br />
discussed her alcoholism and bent for cheap men. We followed the evidentiary track of her life and<br />
charted the detours. We shared a genderwide and wholly idealized crush on women. We were indictable<br />
coconspirators in the court of murder-victim preference. Bill reveled in the luxury of a sustained<br />
investigation with a probable dead suspect and negative outcome. It let him live with the victim and<br />
explore her life and honor her at leisure.<br />
The investigation faded out. The Swarthy Man became less relevant. We targeted a killer and amassed<br />
facts on his victim. I wanted to write a book and give my mother to the world. I wanted to take what I<br />
learned about her and portray my arc of recognition and love.<br />
I wrote My Dark Places in seven months. I went at it with deliberate intention. I spilled the most sordid<br />
facts of my mother's life and did not cite mitigation. I did not want people to think that I loved her in spite<br />
of her unconsciousness and erratic and negligent acts. I wanted people to know that I loved her because<br />
of them--and that my debt of gratitude derived from the fact that she was precisely who she was--and<br />
that the specific components of her ambiguously defined psyche and her sexual hold on me all contributed<br />
to shape and save my life.<br />
My Dark Places was a best-seller and a critical success. I booktoured in America and Europe. Bill<br />
Stoner joined me in France and L.A. We took camera crews to El Monte. We showed them Arroyo<br />
High and the spots where the Desert Inn and Stan's Drive-In stood. I summarized my mother's story<br />
6,ooo times. I reduced it to comprehensible sound bites. I gave her to the world in a spirit of passion and<br />
joy.<br />
The book sparked a string of worthless tips. Bill checked them out. I went home to Kansas City and<br />
researched my next novel.<br />
My mother stayed with me. She stormed my heart at unpredictable times. I welcomed her insistent<br />
presence.<br />
I couldn't give My Dark Places up. I didn't want to give it up. I toured for the paperback edition. I gave<br />
more readings and more interviews and took my mother public again. I told her story with undiminished<br />
passion. The repetition did not wear me down. I went home wanting more. I went home wanting<br />
something new and altogether familiar.<br />
I missed Bill.<br />
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I missed the law-enforcement world and my observer role.<br />
I missed El Monte.<br />
I lived there for four months in 1958. I left the day my mother died. I stayed away for thirty-six years.<br />
It was hot, smoggy, and dusty. Rednecks and wetbacks reigned. My father called it "Shitsville, U.S.A."<br />
My mother died and scared me west to my father and Central L.A. Her ghost kept me out and pulled<br />
me back.<br />
Arroyo High was still Arroyo High. My old house was still standing. Stan's Drive-In was gone. The<br />
Desert Inn was Valenzuela's Restaurant.<br />
I reembraced my mother in the town that killed her. El Monte was our prime communion zone. My first<br />
visits scared me. Sustained contact wiped the fear out. Bill and I made friends with the cops and the man<br />
who owned my old house. We dined on the spot where my mother danced with her killer. We ate at<br />
Pepe's across the street and jived with Oscar De La Hoya.<br />
I love El Monte now. El Monte is the pure essence of HER.<br />
I wanted to give El Monte the power to shock and drive me again. I wanted to take my mother's lessons<br />
and consciously address a murdered woman. I wanted to find a workable case and write about it.<br />
Bill was still a Homicide reserve. He told me he was scanning old files for DNA submission. The captain<br />
ordered a big file review. DNA was a hot new ticket. A lot of old unsolveds might be solvable now.<br />
I pitched my plan. Bill liked it. I asked him to check his review files for El Monte unsolveds.<br />
He called me back and said he found a body dump. It was just as tight and local as the Jean <strong>Ellroy</strong> case.<br />
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I booked a hotel room near Bill's place and flew out to Orange County, I holed up with the Scales file<br />
overnight.<br />
It looked like my mother's file. <strong>Crim</strong>e-scene shots and Teletypes and reports stuck in a blue notebook.<br />
Paper scraps and a tape cassette: Bill Scales's first interview.<br />
I played the tape.<br />
Scales spoke slowly and carefully. He described his wife's disappearance and a recent motorcycle race<br />
in the same tone. He lived to race. He should have won a trophy last week. He couldn't grab his bike and<br />
look for Betty last Monday. His bike was not street legal.<br />
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I studied a stack of ID photos. Betty Jean Scales alive: a prim woman with long hair and granny glasses.<br />
I studied the crimescene shots. Betty Jean twenty-seven days dead: a bloated mannequin and insect<br />
repository.<br />
I studied the perspective shots. The pits looked like moon craters. I pictured local acidheads grooving<br />
on the landscape.<br />
I read the crime-scene and lab reports. I took notes. I found an odd notation:<br />
"Vic's sweater. Stain 0+--non-secretor."<br />
Odd:<br />
I thought the line referred to a semen stain. Some men secrete identifiable blood cells in their ejaculate;<br />
some men do not. "0+--non-secretor" was a non sequitur.<br />
I read the missing-persons report. I recognized locations.<br />
My mother shopped at Crawford's Market. We lived two blocks west of Peck Road. Arroyo High<br />
flanked Lower Azusa. Betty Jean vanished en route to Five Points.<br />
I read the sex-assault reports. I cleared the laundromat freak. He worked late nights and north El Monte<br />
exclusively.<br />
The kid vibed HOT suspect.<br />
He was convicted for one attempt rape. Four other rape/ attempt rape/abduction victims ID 'd him as<br />
their assailant. He assailed his consummated victim in dark seclusion. Betty Jean was last seen at Durfee<br />
Drugs. The kid worked at a print shop two blocks away. His last alleged assault occurred at Durfee<br />
Drugs on 4/23/73.<br />
I called Bill. He cosigned my assessment and urged me to remain circumspect. We shouldn't lock in on<br />
suspects. We should sift evidence and refrain from prejudicial conclusions.<br />
He reminded me:<br />
This was now an official Sheriff's/El Monte PD investigation. I was to look, listen, and ask questions<br />
judiciously.<br />
Bill said he had calls in to Koury and Meyers. They both retired to Missouri. We had to get their<br />
assessments. I mentioned the secretor notation. Bill said we should go by the property vault and retrieve<br />
the evidence bags. The victim's clothing had to be screened for semen stains and conflicting bloodstains.<br />
That was the standard pre-DNA procedure.<br />
I filled in the hypothetical blanks.<br />
The kid allegedly ejaculated on his 3/8 victim. He might have done the same thing with Betty. He might<br />
have wiped his penis with her sweater, panties, or bra. The coroner's semen smear turned up<br />
"inconclusive." The victim's vaginal membranes were badly decomposed. DNA procedures did not exist<br />
in 1973. DNAcertified semen stains can be compared to cell scrapings taken from present-day suspects.<br />
The crime lab could lift cells off Betty's clothing. The crime lab could run the kid's DNA. The lab could<br />
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determine the presence or absence of DNA with absolute certainty. Fabrics retain DNA cells indefinitely.<br />
I mentioned Bill Scales and vaginal drip from normal intercourse. Bill Stoner said we had to find him and<br />
take a blood sample or a mouth scrape. We had to differentiate his fluid cells. He said the stain<br />
placements were crucial. Normal leakage would pool at the crotch of the victim's panties. If the killer<br />
wiped himself with the panties, the stains would be wide and diffuse.<br />
I slept poorly that night. I tossed and transposed the file statistics of Betty Jean and my mother. I knew<br />
I'd blitz the next day with coffee and pure brain energy.<br />
I did.<br />
Bill and I drove to El Monte. We found our key locations and ran straight routes between them.<br />
2633 Cogswell: small bungalows and dirty kids in diapers. Durfee Drugs: a small corner store with<br />
wraparound parking. Crawford's Market: gone. The bank: gone. Vons Market: a big corner store with a<br />
big parking lot.<br />
The gravel pits: a skyscape of scoop cranes and rock piles. Fenced-in access roads and Keep Out<br />
signs.<br />
I went through the file and checked addresses.<br />
The kid lived at 14335 Ramona. The 3/13 and 3/14 assaults occurred at 14103 and 13940.<br />
We drove by the locations. The old structures were gone. Shopping centers had replaced them.<br />
The Baldwin Park Post Office: still in its old location. Walking distance to the kid's apartment. The<br />
gravel pits and Vons Market: walking distance for a kid jacked up on fear and adrenaline.<br />
We drove to the El Monte PD. We talked to Chief Wayne Clayton and Assistant Chief Bill Ankeny.<br />
They remembered the Scales case. Ankeny said the husband was their first hot suspect. He didn't<br />
remember the kid or the laundromat freak. Clayton said they popped a rape-o around the same time. A<br />
Latin guy sandbagged a girl by some railroad tracks. A witness scared him off as he forced the girl to<br />
strip. He was grilled and cleared on the Scales job.<br />
Clayton said he'd help us any way he could. We stood outside his office and bullshitted. I looked down<br />
the hallway. My mind wandered. I walked down that hallway the first time in June '58. Thirty-nine years<br />
had intervened. I was still obsessed and hungry at the cusp of 50.<br />
Bill and I drove to Sergeant Tom Armstrong's office. Armstrong ran the El Monte PD's Internal Affairs<br />
Unit. He worked out of a PD adjunct building.<br />
Bill ran down the Scales case. Armstrong keyed on the kid. He said he'd request full paper on him. Bill<br />
said full was essential. We had to know him before we tried to find him.<br />
Bill grabbed Armstrong's phone and called Joe Walker. Joe is a civilian crime analyst. He knows<br />
computer search systems. He helped us locate people in my mother's case.<br />
Bill laid out the kid. Joe said he'd find him--dead or alive.<br />
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Bill and I drove to Sheriff's Homicide. Bill ran a DMV check on William David Scales. He hit. Scales<br />
was fifty-one years old now. He lived in Rancho Cucamonga.<br />
Close. A straight shot through the San Gabriel Valley.<br />
Bill said Valley folks never strayed far. I said the Valley was a fucking life sentence. Bill said, "For you it<br />
is."<br />
The evidence vault adjoined the Sheriff's Academy. Evidence bags were stored on shelves stacked<br />
twenty-five feet high. The vault looked like an airplane hangar. Two dozen shelves ate up most of the<br />
floor space. Technicians accessed them with forklifts.<br />
It was my second visit. I viewed the evidence from my mother's case the first time.<br />
I'd touched the stocking and the cotton cord that killed her. I put the dress she died in to my face and<br />
caught a trace of her perfume.<br />
Bill requisitioned the Scales bag. A technician found it. We examined it in a small room next to the vault.<br />
The red-pink sweater, the panties, the bra. Separate items in separate envelopes.<br />
Bill filled out a routing form and placed the items in a cardboard box. I didn't touch them. They looked<br />
like cheap stuff purchased at Sears or JC Penney. They smelled like dust and old synthetics.<br />
We dropped the items off at the Sheriff's <strong>Crim</strong>e Lab. A serologist named Valorie Scherr logged them in.<br />
She explained DNA in a wholly precise and stupefyingly soporific manner.<br />
Scherr said the prescreen would take ten days. They had to identify semen or other fluids first. The<br />
amount did not matter. DNA could be successfully typed off a single cell. Dissipation might factor in. The<br />
event occurred twenty-four years ago. The stains might have eroded during storage.<br />
Scherr gave Bill eight swab sticks and containers. She said he should tell the husband to scrape the<br />
inside of his mouth vigorously,<br />
She advised a backup procedure.<br />
They might not have a valid victim sample. He should try to locate the victim's parents or a sibling and<br />
take scrapings from them. This would help identify the victim's DNA.<br />
Bill grabbed Scherr's phone and called Sheriff's Homicide. A colleague tapped the DMV computer. He<br />
got a hit on Bud Bedford. His last known address: a trailer park in Fresno.<br />
Bill got his number from Fresno information. He called him and stated his business. Bedford agreed to<br />
be interviewed. He said he'd submit a cell sample. He said his ex-wife was still in Fresno. He gave Bill<br />
her number.<br />
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Bill called her. She said she'd cooperate.<br />
We broke it off for the day. I went back to my hotel room and stared at a picture of Betty Jean smiling. I<br />
sensed that things went stray for her--beyond her already low expectations. I wanted to know how they<br />
stood on the night she died.<br />
We door-knocked Bill Scales. He stepped out of a time warp and let us into his house.<br />
He was tall and rangy and an old 51. His voice matched the voice on the interview tape down to subtle<br />
inflections.<br />
Bill stated our business and stressed that he was not a suspect. Scales said he'd help all he could. Bud<br />
Bedford still thought he did it. Bud had Bill Scales's own daughter convinced.<br />
The house was small, neatly tended, and starkly underfurnished. We sat down at a dinette table.<br />
Scales described the night of 1/29 unsolicited. His eyes flicked on and off Bill's gun. His account tallied<br />
with his taped account of 2/1/73. He ran it down deadpan. Bill interposed questions. Scales answered<br />
them and jumped back to his basic narrative. He rolled over for authority figures. I knew it was a<br />
long-term practice.<br />
I said, "Tell us about BettyJean."<br />
Scales said she was a dingbat. She was mousy, easygoing, and submissive. She talked a mile a minute<br />
like a true nutcase. Simple tasks flummoxed her. She didn't know how to do things.<br />
He said "dingbat" dead cold. I used to call my mother a drunk and a whore the same way.<br />
I didn't say, Why did you marry her then? Scales gave us the narrative version.<br />
He met Betty in late '67. He was living in Bell Gardens. She was living in Downey. Her father set her up<br />
in a pad. He found Betty in bed with a boy and cut off his support abruptly.<br />
Betty was going to high school then. Bill Scales moved in with her. He got her pregnant and married her.<br />
Their daughter, Leah, was born in October '68. They moved to El Monte in '71. He raced motorcycles<br />
and hung insulation. Betty worked on the assembly line at Avon cosmetics and quit to be a full-time<br />
mother. They had a son. He was 3 months old when Betty died. Leah married a guy named Baker. They<br />
had two kids. Leah was fat. She blamed her obesity on her father and her mother's death. He had a<br />
second family and raised Leah and her brother with them. Leah did not appreciate it. Betty's parents<br />
hated him and encouraged her to hate him.<br />
Scales said that second marriage folded. He gave us a quick rundown on the details.<br />
His candor was praiseworthy and appalling. He impressed me as a control freak with a dark<br />
self-knowledge learned the hard way. He cut his losses and lived inside rigid boundaries. His subtext was<br />
all male pride and self-pity.<br />
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He gave us his daughter's phone number. He said he'd give us a cell scrape. He said he didn't remember<br />
the last time he had sex with Betty. She was on the Pill. He didn't wear rubbers. The sperm on her<br />
panties might turn out to be his.<br />
He looked like an Okie transplant and employed perfect grammar. He set out to refute his roots every<br />
time he opened his mouth.<br />
He said Bud Bedford sicced a P.I. on him back in '73. The guy tailed him to a siding job in Temecula.<br />
Bill said, "How did Bud and Betty get on?"<br />
Scales said, "Not well." Her brother said they were feuding right before Betty died.<br />
Bill said, "Where's the brother now?"<br />
Scales said, "He died of AIDS."<br />
We door-knocked Leah Scales Baker. She let us in and sat on a couch between us.<br />
The apartment was small and overfurnished. I heard kids back in the bedrooms. The husband sat on the<br />
living-room floor and observed the interview.<br />
Leah Baker was prepared. Bill called ahead and stated our purpose.<br />
He introduced me. I smiled. He said my mother was a murder victim. It fell flat. Leah Baker looked right<br />
through me. She said her mother's death destroyed her life.<br />
Bill asked her if she remembered her mother. Leah said hardly at all. Bill laid out a riff on DNA and said<br />
we had a promising suspect. Leah started in on her father.<br />
He was mean. He was nasty. He belittled her in front of his family. She locked herself in closets and<br />
gobbled cookies to spite him.<br />
Bill said he was cleared back in '73 and was not a suspect now. Leah said she had dreams. Her father<br />
was hitting a faceless figure. She watched him. She was wearing a white nightgown. Her grandfather said<br />
she used to wear a nightgown like that as a child.<br />
Bill said, "Did your father beat you?" Leah said, "Maybe." She had these memory gaps. She could not<br />
recall large blocks of her childhood.<br />
Bill tried to ask a string of questions. Leah talked over him.<br />
Her father ridiculed her. Her stepmother and stepbrother teased her. They tried to tease her out of being<br />
fat--but she stayed fat anyway.<br />
Bill asked her if she'd like to see her mother's case solved. Leah started back on her father. Bill clenched<br />
up. So did I. Victimhood was a summons to exploit and explore. Love the one you lost only if they<br />
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deserved it.<br />
Know your dead. Learn how you derive and diverge from them.<br />
Leah said her father was the key suspect. She didn't know her mother was murdered for years. Her<br />
father hid the fact. That was suspicious. That meant he was hiding things. Her grandfather said he saw the<br />
apartment the day after her mother vanished. The place was a mess. Clothes were scattered around. Her<br />
baby brother sat in a pool of urine.<br />
Bill said, "Your father passed a polygraph test."<br />
Leah shrugged.<br />
I asked her where she got her information.<br />
Leah said, "My grandfather."<br />
I asked her if she ever read newspaper accounts.<br />
Leah said, "No."<br />
Bill gave me his "more questions?" look. I shook my head.<br />
Bill thanked Leah. I said we might clear this thing. It might help her get on with her life.<br />
Leah looked right through me.<br />
I dropped Bill off and drove back to my hotel. I stretched out on the bed and turned the lights off. I<br />
dropped their male surnames and ran with Betty Bedford and Geneva Hilliker.<br />
Not doppelgangers. Not symbiotic twins. Inimical personalities and antithetical souls.<br />
My mother drank Early Times bourbon. She fucked cheap men and cut them off if they cloyed or<br />
messed with her solitude. She got pregnant in '39 and aborted herself. She rammed literacy and the<br />
Lutheran Church down my throat and made me grateful as a middle-aged man.<br />
Betty fell into things. My mother hid out in El Monte. She lived out the dreams and crazy expectations<br />
that drive bright and beautiful women. Betty hid out in El Monte. It was a good place to live the lie that<br />
life was hunky-dory.<br />
Two Jeans.<br />
My mother went to nursing school and shortened Geneva to Jean. She was 19. It was 1934.<br />
She could shoot men down with stern words or a look. She wanted sex on her own sweet and<br />
unconscious terms. She knew how to say no.<br />
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She said yes, no, or maybe that night. She didn't sense danger. She could have walked away from the<br />
drive-in. She had options that Betty Jean didn't. Her unconsciousness made her passively complicit. Betty<br />
Jean went to the drugstore and bought baby food. Her life ended nineteen years short of my mother's.<br />
I wanted to find the piece of slit who killed her and fuck him for it.<br />
Bill called first thing in the morning. He said he just got off the phone. He talked to Tom Armstrong, Joe<br />
Walker, and Lee Koury.<br />
They traced the kid. He was serving three-to-life. He got out on parole in '75. He stayed out two years<br />
and went down behind a fresh rape.<br />
AND:<br />
Koury said the kid almost confessed to the killing. He almost gave it up at his polygraph test. He said,<br />
"My dad's got heart trouble. This would really kill him."<br />
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I replayed the words from L.A. to Fresno. Koury and Meyers made the kid for the Scales snuff. The<br />
kid was 42 now. He was locked down at the California Men's Colony. He fell behind a kidnap-rape in<br />
Bakersfield. Tom Armstrong just received a full report.<br />
Bakersfield was a hundred miles from Fresno. Bill was from Fresno. Betty Jean's parents lived in<br />
Fresno.<br />
We drove up in Bill's car. We took Bill's father along. Angus Stoner was 86. He knew Kern County.<br />
Kern County was all new to me.<br />
Dirt fields and shack towns. Wind and dust and a big flat sky.<br />
Angus supplied travel notes. He identified orchards and harvesting contraptions. He talked up his hobo<br />
adventures, circa 1930.<br />
He picked walnuts and grapes. He slept in boxcars. He poured the pork to numerous women. He cut a<br />
wide indigent swath. Butch queers rode the rails then. They dogged his handsome ass. He kicked their<br />
asses good.<br />
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Bill and I laughed. Bill called Kern County "El Monte North." I called it "Dogdick, Egypt." We were<br />
white-trash postgrads. Disorder and poverty scared us. We trashed it with postgrad license. We were<br />
like blacks calling each other "nigger."<br />
The kid did Youth Authority time, and he got paroled. He split the San Gabriel Valley. He pulled a<br />
postgrad rape here in Kern County.<br />
We hit Fresno at dinnertime. It was too late to hit Betty's parents. We booked three hotel rooms and ate<br />
at a chain coffee shop. Angus reprised his travelogue. I drifted in and out of it. I had the kid in my<br />
brain-sights.<br />
Bud Bedford lived in a trailer park between two freeway ramps. His trailer was small and dirty inside<br />
and out.<br />
He lived with his long-term girlfriend and a small, bug-eyed dog. The dog perched on his wife's lap and<br />
showed Bill his teeth. He stared at Bill and sustained a low growl throughout the whole interview.<br />
Bill and I flanked Bud Bedford. Bill laid out the investigation and emphatically cleared Betty's husband.<br />
Bud Bedford stared at a neutral point between us. He sucked on a cigar stub and took the smoke in<br />
deep. His girlfriend stared at him. The dog stared at Bill.<br />
Bedford was seventy-something. His hands twitched. His face twitched. He looked frail and nihilistically<br />
inclined. A good blast of cigar smoke could debilitate or kill him.<br />
He did not react to Bill's pitch in any discernible manner.<br />
I said, "Tell me about BettyJean."<br />
Bedford said, "She was a good girl and a good mother."<br />
I said, "What else can you tell us?"<br />
Bedford said, "She shouldn't have got mixed up with Bill Scales."<br />
I backed off. My questions were taking me nowhere. I wanted perceptive or passionate answers. I<br />
wanted to know if Betty Jean still lived in her father's mind and if he fought to keep her there.<br />
Bill took over. He asked specific questions and let Bedford ramble. I listened for signs of fatherly love in<br />
the mix.<br />
He broke up with Betty's mom when Betty was 8 or 9. They fought some custody battles. She got Betty<br />
first. He got her second. Bill Scales married her. Bill was plain no-good. He was scared that Bud would<br />
get custody of the kids he had with Betty. He hid them with his sister so Bud couldn't see them. Bud<br />
hired a private eye. He wanted to get the goods on Bill Scales. The P.I. infiltrated a bike gang Scales<br />
allegedly rode with. Bud paid him $500. The guy took his money and never turned up shit.<br />
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Scales was no outlaw biker He was an amateur motorcycle racer.<br />
The monologue winded Bedford. His voice broke a few times. I didn't know if he was fighting emotion<br />
or exhaustion. I didn't know if he was reliving the loss of his daughter or the weight of his hardscrabble<br />
years.<br />
I didn't bring up my murder story. I tried to get some empathy going with Betty Jean's daughter and got<br />
nowhere. That interview went nowhere. I didn't want a repeat here.<br />
Bud Bedford hated Bill Scales. It felt like a property beef. He ceded his daughter to the man who he<br />
thought killed her or let her die. Ownership infractions. Bud set Betty up in her own pad and cut off the<br />
rent when he caught her in bed with some guy. Bill Scales assumed ownership then.<br />
Bill got out his mouth swabs and explained the procedure. Bud Bedford put his cigar down and rinsed<br />
his mouth with water. He took a swab and ran it-all over his gums.<br />
I thanked the Bedfords and walked to the door. The dog growled at me.<br />
Betty's mother was named Lavada Emogene Nella. She lived in a board-and-care home in middle-class<br />
Fresno.<br />
Bill called ahead. Mrs. Nella and her companion met us. We sat down in the dayroom. Old people on<br />
walkers pushed by.<br />
Mrs. Nella was attractive and perfectly groomed. She was young and fit by rest-home standards.<br />
Her eyes darted and latched onto fixed targets and went blank while she retained eye contact.<br />
I said, "Tell me about Betty Jean."<br />
Mrs. Nella called her daughter a "chatterbox" and a "homebody" and a "sweet-natured girl" who "only<br />
wanted to be a good wife and mother." Things tended to confuse Betty Jean. She was outgoing and shy<br />
at the same time. She relied on other folks to make her decisions.<br />
Bill mentioned Betty's marriage. Mrs. Nella said it was difficult. Bill Scales was cold and dictatorial.<br />
Bill mentioned physical abuse. Betty Jean's daughter described her dad as hard and domineering. That<br />
accusation dominated her interview.<br />
Mrs. Nella said no. Bill Scales didn't need to hit. He had Betty under his thumb without resorting to<br />
violent behavior. He controlled Betty with his knowledge of how much she loved him.<br />
I said, "He didn't kill her."<br />
Mrs. Nella said, "Oh, I knew that. The police cleared him back when it happened."<br />
Bill said we had a hot suspect now. We might be able to close the case officially.<br />
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Mrs. Nella lit up. Her eyes slipped into focus.<br />
Her companion showed me some press clippings. I read an L.A. Times piece from March '73. It<br />
described the escalating murder rate in El Monte. The ironic postscript: The Scales case was the first<br />
unsolved murder since "Jean Elroy in 1956."<br />
They misspelled my mother's name. They got the year of her death wrong. It pissed me off more than it<br />
should have.<br />
Mrs. Nella gave us a cell scraping. She said she never got to say good-bye to Betty. The police said she<br />
was too far decomposed.<br />
We drove back to El Monte. Tom Armstrong got the file from the Bakersfield PD and let us read<br />
through it.<br />
The kid's name was Robert Leroy Polete Jr. His last name was pronounced Po-lay. He married Vonnie<br />
in April '76. He entered the United States Navy in September '76. He completed basic training. He was<br />
assigned to the Naval Air Station in Lemoore, California. Lemoore is near Bakersfield and Fresno.<br />
Polete was arrested on 2/8/7 7. The charges:<br />
FELONY, IN FOUR COUNTS, TO WIT: RAPE, 261 PC/KIDNAPPING, 209 PC/ROBBERY,<br />
211 PC/ORAL COPULATION, 288A PC.<br />
2/4/77:<br />
Polete leaves Lemoore air station. His intention: to visit his wife in Hacienda Heights. Hacienda Heights<br />
is in the San Gabriel Valley.<br />
Polete has $5. It won't get him out of Kern County. He buys a $4 bus ticket. He lands in Bakersfield at<br />
8:25 P.M.<br />
He doesn't know what to do. He wants to see his wife. She's about to be evicted from her apartment.<br />
He's nursing a grudge. The navy should have stationed him down in L.A.<br />
Polete walks around the bus depot. He contemplates a purse snatch and rejects the notion. If he grabs a<br />
purse in the depot and buys a ticket south, the cops will bust him right here.<br />
He leaves the depot. He walks by the Pacific Telephone Building. He spots a woman. He follows her to<br />
a '74 Honda Civic.<br />
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The woman gets in the car and pulls out. The driver's-side door is unlatched. Polete opens it. He places<br />
a knife against the woman's neck and says, "Move over or you're dead."<br />
The victim says, "You can have my car if you let me out." Polete says, "Don't give me any lip." The<br />
victim slides into the passenger seat.<br />
Polete drives a short distance northwest. He pulls into a parking lot and stops the car. He tells the victim<br />
to crawl into the backseat and undress.<br />
The victim complies. Polete tells her to lie on her stomach. The victim complies. Polete ties her hands<br />
behind her back. He uses her bra, her panties, and a swimsuit top.<br />
Polete orders the victim to turn over and sit up. She complies. Polete gets into the backseat. He kisses<br />
her and fondles her genitalia. He sticks two fingers in her vagina and sticks the same two fingers in her<br />
mouth.<br />
He orally copulates the victim. He rapes her. He wipes his penis with the victim's clothing.<br />
He goes through her purse. He finds $7 in change. He says, "You sure are rich." The victim says she's<br />
got another $6 in bills.<br />
Polete steals the money. He drives to a dark field off the Rosedale Highway. He marches the victim<br />
sixty-five yards in and orders her to sit down. The victim complies. Polete scatters her clothes out of<br />
sight.<br />
He tells the victim not to leave for ten minutes. He says, "I know where to find you." He tells the victim<br />
not to call the cops-- because he's got her ID and he's got friends who'll get her if anything happens to<br />
him. He says he'll drop the car off in Fresno. If anything happens to him or the car, his insurance will take<br />
care of it. He says, "I'm sorry, but I had to do this. I've been treated badly."<br />
Polete drives off. The victim finds her clothes and walks to a gas station. She calls her father. Her father<br />
calls the Bakersfield PD and reports the incident.<br />
Polete drives to Hacienda Heights. He spends the weekend with his wife. He returns to Lemoore air<br />
station early Sunday night.<br />
Tuesday, 2/8/77:<br />
Polete calls the victim's mother--collect. He uses the phone in his office.<br />
The victim's mother does not accept the call. Polete gives her a call-back number and ID's himself as<br />
"Security Officer Johnson." He says he has information on her daughter's car.<br />
Polete hangs up. The victim's mother calls the victim. The victim calls the Bakersfield PD. She talks to<br />
DetectiveJ. D.Jackson. She says a "Security Officer Johnson" called her mother. The man implied her car<br />
was somewhere at Lemoore air station. He left a number: (209) 998-9827. -<br />
Detective Jackson calls the number. Polete answers. Jackson asks him about the car. Polete says<br />
Johnson is handling it. Jackson says he'd like to talk to him. Polete says Johnson is out. Jackson tells him<br />
to secure the car. Polete says he will.<br />
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Jackson talks to his supervisor. They've got a lead on the missing car in the 2/4 rape. The supervisor<br />
calls Lemoore. He contacts the chief of security. The chief tells him that Airman R. L. Polete told him the<br />
following story:<br />
Polete was hitching back to the station last Sunday night. A man in a Honda Civic picked him up. The<br />
man pulled a knife. He told Polete that he stole the car from a woman in Bakersfield. He told him to call<br />
her on Tuesday and make sure she got the car.<br />
Polete balked. The man gave him a phone number for the woman's mother. The man stole Polete's ID<br />
papers. They showed his address in Hacienda Heights. The man said he'd better comply--or his wife<br />
would have problems.<br />
Detective Jackson and Detective J. L. Wheldon drove to Lemoore. They questioned Airman Polete. He<br />
strongly resembled their victim's description. Polete told them his hitchhiking story. Jackson and Wheldon<br />
poked holes in it. They read Polete his Miranda rights. Polete started sobbing. He said he stole the<br />
Honda. He described the events preceding the theft.<br />
From the Bakersfield PD report:<br />
Polete said he had to see his wife. He needed bus fare. He was stuck in Bakersfield. He figured he'd<br />
snatch a purse.<br />
He saw this girl. He pulled his knife and jumped into her car. He stated his intention: to drop her off<br />
someplace safe and split with the car.<br />
He drove off. Polete said the girl came on to him. She rubbed his leg up near his crotch. He said, "Don't<br />
do that, I'm married-- all I want is the car."<br />
The girl said, "If you're going to take the car, you might as well take everything." She groped him again.<br />
She said, "Let's pull over somewhere--get in the backseat and do it."<br />
Polete said he'd do it--"if she promised to leave him alone." The girl got in the backseat and took all her<br />
clothes off. They drove to a dark field.<br />
The girl pulled him into the backseat. She started kissing him. She asked him to give her some head.<br />
Polete refused. The girl said she wouldn't make hini do it.<br />
They had intercourse. Polete got back in the front seat. The girl said, "You said you were going to leave<br />
me off somewhere. Let's go."<br />
Polete dropped the girl off on the other side of the freeway. He found $5 on the floorboard and took it.<br />
He drove down to Hacienda Heights.<br />
Jackson and Wheldon booked Polete on four felony counts: 261, 209, 211, and 288A. The victim<br />
viewed a mug shot spread and identified him. Jackson and Wheldon got a warrant and searched Polete's<br />
locker. They found the clothes the victim said Polete was wearing.<br />
The prelim was held on 3/1/77. Polete was held to answer for the 261 and 209 charges.<br />
He went to trial on 7/5/77. He pleaded guilty. His lawyer said he should. His lawyer thought he could get<br />
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him tagged as an MDSO--a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender.<br />
His lawyer thought he could get him some state-hospital time. His lawyer miscalculated.<br />
The judge gave Polete the maximum sentence. Two terms prescribed by law--to run consecutively. The<br />
court transcript stated:<br />
"I think he is a serious menace to the people of this community and any other community that he would<br />
live in. I want to make sure that he doesn't get out for a long, long time."<br />
I went through the rest of the file. Polete was denied parole in '83, '92, '93, '94, and '96.<br />
Three to life. Two consecutive terms. Twenty years and four months inside. It was unknown why Polete<br />
was denied parole.<br />
Bill and I discussed it. Bill's take: Polete fucked up inside or was recognizably psycho and unable to con<br />
the parole board.<br />
He was locked down at CMC. He couldn't hurt women there.<br />
It wasn't enough. He was up for parole late in '98.<br />
The DNA prescreen flopped. They found blood on the victim's sweater and no semen on her panties.<br />
The next step: to examine the rest of the garments for semen.<br />
The result derailed Bill's plan of attack. He needed a verified semen stain. The lab could run it against Bill<br />
Scales's DNA. A negative hit would indicate unidentified ejaculate. Bill could take that result and get a<br />
search warrant. The warrant would empower him to extract a fluid sample from Robert Leroy Polete.<br />
We discussed options. Bill said it boiled down to a face-to-face talk. He would interview Polete.<br />
We went back to the file. We wanted to make sure we didn't overlook a single bit of data. We pulled<br />
odd note sheets and found new names to run. We got one positive hit.<br />
John Fentress rode bikes with Bill Scales. He joined the El Monte PD in '73. His wife knew BettyJean.<br />
We met him at the El Monte Station. I said, "Tell me about BettyJean."<br />
Fentress said she was talkative and mentally slow. She was totally in love with Bill Scales. Scales was<br />
the boss. Betty went along with the program.<br />
Betty struggled with her marriage. He doubted if Scales ever hit her.<br />
Bill and I went back to the file. We reviewed the physical evidence and hypothetically reconstructed the<br />
crime.<br />
Bloodstains on the truck seat. Small drips and spatters inconsistent with the victim's massive head<br />
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wounds. Hypothetical conclusion: Polete or the unknown assailant did not transport the body to the<br />
gravel pits. The seat would have been badly bloodstained if he drove the body any good distance. It all<br />
went down in the truck.<br />
He kidnapped her. He hijacked the truck. He drove her to the gravel pits. He assaulted her and killed<br />
her there and dumped her immediately.<br />
Hypothetically:<br />
She's nude. He raped her on the seat. He orders her out of the truck. She refuses. She thinks he intends<br />
to take her somewhere and kill her.<br />
He's standing outside the truck. He grabs the staple-bat. He tries to pull the victim out of the cab. She<br />
resists. She's facedown. He hits her on the back of the head and caves her skull in.<br />
He pulls her out of the cab. Her head brushes the seat back and passenger door and leaves stains. He<br />
throws her into the pit.<br />
A sound hypothesis. In sync with aspects of Polete's MO. Suitable for other unknown suspects.<br />
Bill called the prison. He arranged to interview Robert Leroy Polete. I felt the case veer toward a<br />
dead-end metaphysic.<br />
I knew that static level intimately. It defined my mother's case.<br />
Knowledge did not equal provability. Faulty memories spawned misinformation. Hypothetical renderings<br />
imposed logic on chaotic events and were rarely confirmed by firsthand accounts. Evidence was<br />
misplaced. Witnesses died. Their heirs revised and retold their stories inaccurately. Consensus of opinion<br />
seldom equaled truth. The passage of time and new perpetuations of horror deadened the reaction to old<br />
horror. Victims were defined as victims exclusively.<br />
I was able to deconstruct my mother's victimhood. I gathered an ambiguous array of facts and sifted<br />
them through reminiscence and my will to claim and know her. I had memories and personal perception<br />
to guide me. My witnesses supplied me with diverse testimonial lines. I was able to discredit or credit<br />
them from an informed perspective. I was able to establish the extent to which my mother's free will<br />
raged and smeared the ink on her own death warrant.<br />
Betty's death defied deconstruction. Her witnesses defined her unambiguously. I reluctantly bought their<br />
consensus. I wanted to accumulate odd bits of data and credit Betty with a bold streak or a secret mental<br />
life. I did not want to form her in my mother's image or remake her as anything but who she was. I only<br />
wanted proof that she'd lived more. I wanted it for her sake.<br />
The dead-end metaphysic blitzed my shot at my mother's killer. We never approached a live suspect.<br />
We had a live suspect now. We had knowledge and a shot at provability.<br />
5<br />
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10:20A.M. Thursday, 11/20/97:<br />
THE CALIFORNIA MEN'S COLONY AT SAN LUIS OBISP0. SERGEANT BILL STONER<br />
REPRESENTING SHERIFF'S HOMICIDE. DETECTIVE GARY WALKER REPRESENTING EL<br />
MONTE PD. THE SUSPECT: INMATE ROBERT LEROY POLETE JR. PRISON #B84688.<br />
The interview was held in a small administration office. A window overlooked the prison yard. Bill<br />
Stoner sat at a desk. Inmate Polete sat in a chair directly in front of him. Gary Walker sat to the side of<br />
the desk and faced Inmate Polete diagonally.<br />
Bill Stoner's first impression of Inmate Polete:<br />
"He looked soft. He was about thirty pounds heavier than his '73 arrest statistics. He had a paunch, and<br />
his body wasn't toned. His hair had receded in front. He looked like a blond surfer kid who didn't take<br />
care of himself as he got older. He didn't look in any way menacing."<br />
Stoner and Walker identified themselves. They said they were investigating a 1973 murder. Inmate<br />
Polete was a suspect then. They read Inmate Polete his Miranda rights.<br />
Inmate Polete waived his right to have a lawyer present. He said he knew the murder they meant. He<br />
took a polygraph test in '73 and passed it. The test guy asked him some questions about this woman's<br />
murder.<br />
Stoner said he did not pass the test. The result was "inconclusive."<br />
Inmate Polete explained. He said the cops asked questions about the other cases before he took the<br />
test. The cops asked him about the murder. He got scared and confused. He said, "Yes, I did it," out of<br />
fear and frustration.<br />
Koury and Meyers had not stated that he made a flat-out admission. They said he got right to the brink<br />
and retreated.<br />
'My dad's got heart trouble. This would really kill him."<br />
Inmate Polete insisted that he did pass the test. Stoner told him that he did not.<br />
Detective Walker asked Inmate Polete to describe his life in 1973. Inmate Polete said he worked in his<br />
dad's print shop. They lived behind the shop. Him, his dad, his mom, and his kid brother.<br />
He went to Sierra Vista High School. He played the cymbals and the sousaphone in the school band. He<br />
went to the Pentecostal Church at Five Points in El Monte and dated the minister's daughter. He worked<br />
at C&R Printing part-time.<br />
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Bill Stoner's second impression of Inmate Polete:<br />
"He was getting agitated, because he knew we weren't going to just go away. He came off more and<br />
more juvenile emotionally. He had a 17-year-Old personality and attitude stuck in the body of a<br />
42-year-old man."<br />
Inmate Polete said his DNA was on file with the state. It would prove he did not kill that woman. He<br />
was very emphatic.<br />
Inmate Polete said he only did two crimes total. He was trying to reach out. He thought no one cared<br />
about him.<br />
Stoner asked him which two crimes he meant. Inmate Polete said the Bakersfield thing and that thing<br />
with the woman who stabbed him. The women did not understand. He just wanted to be held and loved.<br />
Stoner contradicted him. Stoner told him that he sodomized a teenage girl on 3/8/73. The assault<br />
occurred in Baldwin Park. The victim identified him.<br />
Inmate Polete denied the assault. He said someone else copped out to that case.<br />
No one else copped out to that case.<br />
Stoner read from a Baldwin Park PD report. It was dated 3/20/73. A Baldwin Park PD detective<br />
stated:<br />
Robert Leroy Polete admitted the kidnap/rape of 3/8/73. Robert Leroy Polete admitted two other<br />
attempted abductions. The dates: 2/16/72 and 3/13/73. He wasn't tried for the crimes.<br />
Stoner asked Inmate Polete to explain the report. Inmate Polete said he did not commit those crimes.<br />
He could not explain the report.<br />
Stoner read from a Temple City Sheriff's report. It was dated 4/25/73. A Sheriff's detective stated:<br />
Robert Leroy Polete said he blacked out while watching girls at the shopping center on Durfee and<br />
Peck. He woke up back at C&R Printing, one and a half blocks east. He was sweaty. He could not<br />
recall what he had done. A woman identified Robert Leroy Polete. She told detectives he assaulted her<br />
in front of Durfee Drugs. The event occurred at 1:30 P.M., 4/23/73.<br />
Stoner asked Inmate Polete to explain the report. Inmate Polete said the facts were wrong. He never<br />
told anybody he blacked out that day. He was never at Durfee Drugs.<br />
Stoner read from a Sheriff's Homicide report. It was dated 4/25/73. Deputy Hal Meyers stated:<br />
Robert Leroy Polete said that he suffers from blackouts. He cannot recall any of the assaults that he was<br />
accused of. He snapped out of blackouts twice and found himself hurting women. He said he may have<br />
done things that he cannot recall.<br />
Stoner asked Inmate Polete to explain the report. Inmate Polete said he never committed crimes during<br />
blackouts. The only crime he committed as a kid was that thing with the woman who stabbed him. The<br />
only crime he committed as a grown-up was that Bakersfield thing.<br />
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And:<br />
He felt guilty about the Bakersfield thing and turned himself in at the air base.<br />
And:<br />
He knew why he blacked out. It was anger at his father. His father used to beat him with his fists and a<br />
belt.<br />
And:<br />
He was never alone when he went into blackouts.<br />
And:<br />
If he did cop out to some crimes, it was just to anger his parents.<br />
Stoner did not say, "You never turned yourself in.,, He did not ask Inmate Polete how he knew what he<br />
did in blackouts. He did not challenge his "I was never alone" statement. He was letting his lies<br />
accumulate. He'd contradict them at the right moment.<br />
Stoner asked Inmate Polete how he got along with girls and women. Inmate Polete said he got along<br />
with them fine. Stoner mentioned an old file note. It stated: Polete told a cop that fourteen girls beat him<br />
up in the seventh grade. His girl troubles started then.<br />
Inmate Polete said he never had girl troubles. Fourteen boys beat him up--not fourteen girls.<br />
And:<br />
He knew why that thing happened with that woman who stabbed him. It was because his mother was<br />
contemplating suicide. He was mad at her because she wanted to leave him. He just wanted to be loved<br />
and held.<br />
And:<br />
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He knew why that thing in Bakersfield happened. He was mad at his father. He was having marital<br />
problems on top of his thing with his dad. He wanted to prove he could still perform sexually.<br />
Bill Stoner's third impression of Inmate Polete:<br />
"He had a defensive and poorly reasoned answer for everything. I couldn't tell if he believed his lies or<br />
not. I got some details on his parole hearings before the interview. Polete never took responsibility for his<br />
Bakersfield rape and continued to state that the victim came on to him. He wasn't smart enough to feign<br />
simple remorse in order to get out of prison."<br />
Stoner switched gears. He mentioned Betty Jean's children. They grew up with no mother.<br />
Inmate Polete started sobbing. Stoner thought they might be getting close. Walker asked Inmate Polete<br />
if he'd like to give it up.<br />
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Inmate Polete stood up. He wiped his eyes and balled his fists. He looked flat-out scary.<br />
He yelled at Stoner and Walker. He said he didn't kill anybody. He said the interview was over as of<br />
now.<br />
The interview was terminated at 12:30 P.M.<br />
Bill called me. He described the interview in significant detail. I asked him if he thought Polete killed her.<br />
He said yes. I asked him if Gary Walker agreed. He said yes.<br />
I asked Bill what he planned to do next. He said he wanted to talk to some people and brace Polete<br />
with more information.<br />
12/1/97:<br />
Bill Stoner calls the Beaverton, Oregon, PD. He talks to Lieutenant Jim Byrd. Lieutenant Byrd worked<br />
Baldwin Park PD in 1973.<br />
He remembers Robby Polete. He calls him a "choirboy rapist." He tells Stoner that Polete admitted the<br />
entire series of assaults that he was initially accused of. Polete supplied details to substantiate his<br />
admissions. Polete said he was admitting the crimes because he did them. He tried to shift the blame to<br />
his victims. He said they all came on to him.<br />
Stoner brings up the 3/8/73 case. Polete contends that someone else copped out.<br />
Lieutenant Byrd says no. Another man was arrested that night--but the victim exonerated him<br />
immediately.<br />
Stoner asks why Polete was never charged with the 3/8 crimes: Kidnap/Sodomy/Oral Copulation.<br />
Lieutenant Byrd says the victim moved out of state. Her parents didn't want her to testify and relive her<br />
ordeal in court.<br />
And:<br />
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Lieutenant Byrd attended a hearing on Polete's attempt-rape case. He observed Polete and his father<br />
outside the courtroom.<br />
The father was dispensing advice. He told Robby to say that the woman who stabbed him came on to<br />
him first.<br />
12/2/97:<br />
Bill Stoner calls Roger Kaiser--Baldwin Park PD, retired. Kaiser remembers Robby Polete and his<br />
father.<br />
Polete Senior was the treasurer of the Baldwin Park Little League. League officials accused him of<br />
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embezzling league funds. The case was settled out of court. Polete Senior made restitution.<br />
12/4/97:<br />
Bill Stoner calls the music director for the Baldwin Park school district. The man supervised the Sierra<br />
Vista High School band in 1973.<br />
He remembers Robby Polete. Robby was scatterbrained, undependable, and a lot of talk that never<br />
turned into action. Robby and his brother were very afraid of their father.<br />
12/8/97:<br />
Gary Walker calls the former pastor of the Pentecostal Church of God in El Monte. The man does not<br />
recall Robby Polete. He doubts that his daughter dated him.<br />
Walker talks to the pastor's wife. She recalls Robby Polete and his brother.<br />
They went to her husband's church. Sometimes the boys would walk. Sometimes she and her husband<br />
would give them a ride. The pastor and his wife had two girls at Sierra Vista High School then. They<br />
didn't socialize with Robby or his brother outside of school or church. She knew that Robby was<br />
arrested back in '73. It surprised her. He didn't seem to be a violent boy.<br />
Stoner ran checks on Polete's ex-wife, parents, and brother.<br />
The father was dead. The mother and brother were living in Oregon. He couldn't locate Polete's<br />
ex-wife--Vonnie Polete. He found a Bakersfield file note that surprised him.<br />
Robert Polete and Vonnie Polete were undoubtedly divorced. Polete had remarried.<br />
8/12/87:<br />
A woman named Lori M. Polete writes to the Kern County courthouse. She identifies herself as Robert<br />
L. Polete's wife. She requests a copy of his 1977 court records.<br />
She was living in Oregon then.<br />
Bill held off on the mother and brother. He put the wives aside.<br />
He wanted to brace Robby first.<br />
Thursday, 12/11/97:<br />
THE CALIFORNIA MEN'S COLONY AT SAN Luis OBIsPo. SERGEANT BILL STONER<br />
REPRESENTING SHERIFF'S HOMICIDE. DETECTIVE GARY WALKER REPRESENTING EL<br />
MONTE PD. THE SUSPECT: INMATE ROBERT LEROY POLETE JR. PRISON #B84688.<br />
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The interview was held in a parole-hearing office. Stoner and Walker sat at the long end of a T-shaped<br />
table. Inmate Polete sat at the T end.<br />
Bill Stoner's first impression of Inmate Polete:<br />
"He was scared now. But I could tell he was curious. He wanted to know what we had."<br />
Stoner went in calm and slow. He told Polete that they checked out his exoneration claims. They talked<br />
to two Baldwin Park detectives. Both men said his claims were untrue. The 3/8 victim moved out of state<br />
and declined to testify, No one else was arrested or charged with those crimes. Polete admitted his guilt<br />
in '73. Both detectives said so. The 3/14 attempt rape was the most prosecutable case. The 12/16, 3/13,<br />
and 4/23 cases were not as viable. Prosecutors liked to present concise cases. He got lucky that way.<br />
Inmate Polete said the 3/14 case was bogus. The so-called victim was bogus. He said she had a thing<br />
with one of the cops.<br />
Stoner mentioned Inmate Polete's alleged blackouts. Stoner said he had obtained Polete's juvenile<br />
records and wanted to discuss some discrepancies.<br />
Inmate Polete blew up. He balled his fists and yelled at Stoner and Walker. He said the interview was<br />
over. They had no right to look at his juvie file.<br />
And:<br />
He had an alibi for the night of the murder. He was at a churchfellowship thing. The whole congregation<br />
would back up his claim.<br />
The Pentecostal Church of God was across the street from Crawford's Market. Betty Jean Scales<br />
vanished en route to Crawford's.<br />
Inmate Polete was very upset. Stoner did not ask the obvious questions:<br />
How do you recall your actions on a given night twenty-four years and eleven months ago? What made<br />
that night so auspicious or so horrible or so traumatic that you will remember every detail for the rest of<br />
your life?<br />
Inmate Polete walked out of the room. The interview was terminated at 1:00 P.M.<br />
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Bill said it hit him hard. It hit Gary Walker simultaneously.<br />
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The church and Crawford's Market. Polete's market-snatch MO. Subsequent assaults at the Food King<br />
and Lucky Market. The alibi that played like an admission.<br />
Bill said it hit him hard. He told me a story to dramatize the impact.<br />
He worked a case years back. A body dump in Torrance. A white male victim.<br />
They ID'd him. His roommate was a carpet layer.<br />
They took him to lunch. The man was not a suspect.<br />
They took him to his apartment. They wanted to talk some more. They needed his take on the victim.<br />
They walked in the door. Bill saw a brand-new carpet on the living-room floor.<br />
And:<br />
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He knew that the man killed the victim right there. He knew that he'd find washed-out blood spots under<br />
the carpeting.<br />
He found them. He confronted the man. The man confessed.<br />
That was a fresh case. This was an old case. Instinctive knowledge never equals provability.<br />
Circumstantial confirmation buttresses instinctive knowledge and increases its evidentiary value.<br />
12/15/97:<br />
Bill Stoner calls the church pastor's daughter. She says she never dated Robby Polete. She never saw<br />
him with other girls. She saw him at school. She saw him at church youth groups.<br />
12/16/97:<br />
Bill Stoner calls the former youth-group leader. She does not recall Robby Polete. Youth-group<br />
meetings were held at the church on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays. They ran from 7:30 P.M. to<br />
9:30 P.M.<br />
1/29/73 was a Monday. Betty Jean Scales was last seen at 8:30 P.M.<br />
Bill checked out C&R Printing. The 1973 owner still owned the shop.<br />
He remembered Robby Polete. Polete's dad owned a shop in Baldwin Park. Robby worked at C&R<br />
sporadically. He did his dad's loan-out jobs.<br />
Bill went through old work sheets and time cards. He had to see if Robby worked on 1/29/73.<br />
The work sheets and time cards only went back to 1979. The man tossed his older records to save shelf<br />
space.<br />
The dead-end metaphysic.<br />
Bill found Lori Polete. He interviewed her. He interviewed Robby's mother and brother.<br />
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The brother didn't have much to say. He and Robby ran with different crowds. The mother said Robby<br />
couldn't have killed BettyJean. She said she had ESP. She would have known if Robby killed some<br />
woman. She almost killed herself a long time ago. She saw a preacher on a TV show. He convinced her<br />
not to do it.<br />
Lori started out as Robby's pen pal. She thought Robby would be paroled soon. She wised up after a<br />
while. She figured out that Robby never wised up to himself. He never took responsibility for his own<br />
actions. He couldn't survive out of prison.<br />
The dead-end metaphysic has an evidentiary upside. Complex procedures take time. Positive results can<br />
strike out of nowhere.<br />
The sheriff's crime lab found a stain on Betty Jean's Levi's. The technician said it might be a semen stain.<br />
The identification procedure is still in progress.<br />
The dead-end metaphysic has a psychic upside.<br />
Frightened people lose their fear over time. Guilty people divulge information injudiciously. Compliant<br />
people wise up to the people who exploit them. Tired people fold and betray their secrets.<br />
People relinquish. Intransigent detectives wait and stay poised to listen. They hover. They eavesdrop.<br />
They prowl moral fault lines. They assume their victims' and their killers' perspectives and live their lives<br />
to stalk revelation.<br />
In the matter of BettyJean Scales, white female, DOD 1/29/73:<br />
Bill Stoner will continue. Sheriff's Homicide and the El Monte PD will extend their investigation. Stoner<br />
will remain fixed on Robert Leroy Polete. He will not succumb to bias. He will retain an objective eye for<br />
leads that might subvert his opinion that Polete killed Betty Jean Scales. He stands by ready to address<br />
the California State Parole Board in the fall of '98.<br />
He will portray Polete as a remorseless predator with good predatory years left and the will to<br />
perpetuate his rage. He will state his opinion that Polete should be kept in prison for the rest of his life.<br />
He will tell the Story of women savaged in anger and self-pity, He will pray for a receptive parole board.<br />
He will draw strength from his dead going in. Tracy Stewart. Karen Reilly. Bunny Krauch.<br />
Killed by men known and unknown.<br />
Add Betty Jean Scales and Geneva Hilliker <strong>Ellroy</strong>. Add me as Stoner's chronicler. Add my<br />
insurmountable debt and his professional commitment. Add the need to know and serve that drives us<br />
both. Factor in the core of sex that drives us toward these women.<br />
Bill Stoner will continue. I will continue to tell his story. Our collective dead demand it.<br />
March, April 1998<br />
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CRIME WAVE:<br />
REPORTAGE AND FICTION FROM THE UNDERSIDE OF L.A.<br />
by<strong>James</strong> <strong>Ellroy</strong><br />
LITified by Namtillaku<br />
Copyright 1999 by <strong>James</strong> Eliroy<br />
Introduction copyright 1999 by Art Cooper<br />
Introduction by Art Cooper, Editor-in-Chief GQ<br />
PART ONE: UNSOLVED<br />
Body Dumps<br />
My Mother's Killer<br />
Glamour Jungle<br />
PART TWO: GETCHELL<br />
Hush-Hush<br />
Tijuana, Mon Amour<br />
PART THREE: CONTINO<br />
Out of the Past<br />
Hollywood Shakedown<br />
Page 42
GLAMOUR JUNGLE<br />
I<br />
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The <strong>Crim</strong>e<br />
PART FOUR: L.A.<br />
Sex, Glitz, and Greed: The Seduction of O.J. Simpson<br />
The Tooth of <strong>Crim</strong>e<br />
Bad Boys in Tinseltown<br />
Let's Twist Again<br />
SHERIFF'S HOMICIDE FILE #Z-961-651. DATE: 11/30/63. LOCATION: 1227½ NORTH<br />
SWEETZER AVENUE, WEST HOLLYWOOD. VICTIM: KUPCINET, KARYN (NMI),<br />
W/F/22/DOB 3/6/41.<br />
The place:<br />
A courtyard complex off the Sunset Strip.<br />
The victim:<br />
A drug-addicted and eating-disordered actress-dilettante.<br />
The crux of the major-case commitment:<br />
Money and prestige. The victim's father had very large pull.<br />
Saturday, 11/30/63. 7:00 P.M.:<br />
Mark Goddard enters the courtyard. His wife, waits in the car. Mark Goddard is a TV actor. Marcia<br />
Goddard is Karyn Kupcinet's best friend.<br />
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They're worried about her. She had dinner at their house Wednesday night. She acted very weird.<br />
Her eyes were pinned-out. She said she took a Miltown. She told them a crazy story.<br />
She said she found a baby on her doorstep. The cops came and took him away. The story was wholly<br />
fantastic.<br />
Goddard walked up to Karyn's apartment and knocked on the door. He saw a light on inside. He got<br />
no answer. He tried the door. It popped open.<br />
Goddard got scared. He went back to the car and brought Marcia up. They entered the apartment. The<br />
TV was on. The sound was down low.<br />
They saw a body on the couch. It was nude and stretched out facedown.<br />
Marcia screamed. Mark ran to the manager's apartment. The manager called the West Hollywood<br />
Sheriff's Station.<br />
The dispatcher radioed a patrol car. The manager grabbed a neighbor with some medical skills. The man<br />
entered the apartment and confirmed the victim was dead.<br />
The patrol cops arrived. They examined the victim and noted signs of decomp. Fluids dripped from the<br />
mouth, nose, and eye sockets. The purge had turned her face blue-black.<br />
The patrol cops talked to Mark and Marcia Goddard. They observed the immediate scene.<br />
They noted:<br />
"Several magazines lying on the porch outside the deceased's front door, dating to 11/28/63.<br />
Immediately inside the front door and approximately 8" from the west end of the couch was an<br />
overturned glass container with numerous cigarettes inside and sixteen Kent cigarettes strewn about the<br />
floor at the end of the couch. A white metal coffee maker (pot) was lying on its side approximately io feet<br />
north of the couch. The television was observed to be playing at a moderate volume on Channel 4. A<br />
lamp table on the east wall of the living room was observed to have the lower drawer standing open, and<br />
a coat-closet door was open in the northeast corner of the living room. The bedroom was observed to<br />
have numerous articles of clothing and bedding strewn about the floor, and three dresser drawers were<br />
standing open. The rear door was observed to be secured from the inside with a hook-and-eye type<br />
fastener."<br />
The patrol cops talked to Mark and Marcia Goddard. They revealed:<br />
Karyn was a close friend. They met her in '61. Her father was Irv Kupcinet. He was a columnist and TV<br />
host in Chicago. "Kup" was big-time. He was "Mr. Chicago."<br />
They saw Karyn Wednesday night. She said she saw a shrink. The shrink said she was in bad shape.<br />
Karyn was seeing an actor named Andy Prine. Andy costarred on the Wide Country show. The<br />
romance was dead. Karyn was very depressed.<br />
8:45 P.M.:<br />
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Sheriff's Homicide arrives. Representing the squad: Lieutenant George Walsh, Sergeant Bobby<br />
Chapman, Sergeant Jim Wahike.<br />
They talked to Mark and Marcia Goddard. They observed the immediate scene.<br />
They noted:<br />
"Location consisted of a living room, an attached dining area, kitchen, hallway, one bedroom and bath.<br />
"A red bathrobe was observed on an overstuffed chair on the east side of the living room. This bathrobe<br />
appeared to have been taken off and placed in the chair in a disorderly fashion...<br />
"The living room closet door was observed to be open. Expensive items of clothing, including a mink<br />
stole, were immediately visible. Other items, such as a pair of women's shoes and a teddy bear, were<br />
also observed lying on the floor in the vicinity of the doorway leading into the hall, bathroom, and<br />
bedroom."<br />
Dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Three coffee cups. An empty cake box on a hallway book stand. A<br />
serving knife on top of it.<br />
An orderly bathroom. A negligee on a hanger. A brassiere on the left side of the washstand.<br />
The bedroom:<br />
Twin beds shoved together. Disheveled sheets and bedcovers.<br />
On the beds:<br />
One nightgown, one shower cap, one hairbrush, one towel, one red-checked blouse.<br />
A dressing table. A bath towel wadded up on a chair. A pile of women's clothes on the floor.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke searched the apartment. They found a weird book. It was open to a very weird<br />
page. The text said you should dance in the nude to free your inhibitions.<br />
They checked the medicine chest. They found thirteen pill jars. They read the fill dates on the labels.<br />
Miltown, Amvicel, Thyroid Extract, Modaline, Desoxyn.<br />
Miltown was a trank. Desoxyn was a diet pill/upper. Two fiftypill Desoxyn scripts were refilled last<br />
Monday. Forty-eight pills and thirty-three pills were gone. A twenty-five-pill Modaline script was refilled<br />
on Tuesday. Eight pills were gone. A fifty-pill Amvicel script was filled on Monday. Six pills were gone.<br />
A hundred-pill Desoxyn script was filled on 11/9. The hundred pills were gone.<br />
Chapman called the victim's parents in Chicago. They took it hard. They said they'd fly out in the<br />
morning.<br />
10:30 P.M.:<br />
Division Chief Floyd Rosenberg and Captain Al Etzel arrive. Two photo cops show up. They shoot the<br />
pad and the victim's body. Lieutenant Walsh finds a handwritten note.<br />
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For me--<br />
I feel self-conscious about this, like I'm going to have to get approval on it eventually. (Approval it is--or<br />
you're doomed to insignificance). Everything I've done, supposedly being myself and with the promise of<br />
anonymity, I do for approval . . . knowing. . . "this'll get 'em." "They'll love me for this" and "They'll say<br />
nice things behind my back."<br />
I guess I've been searching for an identity too desperately. . . seized the nearest image; whether David<br />
and doing things his way and pointedly not compromising with my traditional way--and using it vs. my<br />
parents--snubbing my nose at their way. Always hate to be with them after a lengthy visit with "current"<br />
boyfriend and their families-- guilt--I guess. Trying to show them I can be something. Always faking it.<br />
Never tapping my own resources. Afraid of--what? Me or that there won't be anything.<br />
I'm no good. I'm not really that pretty. My figure's fat and will never be the way my mother wants it. I<br />
won't let it be what wants. How stupid. I want to be slim and she loves me and wants me to be<br />
slim--intellectualization doesn't mark.<br />
Why must I be so alone. Have I fallen that short of my ideal? Why does my image of me have to be so<br />
aesthetic and perfect? What's the use of living with nothing to believe in? Have faith in? Where's the<br />
security--or habit or order--oh shit--what good is that going to do? What happens to me-- or my Andy?<br />
Why doesn't he want me? Why? There's no GOD.<br />
There's nothing only phony motives, selfish egoists, selfless people, fat heads and drunks, and I want<br />
I like President Kennedy, Bertrand Russell, Theodore Reiks, Peter O'Toole, SydneyJ. Harris, Albert<br />
Finney.<br />
I just care about now who gives a shit about 10 years from now. (there won't be any with Andy--maybe<br />
that's it.) If only I had a reason. No one needs me--or cares to need me. They're right. I'm bored and I'm<br />
a doll at first, then a phony and fake. I feel like "they" owe me a life. Like all my failings are their fault. . . .<br />
I dare them to make me happy. How immature and childish--I know.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke let the Goddards go home.<br />
The press arrived. They caught the dead-body call off a policeband broadcast. Chapman and Wahlke<br />
made them stand in the courtyard. They revealed the victim's name and ID'd her father. The reporters<br />
dispersed and phoned in their stories.<br />
The coroner's investigator arrived. He removed the victim's body and took it to the L.A. County<br />
Morgue. Dr. Harold Kade performed the autopsy.<br />
Rubberneckers jammed up the courtyard. The victim's phone rang. Chapman grabbed it.<br />
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The caller said his name was Bryan O'Byrne. He said he heard a radio bit on Karyn. He knew Andy<br />
Prine. He said he'd try to find him and bring him to the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station.<br />
Rosenberg, Walsh, and Etzel drove back to Homicide. Chapman and Wahlke locked up the apartment.<br />
They drove to the West Hollywood Station.<br />
Three men arrived. They said they heard a radio spot and rushed right down.<br />
Their names:<br />
Robert Hathaway--white male/age 24. William Mamches-- white male/age 23. Edward Rubin--white<br />
male/age 22.<br />
They knew the victim and Andy Prine. Rubin and Hathaway saw Karyn last Wednesday night. They left<br />
her pad at 11:00 P.M.<br />
She fed them coffee and cake. They split after The Danny Kaye Show.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke told the guys to come back later. They'd have to submit full statements.<br />
3:00 A.M.:<br />
Chapman and Wahlke drove down to Homicide. They called Dr. Kade. He said they had a murder.<br />
His stated cause of death:<br />
Manual strangulation. The victim's hyoid bone was fractured.<br />
The only visible trauma was neck trauma. The decomp wiped out all possible signs of face trauma.<br />
The probable time-of-death: late Wednesday P.M. or early Thursday A.M.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke told Etzel and Rosenberg. Etzel called Sergeant Ward Hallinen and Sergeant Roy<br />
Collins. He assigned them to the Kupcinet case.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke called the captain of the Sheriff's Metro Squad. The captain called Deputy Jim<br />
Boyer and Deputy Sam Miller. He told them to work the Kupcinet case full-time.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke went back to the victim's apartment. A print team arrived and dusted all four<br />
rooms. A backup crew arrived. They bagged bedding, towels, sofa cushions, and clothing.<br />
7:00 A.M., Sunday, 12/1/63:<br />
Chapman called Mark and Marcia Goddard. Wahlke called Hathaway, Mamches, and Rubin. They<br />
arranged a string of interviews at the West Hollywood Station.<br />
The Karyn Kupcinet case was twelve hours old.<br />
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The witnesses showed up. A stenographer transcribed their statements verbatim.<br />
Bryan O'Byrne found Andy Prine and brought him in. Chapman and Wahlke braced him first. The<br />
interview began at 7:45 A.M. and ended at 8:54.<br />
Prine was 27. He said he met Karyn last December. She got a gig on his show. They started dating. He<br />
got Karyn pregnant last summer. Mark and Marcia Goddard took her to Tj. She got an abortion there.<br />
Chapman asked Prine where they stood lately. Prine said it was "minimized." He didn't want to marry<br />
Karyn. He wanted to date other chicks. Karyn was into their thing more than he was.<br />
Wahlke asked Prine if his buddies ever came on to Karyn. Prine said, "No." Wahlke asked Prine if<br />
Karyn would fight off a rape-o. Prine said, "Yes." Wahlke asked Prine if Karyn slept around. Prine said,<br />
"No."<br />
Wahlke asked Prine if Karyn had any enemies. Prine said some nut sent them both hate notes.<br />
It started last summer. The notes were made up from magazine clips. The nut placed them by his door<br />
and Karyn's. The nut knew when they were home and when they were out.<br />
Karyn got a dozen dirty phone calls. He got some weird hangups. He took the notes to the LAPD. They<br />
told him not to sweat it. Stuff like that happened to minor celebrities.<br />
Wahlke asked Prine when he last saw Karyn. Prine said they went to Palm Springs last weekend. Earl<br />
Holliman and his chick went with them. Earl was on Wide Country.<br />
The Kennedy snuff bummed them all out. They decided to hit the Springs and catch some rays. They left<br />
Friday night and got back Sunday night. He dropped Karyn off at 8:oo P.M. He never saw her again.<br />
Wahlke asked Prine when he last talked to Karyn. He said they talked twice on Wednesday--i 1/2 7. -<br />
She called him about 6:oo P.M. They discussed the baby that someone dumped on her doorstep. He<br />
went out that night. He took an actress chick to a movie. They saw A Streetcar Named Desire. They<br />
went out for a drink. He dropped her off at her pad. He went home and called Karyn. It was 11:30 or<br />
12:00. Karyn said the cops took the baby away.<br />
Wahlke asked Prine if he caused Karyn's death. Prine said, "No." Wahlke asked him if he'd take a<br />
polygraph test. Prine said, "Yes."<br />
Chapman and Wahlke braced Edward Rubin. The interview began at 9:07 A.M. and ended at 10:03.<br />
Rubin was a "free-lance writer." He shared a pad in Beverly Hills. He used to live next door to Andy<br />
Prine. Bill Mamches and Bob Hathaway shared the pad now.<br />
Chapman asked Rubin if he had sex with Karyn. Rubin said, "No." Chapman asked Rubin how long he<br />
knew her. Rubin said, "Five months."<br />
Chapman asked Rubin about the Karyn-Andy thing. Rubin said Karyn loved Andy more than Andy<br />
loved her. Chapman asked Rubin about Wednesday night. Rubin laid it out.<br />
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He walked over to Karyn's pad. He got there around 8:30. They talked for an hour. Karyn got antsy<br />
and went for a walk. She ran into Bob Hathaway. She brought him back up. She served cake and<br />
coffee. They all watched TV.<br />
Karyn mentioned the baby she found. Chapman asked Rubin if he thought she made up the story. Rubin<br />
said, "Possibly."<br />
Karyn dozed with two guys right there. He walked her into the bedroom and watched her get into bed.<br />
He watched TV with Bob. They split. They walked down to the Raincheck Room. They spent fifteen or<br />
twenty minutes there. They walked to Bob's car and drove to Bob and Bill's place. They got there about<br />
11 :30. Bill was asleep. They watched a flick on TV Andy Prine showed up a half-hour later. They<br />
gabbed until 3:oo A.M. Andy lived next door. He dropped by a lot. Long bullshit sessions were<br />
common. Andy said he went to a rodeo. He went to Grassari's Bar right after.<br />
Rubin's statement contradicted Prine's. Prine said he took a chick to a movie.<br />
Wahlke asked Rubin if Andy had a bad temper. Rubin said, "He is usually very calm." Wahlke asked<br />
Rubin if he ever saw Andy perform violent acts. Rubin said, "No." Wahlke asked Rubin if he'd take a<br />
polygraph test. Rubin said, "Yes."<br />
Chapman and Wahlke braced Bob Hathaway. The interview began at 10:15 A.M. and ended at 10:34.<br />
Hathaway was a part-time actor. He confirmed Rubin's Wednesday night run-through.<br />
Karyn was restless and tired. That baby-on-the-doorstep thing had her wheels spinning.<br />
Wahlke asked Hathaway if he ever hit on Karyn. Hathaway said, "Never." Wahlke asked him about<br />
Karyn and Andy. Hathaway said they were on-again, off-again.<br />
He confirmed Rubin:<br />
Andy said he went to a rodeo that night.<br />
Wahlke asked Hathaway if Andy was a violent guy. Hathaway said, "No." Wahlke asked him if he'd<br />
take a polygraph test. Hathaway said, "Yes."<br />
Chapman and Wahlke braced Bill Mamches. The interview began at 10:40 A.M. and ended at 10:54.<br />
Mamches was a part-time actor. He said he knew Karyn casually. He never went out with her. He<br />
never hit on her. Andy never bragged about the sex they had. Andy wasn't an evil cat. He chased<br />
broads. He wasn't a one-woman man. Karyn was a oneman woman.<br />
Chapman asked Mamches if he'd take a polygraph test. Mamches said, "Yes."<br />
Chapman and Wahlke braced Marcia Goddard. The interview began at 11:20A.M. and ended at<br />
11:52.<br />
Chapman asked Mrs. Goddard if Karyn made up tales. Mrs. Goddard said, "Yes." Chapman asked her<br />
if the baby tale was typical. Mrs. Goddard called it an- extreme example. Her husband called the hospital<br />
and learned that Karyn lied.<br />
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Chapman mentioned Karyn's pill use. Mrs. Goddard called it excessive.<br />
Karyn left her house at 8:30 P.M. Wednesday. A cab picked her up. Karyn didn't drive. She took cabs<br />
everywhere. She said she'd call Marcia later. She never called her again.<br />
Chapman asked Mrs. Goddard how Karyn looked last Wednesday. Mrs. Goddard said her lips<br />
seemed numb. Her voice was funny. She moved her head at odd angles.<br />
Wahlke asked Mrs. Goddard to name Karyn's old boyfriends. She mentioned David Wallerstein. He<br />
was an old family friend. He lived in Pomona now. He loved Karyn. She didn't love him. She didn't think<br />
of him as a love interest.<br />
Chapman asked Mrs. Goddard to describe Karyn's morals. Mrs. Goddard said, "I couldn't say."<br />
Chapman asked her if Karyn slept around. Mrs. Goddard said, "Not that I know of." Wahlke asked her<br />
if she'd take a polygraph test. Mrs. Goddard said, "Yes."<br />
Chapman and Wahlke braced Mark Goddard. The interview began at 12:00 P.M. and ended at 12:19.<br />
Goddard had a costar gig on The Bill Dana Show. He knew Karyn for two-plus years. His wife's<br />
parents knew her parents.<br />
Wahlke brought up Andy Prine. Goddard said he liked him. He was a good actor. He was a<br />
straight-ahead guy. Wahlke asked Goddard if Karyn loved Andy more than Andy loved her. Goddard<br />
said, "Yes." Wahlke asked him if Andy ever hit Karyn. Goddard said, "No, sir, never."<br />
Goddard said Karyn was blitzed Wednesday night. He confronted her. She put an arm around him and<br />
cried.<br />
Wahlke asked Goddard if Karyn was a dick tease. Goddard said, "No." Wahlke asked him if he'd take<br />
a polygraph test. Goddard said, "Yes."<br />
Irv Kupcinet showed up at Karyn's apartment. He brought his lawyer along. Captain Etzel and Chief<br />
Rosenberg briefed them. Deputy Boyer and Deputy Miller arrived. Rosenberg told them to canvass the<br />
neighborhood.<br />
Prine, Rubin, Mamches, and Hathaway took polygraph tests. All four were judged inconclusive.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke reinterviewed Prine and Rubin. Prine said the bull session went down Tuesday<br />
night. Rubin said it went down Wednesday. Chapman and Wahike called the actress chick. She partially<br />
confirmed Prine's statement.<br />
She ran into Andy at Grassari's Tuesday night. He said he just went to the rodeo. They made a date for<br />
Wednesday night. The date went down like Andy said it did.<br />
Chapman and Wahlke ran a string of checks. They ran Prine, Rubin, Hathaway, and Mamches. They<br />
came back clean--no wants, no warrants, no rap sheets. Chapman and Wahlke ran a check on Karyn<br />
Kupcinet. She came back dirty. The Pomona PD popped her for petty theft. The bust occurred on 1<br />
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1/10/62.<br />
She boosted some stuff from a store. She got a fine and three years' probation.<br />
Hallinen and Collins found David Wallerstein. He was covered for the victim's estimated time-of-death.<br />
The print men filed a report. They found prints for the victim and Edward Rubin. They found a few<br />
unknown sets.<br />
Boyer and Miller canvassed the courtyard and the adjoining buildings. They asked about suspicious shit<br />
Wednesday night and Thursday morning.<br />
12271/4 North Sweetzer--nothing. 1227 North Sweetzer-- zilch.<br />
1223½ 1225, 1235 D-2, 12291/2, 1221½, 12231/2, 1229, 1233 A-1, A-2, and B-1--nothing.<br />
Miller hit 1223¼. The female tenant snitched off the guy who lived below Karyn.<br />
His name was David Lange. He did something weird. It happened Sunday evening--12/1/63.<br />
He walked into the woman's pad uninvited. He said he walked up to Karyn's door on Friday. It was<br />
unlocked. He jiggled the knob--but didn't go in. He ran into some cops last night. He didn't tell them the<br />
exact truth.<br />
Boyer and Miller looked for Lange. They couldn't find him.<br />
1229--nothing. 1223 and 1221¼--vacant. 1231¼--nothing. Eight tenants unavailable or out of town.<br />
Andy Prine turned over the notes he got. Chapman and Wahlke sent them to the <strong>Crim</strong>e Lab.<br />
On 4 X 6 plain white paper:WANT YOUR HOT BODY. ONLY TAMPAX WILL STOP YOUR<br />
FERTILITY PROBLEM.<br />
On 6 X 10 plain white paper:YOU WILL NEED PROTECTION. BEN CASEY CAUGHT<br />
MESSAGE FOR YOUR BEAU. YOU HAVEN'T MUCH TIME FOR DREAMS.<br />
On 4 X 6 plain white paper:FORGET FAME AND ROMANCE WITH AGING GLEN FORD.<br />
DEVIL MUST KILL YOU.<br />
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On 5 X 7½ lined paper:YOUR LADY NEEDS SURGERY SUDDENLY. EXPECT TO GET BAD<br />
BREAKS WHEREVER YOU GO. YOUR RICH BEAUTY HAS NO TIME.<br />
On 4 X 6 plain white paper:ARE YOU GOING TO LATIN AMERICA OR FLORIDA? LET YOUR<br />
BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN BECOME LONESOME AND SO EASY TO MAKE. BET K KUP TASTES<br />
AS GOOD AS IT LOOKS. BLOW.<br />
On 6 X 10 plain white paper:YOU ARE THE CERTAIN GIRL TO DIE.<br />
On 4½ X 7½ lined paper:YOU MAY DIE WITHOUT NOBODY. WINNER OF LONELINESS<br />
WANTS DEATH UNTIL SOMEONE SPECIAL CARES.<br />
The words were clipped from movie magazines. They were secured with Scotch tape. A lab crew<br />
searched the victim's apartment. They found the magazines that were used.<br />
A print man dusted the words under the tape. He found Karyn Kupcinet's prints.<br />
She sent the notes to Andy Prine--and herself.<br />
Chapman and Wahike talked to Andy Prine's ex-wife. She laid Andy out as a no-good motherfucker.<br />
He was volatile. She heard that he strangled a cat. Their cat disappeared. Maybe Andy snuffed him.<br />
Chapman and Wahike reinterviewed Prine. He said he never snuffed any cats. He said he had the<br />
Tuesday vs. Wednesday thing straight. He went to the rodeo Tuesday. He went out with the actress<br />
chick Wednesday. The bull session had to be Tuesday. He went straight home Wednesday night and<br />
called Karyn.<br />
Chapman and Wahike talked to Rubin and Hathaway. They said they might have fucked up. The<br />
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talkathon might have been Tuesday.<br />
Chapman and Wahike braced Karyn and Andy's friends. Hallinen and Collins braced them. The<br />
consensus: Karyn and Andy were headed for Splitsville. Chapman and Wahike braced Andy on that. He<br />
said he kept things cooool. He liked to ball her on his own terms.<br />
Prine said Karyn stalked him in taxis. She hid out at his pad once. She caught him with another woman.<br />
Chapman and Wahike braced Earl Holliman. He dittoed Prine's account of their Palm Springs weekend.<br />
Boyer and Miller stuck a note on David Lange's door. They told him to call Sheriff's Homicide. A Narco<br />
cop called Chapman and Wahike. He said he got a tip on Lange.<br />
A woman snitched him off. She said Lange called her on 12/1/63. He said he knew Karyn. He said, "I<br />
killed her, you know."<br />
David Lange was 27 years old. He was a script reader. The actress Hope Lange was his sister. Hope<br />
Lange used to date Glenn Ford. Glenn Ford knew Andy and Karyn. Andy had Thanksgiving dinner at<br />
Ford's house.<br />
Lange showed up at the West Hollywood Station. Chapman and Wahike braced him.<br />
He said he didn't kill Karyn. He told that woman he did. He was just kidding.<br />
He knew Karyn. He liked her. Andy Prine introduced them. That tenant woman lied. He did not knock<br />
on Karyn's door that Friday. He did not say he lied to the cops.<br />
A cop knocked on his door the night they found the body. He was in bed with a girl. He blew the cop<br />
off and went back to bed.<br />
Lange laid out his actions for 11/27 and 11/28.<br />
He had dinner at Natalie Wood's house. He arrived at 7:00. He left at 11:30. Arthur Loew and Bob<br />
Jarris were there. He went to Bob's place. He drank a bit. He got "rather high." He went home at 12:30.<br />
He went to bed. He got up at 9:oo A.M. Thursday.<br />
He never balled Karyn. He never tried to.<br />
Chapman and Wahike asked him who he balled lately. Lange named two starlets. Lieutenant Walsh and<br />
Wahike called the woman who snitched Lange off. She said she balled Lange once. Chapman and<br />
Wahike called the two starlets. They both said they balled Lange once. One starlet said Lange pissed her<br />
off. He told her she gave him the clap. It was bulishit. She knew she was clean.<br />
Lange balled the other starlet at his pad. It was Saturday night--i 1/30/63.<br />
Somebody knocked on the door. Lange got up and talked to him. He did not come back and tell her<br />
that his friend Karyn was dead.<br />
Lange said he'd take a polygraph test. Chapman and Wahike drove him downtown. Hallinen and Collins<br />
braced him. He said he lied to Chapman and Wahike.<br />
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He didn't go in. He didn't see Karyn--dead or alive.<br />
Lange said he had a recent bout of the clap. He got it from this starlet he balled. He went to a doctor<br />
and fixed himself up.<br />
Lange took a polygraph test. The result was judged inconclusive.<br />
Chapman and Wahike checked their autopsy notes. Doc Kade took a vaginal smear. He found a<br />
leukorrhea discharge.<br />
They had it tested. It was decomposed. They couldn't compare it to the test smear that Lange's doctor<br />
took.<br />
Prine and Lange remained major suspects. The inconclusive polygraphs meant everything and nothing.<br />
Some cops bought polygraph tests. Some cops thought they were bulishit. A bunch of guys at Sheriff's<br />
Homicide thought it wasn't even a murder.<br />
The victim was a hophead. They found her nude. They found that "dance-in-the-nude" book. She might<br />
have danced and stumbled around. She might have made that big mess. She might have tripped and<br />
clipped her hyoid bone on a chair. She might have crawled up on the couch and died. She might have<br />
passed out on the couch and choked on her own puke. She might have purged the dope in her system as<br />
she decomped. Doc Kade was a juicehead. They hauled him out of bed and put him to work at 2 A.M.<br />
All he found was a broken hyoid. He might have snapped it himself.<br />
The L.A. papers played up the case. It got some national ink. The Hollywood angle brought out the<br />
perverts and freaks.<br />
12/4/63:<br />
A man calls Sheriff's Homicide. The starlet killer is stalking this girl he knows. Some cops brace her.<br />
She's scared. A guy tried to choke her last October. He hangs out with a fag.<br />
Some cops found the guy. He was a fag himself. He said he choked the bitch accidentally. He said he<br />
never met Karyn. He said he might have met Andy Prine. The cops wrote him off as a nut.<br />
12/7/63:<br />
A "Script Supervisor" calls Sheriff's Homicide. An actress friend got a weird phone call. A guy said,<br />
"You know what happened to Karyn, and you are going to be next."<br />
The actress used to date Andy Prine. Her current squeeze knew Andy and Karyn.<br />
Chapman and Wahike braced the squeeze. He said he met Karyn in '61. He said he got popped for<br />
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shoplifting once.<br />
He stole some Ex-Lax at a Thrifty Drugstore. He didn't mean to steal it. He didn't want to buy the shit<br />
from a lady clerk. Chapman and Wahike wrote him off as a nut.<br />
Hallinen and Collins got a tip. A snitch snitched off an actor named Rick Bache.<br />
Bache killed himself on 11/30. Dig it. It might tie in to the Kupcinet snuff.<br />
They checked it out. It was straight out of Lolita.<br />
Rick Bache was hot for a 15-year-old-girl. He wanted to marry her. Her mother disapproved. Bache<br />
offed himself. Hallinen and Collins braced his friends. They all said he never knew Karyn. Hallinen and<br />
Collins wrote him off as a perv.<br />
Tips came in. It was 99.9 percent freak stuff. Everybody was a would-be actor or part-time actor and<br />
full-time shitbird. They printed everybody. They ran their prints against the unknown prints at the crime<br />
scene. Nothing matched.<br />
They braced Andy Prine repeatedly. He cooperated. He stuck to his story.<br />
They checked the weirdo file at West Hollywood Station. They zeroed in on a well-known peeper.<br />
They checked him out and wrote him off. He only peeped the gash in his own building.<br />
Chapman and Wahike talked to Glenn Ford. He liked Andy Prine. Andy was a righteous dude.<br />
They talked to Andy Prine's ex-girifriends. They logged in a consensus.<br />
Andy was tender. Andy was sensitive. Andy got more ass than a toilet seat.<br />
More tips. More bulishit. A gang rape or a gang bang at Karyn's old apartment. The date: 4/19/64.<br />
It began at the Raincheck Room. The alleged victim was a movie extra.<br />
She got bombed at the Raincheck. The new guy in Karyn's pad got bombed. They went back to the<br />
pad. Six or seven cats joined them. The new guy said, "This is where Kupcinet was murdered and every<br />
time I think of it, I get sick to my stomach."<br />
The woman said six or seven guys raped her. The guys said she put out. Chapman and Wahlke<br />
reviewed the occurrence. They leaned toward the gang-bang scenario. They braced the new tenant guy.<br />
They wrote him off as a homicide suspect. They wrote him off as a rape-o and gang-bang participant.<br />
More bugs blew into the light. Walter Winchell crashed the case and tried to hoist his career out of the<br />
toilet.<br />
He showed up at Sheriff's Homicide on 6/25/64. He told a wild story.<br />
It featured Andy Prine's ex-wife and her cat, "Calhoun." It involved Vince Edwards on the Ben Casey<br />
show. It involved J. Edgar Hoover and the "Syndicate." The cat was the star. Andy's ex said Andy offed<br />
the motherfucker. The backup cast: a female private eye, an armed robber, and two guys on death row<br />
at Big Q.<br />
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Eight detectives probed Winchell's story. The old cocksucker hounded them and made them dance to<br />
his tune.<br />
He set up interviews and hosted dinners at Chasen's. He laid on the meager remnants of his charm. He<br />
choreographed a freak show and made the cops join in interactive.<br />
He wasted hundreds of police man-hours. The final report ran 8,ooo words. The narrative line was<br />
incomprehensible.<br />
The case dragged on. It retained a priority status. The Kupcinet family applied pressure.<br />
Essee Kupcinet believed in psychics. She urged the cops to employ them. They accommodated her.<br />
1/23/65:<br />
A psychic named Hans Holzer jumps in. He hypnotizes a woman named Maxine Bell. Mrs. Bell assumes<br />
the soul of Karyn Kupcinet. She zooms back to her last night on earth.<br />
Karyn's guests split. Andy comes over. He gets mad at Karyn. He hits her. He bombs out of the<br />
apartment.<br />
Karyn takes a shower. She towels herself off. A white male sneaks into her pad. He calls Karyn a bitch.<br />
He chokes her and places her on the couch.<br />
The man was years old. He stood five-six to five-eight. He had silver-gray hair and blue eyes.<br />
1/26/66:<br />
Boss psychic Peter Hurkos weighs in. He groks Andy Prine as the killer. He groks David Lange as the<br />
backup suspect. Hurkos met Prine and Lange at Glenn Ford's house. Karyn said she'd flick up Andy's<br />
career if he left her. Hurkos calls that the murder motive.<br />
1/31/66:<br />
A female psychic fondles Karyn's jewelry. She gets a brainstorm.<br />
It was a contract hit out of Chicago. The killer looked Jewish or Italian. He had dark hair and a broad<br />
forehead.<br />
The psychic shit went nowhere. They discontinued it. They reinterviewed most of the key witnesses.<br />
They pressed the case all the way through '66.<br />
They went at Andy Prine. They braced him on 11/2/66. Bobby Chapman and Lieutenant Norm<br />
Hamilton went at him hard.<br />
Prine stuck to his story. Chapman tried to shoot it down. He pressed one theory--hard.<br />
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It's 11/27/63. Andy drops off the actress chick. He doesn't try to flick the actress chick. He wants to<br />
break it off with Karyn--for keeps. He goes to her pad. Things escalate. Karyn dies in the process.<br />
Prine stuck to his story. He didn't try to fuck the actress chick. He wasn't that hard up for cooze. He<br />
didn't want to cut off Karyn. He dug her as a sometime thing. She never said she'd fuck up his career.<br />
The bad publicity fucked him. That was the only way he got fucked.<br />
11/14/66:<br />
Edward Rubin calls Sheriff's Homicide. He changes his story substantially.<br />
It's 11/27/63. He leaves Karyn's place. He's with Bob Hathaway.<br />
They go to the Raincheck Room. Bob takes off alone. Rubin meets two chicks. He can't remember their<br />
names. They drive him home. They've got a '57 Austin-Healey. He asks one chick for a date. She turns<br />
him down. She's leaving for New Mexico U in the morning.<br />
Bobby Chapman tried to verify the story. He couldn't get a line on the chicks.<br />
Strange:<br />
Rubin did not recall the chicks three days after the crime. He recalled them three years later.<br />
12/7/66:<br />
Chapman braces Bob Hathaway. He refutes Rubin's revised statement. He revises his own statement<br />
substantially.<br />
He said the big bull session was a big non sequitur. Andy never dropped by and stayed that long.<br />
12/14/66:<br />
Chapman braces Edward Rubin. He dittoes Hathaway. It did seem strange that Andy stayed that long.<br />
The case dragged on. A lot of the cops thought it wasn't even a murder. Bobby Chapman transferred<br />
out. Bobby Morck and Vince Bogdanich got the case. Morck thought it wasn't a murder. Bogdanich<br />
wasn't sure. They checked out leads anyway.<br />
Bogdanich braced David Lange on 7/2 3/68. Lange stuck by his '63 story. He refused to take a second<br />
polygraph test--on advice of legal counsel. Bogdanich thought he was a viable suspect.<br />
The leads trickled out. They worked other jobs. They worked the Kupcinet job as tips materialized.<br />
They braced David Lange on 9/I 7/69.<br />
Lange had a gig at Paramount. Morck and Bogdanich braced him at his office. He cooperated. They<br />
asked him if he'd take another polygraph. Lange said he'd talk to his lawyer.<br />
His lawyer called the boss at Sheriff's Homicide. He said: Mr. Lange would not take another polygraph<br />
test.<br />
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The Karyn Kupcinet case was five years, nine months, and twenty-three days old. It was a freak show<br />
and a heartache. A woman got lost in the uproar.<br />
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The Victim<br />
It was Kup's town. The funeral was Kup's Show.<br />
The heavies turned out. Governor Kerner, aldermen, Mayor Richard J. Daley. They rode at the front of<br />
the car-line. Karyn's friends rode at the back.<br />
12/4/63:<br />
Temple Sholom on the Gold Coast. Adios, Karyn--it was too damn brief.<br />
Fifteen hundred people. Major coverage. A big egalitarian spin.<br />
Ward heelers weep. Hoodlums hurl tears into their hankies. Hipsters hobnob with hackles and schvartze<br />
waiters from the Pump Room.<br />
It's a mob scene. It's a mitzvah for a media man and his moviemad daughter. It plays nine days after the<br />
JFK entombment.<br />
Andy Prine did not attend the service. Rabbi Louis Binstock emceed. He praised Karyn. He said she<br />
was "high above the stage, with her warmth of manner and a glow in her eyes."<br />
An all-star lineup lugged the casket out to the hearse. Among them: ex-Chicago Bears quarterback Sid<br />
Luckman.<br />
Karyn closed strong. She would have dug the show.<br />
She was Irv and Essee K.'s first child. They named her Roberta Lynn and called her "Cookie." Their<br />
son, Jerry, was born three years later.<br />
Essee came from money. Try came from zilch. He played pro football. He called Bears games on radio<br />
and TV. He wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. He hosted Kup's Show--a gabfest with real legs.<br />
Kup lobbed softballs in his column. People loved him. He loved the Joe Blow Chicagoan impersonally.<br />
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He loved celebs for real.<br />
Essee loved celebs and culture. She took Cookie and Jerry to ballets and stage shows. She doted on<br />
Cookie. She said she should be an actress. She pushed her that way. Cookie bought the program.<br />
Essee stressed beauty and thinness. She got Cookie some childmodel gigs.<br />
Cookie loved drama. She loved to act. She loved Kup's World.<br />
It was glamorous. It was who you knew and who blew who. It was ringside seats and a special guest for<br />
dinner every night. Cookie dropped names like most kids dropped vowels.<br />
She went to the Francis Parker School. She excelled at kid theatrics. She got summer-stock gigs in and<br />
around Chicago. She played the tomboy role in a boffo rendition of Picnic.<br />
She finished high school. She went to Pine Manor College for a year and a half. She played leads and<br />
second leads in school shows. She put on a little weight. She took it off and put it on again. She moved<br />
to New York City in '6o.<br />
She gained weight and lost weight. She never got fat. It was all crazy shit in her head.<br />
She changed her name to Lynn Roberts. A plastic surgeon reshaped her chin.<br />
She lived off money from home. She auditioned and got a few gigs. She gained weight and lost weight.<br />
She got depressed. She dropped "Lynn Roberts" and renamed herself "Karyn Kupcinet."<br />
Kup was tight with Jerry Lewis. Jerry liked Karyn. He offered her a bit part in his flick The Ladies' Man.<br />
Karyn flew out to L.A. She dug it and decided to stay.<br />
Essee's mother moved out and played chaperone. They found a pad on Hollywood Boulevard. Essee<br />
set Karyn up with Mark and Marcia Goddard. Kup set her up with A-list contacts.<br />
Karyn started a new datebook on 3/9/61. She recorded her weight in most entries. She got a nose job<br />
on 5/16. She weighed 115½ pounds.<br />
"Awake during operation. AGONY. Felt needles, cutting, everything!"<br />
Karyn thought her new nose looked like a pig snout. Other people disagreed.<br />
5/29/61. In Vegas with Kup and Essee:<br />
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"Nose much better!" "So many compliments!" Warren Beatty: "You're so beautiful." Eddie Fisher:<br />
"Thought you were Liz."<br />
5/27/61:<br />
"I'm pretty! So happy!"<br />
Karyn got a guest shot on Hawaiian Eye. Bob Conrad was "a doll." "Me--so-o complimented!"<br />
Karyn auditioned. Karyn went to brunch, lunch, and dinner. Karyn shopped and got her hair done.<br />
Karyn got her weight down to 1131/2.<br />
She got a series gig on 7/2 5. The show starred Gertrude Berg. It was called Mrs. G. Goes to College.<br />
She started work on 8/2. Her weight stood at 1 14. The director said she had a "wild body." Karyn<br />
played a kooky college kid.<br />
Karyn worked. Karyn hung out at Pj.'s and the Crescendo. Karyn ate at Linny's and the Hamburger<br />
Hamlet. Karyn shopped atJax and Saks.<br />
8/17/61:<br />
Gertrude thought she wore too much makeup. "Everyone around there makes me nervous."<br />
8/18/61:<br />
"Gertrude impossible. Finally--got my close-up and took four or five takes. Couldn't get damn thing<br />
straight."<br />
9/11/61: 113 pounds. 9/12/61: "Hardly ate at all!" 9/15 and 9/16/61: "Ate & ate."<br />
10/4/61: The Mrs. G. pilot airs. 109 pounds, "My hair darling--lots of compliments." 10/ 15/6 1: 116<br />
pounds. "Ate 3 Danish," "Eating too much."<br />
Karyn logged male compliments. Karyn logged male encounters. She met men. She kissed them. They<br />
got schizzy and blew her off. 10/22/61: 110 pounds, "No one calls me." 10/28/61: 114 1/2 pounds.<br />
"Eating too many sweet rolls."<br />
Karyn worked on the Berg Show and tried out for other gigs. She went out on bad dates and hung out<br />
with her girlfriends. She went to twist clubs and movie premieres.<br />
1/23/62: 121 pounds. "I look too heavy; yet everyone calls me beautiful." 2/1/62: 117 pounds.<br />
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"Everyone noticed my weight loss." 2/5/62: 125 pounds. "Stayed in bed. Ate. Feel so draggy & tired."<br />
2/15/62: 121 pounds. "Took pills." "Looked gorgeous." 2/16/62: "Woke up very dopey (after 3 sleeping<br />
pills). Groggy." 2/19/62: "Slept late," "Bought 'Leen' tablets."<br />
The Berg Show was cancelled. Karyn went on unemployment. Kup and Essee sent her money. Her<br />
grandmother moved back to Chicago.<br />
3/22/62: 123 pounds. "Got to lose at least io lbs. by April 8! Only 17 days."<br />
3/29/62:<br />
"I'm beginning to discover who I am! My convictions & 'image' are getting clearer. I know I'm happiest<br />
following the pattern of sophistication, than one of girlish appeal."<br />
Karyn got a guest shot on The Red Skelton Show. Skelton to Karyn, 4/2/62: "3 people said you were<br />
prettier than Liz Taylor."<br />
More auditions. More pills. More brunches, lunches, and dinners.<br />
Two brief love affairs. Summer stock in Chicago--Sunday in New York. The Annie Sullivan role in The<br />
Miracle Worker at the Laguna Beach Playhouse. Good reviews and a run below 115.<br />
10/1/62:<br />
"Woke up feeling slightly nauseous & groggy. Hallucinations, inferiority complex, aching limbs, stiff neck,<br />
(surely liver damage) resulted from pills."<br />
10/8/62: "Cried myself to sleep." 10/9 to I 1/10/62: doodles and incomplete notations. 11/11/62:<br />
"Continuous hysteria. Deepest depression ever." 1 2/3/62: "Wide Country--6:00 A.M. call (location)."<br />
12/4/62: "Andy Prine--doll!" 12/6/62: 105 pounds. "Andy. 'Raincheck." I 2/9/62: "Andy." 12/1 1/62:<br />
"Andy." 12/12/62: "Look thin." 12/13/62: "Andy." 12/i8, 19, 20, 21, 22: "Andy"--and no other notations.<br />
Karyn flew to Chicago for Christmas. 12/28, 12/31 and 1/1/63: "Andy called--'I love you."<br />
It was all Andy now.<br />
1/17/63: "Met Andy for lunch. He was attentive." "Wide Country--Andy was brilliant, I was an EXTRA.<br />
Felt depressed." 1/20/63: "Andy--aloof." 2/5/63: "Tense & anxious over Andy's attitude." 2/11/63: "Me<br />
tense, blurred vision. To Dr. Getzoff (pills) with Andy." 2/19/63: "Must maintain my own identity; not<br />
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become his door-mat. So useless."<br />
3/25/63: "Andy picked me up 5:3o. Lovely love--ate at DuPar's--Back & lovely love." 4/ 9/6 3: "Eating<br />
much too much." 4/11/63: "I love Andy Prine." 5/21/63: "12 P.M.--Dr. Kroger. Gave me weight<br />
capsules. Finally get a 'lift.' Appetite's inhibited." 5/30/63: "Andy distant--me terribly possessive and<br />
weak."<br />
Karyn tanked auditions. Karyn shopped and ate and saw shrinks.<br />
6/21/63:<br />
"At his house; found out about Cheryl H. & B. Scott. Awful! 'I don't want to see you tonight either.' I<br />
went over. Got in. Came back later--HYSTERICS."<br />
6/27/63: "Getting my self-respect back. I'm stronger." 6/30/63: "Oh Andy, lovely, lovely." 7/1/63: 134<br />
pounds. "Beginning today--I starve!" "Dr. Krohn prescribed Desoxyn." 7/8/63: 124 pounds. "Dr. Krohn,<br />
1:30 p.M. (Figure's looking better.) Andy: 'It excites me to hurt U a little."<br />
Karyn learned she was pregnant. Mark and Marcia took her down to Tj. 7/9/6 3: "Like a nightmare.<br />
This can't be happening to me." 7/10/63: "Oh God--I don't know what to do. Called Dr. Estrada (call<br />
back after noon)."<br />
7/11/63: "Called Dr. Estrada again. Getting used to the idea." Karyn got an abortion on 7/12/63.<br />
"Traumatic. Glad it's over. Relief after nightmare." She returned to L.A. "Andy considerate & attentive."<br />
"Knots, gas--like cramps. Andy made soup."<br />
7/25/63: "I'm so happy. How long can it last?" 7/30/63: "Andy with Anna. Me watched from hedge.<br />
Awful. Nightmares."<br />
Karyn stopped auditioning. Karyn cut down her social contacts. 8/15/63: "I must not be<br />
possessivesweet."<br />
8/17/63:<br />
"Really MAD at the Son of a Bitch. For the first time, I really dislike Andy. He shows no consideration<br />
or understanding & he humiliates me." 8/18/63: "How dare he not make one concession or show any<br />
feelings?"<br />
8/20/63: "So humiliated by Andy's lack of interest." 8/27/63: "Feel like I'm about to explode!" 8/28/63:<br />
"Eating too much!"<br />
Karyn stepped up her social contacts. Karyn moved to the Monterey Village Apartments. A heat wave<br />
scorched L.A. Karyn got a shot on Perry Mason.<br />
10/29/63:<br />
"Andy acting ugly. Complete indifference. Scene at his house. I'm hysterical."<br />
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11/1/63: "No Andy--spyed on him." 11/2/63: "Went to his house--selfish, independent, inconsiderate &<br />
thoughtless. Never gives & unpenetrable." 11/4/63: "I hid in attic; then sat outside in cold for 2 or 3<br />
hours. Wish I were dead." 1 1/8/63: "Dr. Kroger-- cried in his office." 11/9/63: "Eating all day & night."<br />
11/10/63: "Can't stand it--I'm losing reality." 11/11/63: "Call Andy--sex." 11/15/63: "2:00<br />
P.M.--Kroger. Happy & up. Wore pink skirt-- Admiring looks."<br />
11/22/63: "President assassinated."<br />
11/23/63: "Palm Springs."<br />
11/25/63: "Ate to oblivion."<br />
11/27 or 28:<br />
DEAD<br />
The datebook ended five weeks short of New Year's. A sheet was clipped to the back.<br />
Karyn jotted down some book tides. They were psychoanalytic texts.<br />
Beside them:<br />
A list of all the men she'd slept with.<br />
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Karyn Redux<br />
They entombed her in a Jewish cemetery. They honored her with classy endowments.<br />
Two Karyn Kupcinet Theaters. A Karyn Kupcinet Gallery. A Karyn Kupcinet Scholarship.<br />
Kup and Essee kept her name out there. No one knows how they defined her death and rush to<br />
self-destruct. No one knows how many what-ifs and might-have-beens they indulged over cocktails.<br />
Karyn died moments after a freeze-frame. The camera's in tight. She's all passion and disorder. A<br />
close-up sends out an implication: She could go anywhere now.<br />
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It might be true. It might be a wishful conceit. She left a list of books and a list of men as her last will and<br />
testament. It might have marked a step toward self-knowledge. It might have been a Band-Aid to cover<br />
her wounds until her shitheel lover called. She had a fierce heart and no will to moral judgment. Her<br />
compulsive componentry was common to young women. She carried her own strain of a plague. It hadn't<br />
been identified yet. The time impinged her. Her shrink cosigned her rebop and tapped Kup's bankbook.<br />
She didn't get the gender-role thing. She didn't know that women took it up the shorts systematically. She<br />
didn't know that the precept could spark a will to change. She had the juice to grasp the concept. She<br />
might have found the guts to go with it and burned her old life to the ground. She was just a kid. She<br />
didn't know shit from Shinola. She labored under a shroud. She thought showbiz was real.<br />
It was the Kupcinet family blessing and curse. It started with Kup. He passed it on to Karyn and Jerry.<br />
Jerry turned 19 the month Karyn died. He loved the visual arts. He wanted to forge a Kupcinet life on<br />
the other side of the camera.<br />
He went to Bradley U and Columbia of Chicago. He studied photography. He graduated and shot pix<br />
for Playboy. He shot stills for the Chicago stage run of Hair.<br />
He became a TV cameraman and director. He directed segments of A.M. Chicago and Good Morning<br />
America. He married a woman named Sue Levine. They had a son and a daughter.<br />
Jerry got a gig on The Richard Simmons Show. He moved his family out to L.A. It was '8 1. His<br />
daughter was nine years old. Her name was Karyn Ann Kupcinet.<br />
Essee called it reincarnation. Kup said he almost agreed. The blessing and curse hit a third generation.<br />
Karyn Two didn't look like Karyn. It was all inside. The Karyns bubbled and churned. They lived to<br />
please and lived to perform. Essee pushed Karyn Two the same way she pushed Karyn. She pushed her<br />
to act and stay thin.<br />
Karyn Two went to Parker School in Chicago. She hung out at the Karyn Kupcinet Gallery. She<br />
pretended that they named the place after her.<br />
She knew her Aunt Karyn died young. She knew somebody killed her. Nobody fed her more details.<br />
She felt no urge to learn more.<br />
Jerry moved his brood out to L.A. Karyn Two grew up on Karyn's old turf.<br />
She gained weight and lost weight. Food was a punishment. Food was a reward.<br />
She went out on kid auditions. She got a few TV and stage parts. She played Helen Keller in The<br />
Miracle Worker. She was a high-school freshman then.<br />
She kept a journal. She wrote a play called The Porcelain Doll. It was all about a weight-obsessed girl.<br />
She writes her thoughts in a journal. She dies young. Her best friend finds the journal and reads it.<br />
Karyn Two acted. Karyn Two gained and lost weight. Karyn Two had a nice boyfriend.<br />
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The boyfriend went to the Film Academy library. They kept files on professional performers. He asked<br />
to see the file on Karyn Two. The clerk gave him the file on Karyn.<br />
The file freaked him out. He skimmed it and called Karyn Two. She went to the library and read the file<br />
cover to cover.<br />
She copied down most of the data. She studied it. She flew to Chicago and looked through Karyn's<br />
belongings. Kup and Essee kept twelve boxes.<br />
Karyn Two dug through them. She read Karyn's datebooks. She read fan-mag stories on Andy Prine.<br />
She started writing journal entries to her aunt.<br />
She caught the psychic-twin bit full-on. She caught the ugly belief in appearances that took Karyn down<br />
and tossed it straight back at herself. She saw herself as Kaiyn reborn. She got stone flicking obsessed.<br />
She reread Karyn's datebooks. She ran "what-if" and "mighthave-been" riffs. She dreamt about Andy<br />
Prine.<br />
She loves him. She trusts him. He loves her. He does not act like a shitheel or a killer.<br />
The dreams drove her crazy. Maybe Karyn sent them. Maybe she wanted to absolve Andy. Maybe she<br />
was glad that he killed her. Her life was horrible. Maybe death was a treat.<br />
She finished high school. She went to UCLA. She auditioned. She got commercial gigs and guest shots<br />
on soaps. Rejections killed her. She felt like the '62 Karyn. Her OBSESSION ate her alive.<br />
She wrote to a dead woman. She reread her last words and hoarded the details of her life. She kept<br />
Karyn's purse. She fondled her wallet and dried-out cigarettes.<br />
She was born in '71. She never knew her aunt. She knew she had her mad blood in her veins.<br />
She turned 20. She got a steady gig on The Young and the Restless. She played a pregnant crackhead.<br />
She had ratted hair and wore ripped jeans. She cried on cue every day. They shot the show at Beverly<br />
and Fairfax. The Monterey Village Apartments stood a mile or so northwest. Andy Prine's ex-wife<br />
worked on the show.<br />
Karen Two loved the work. She loved the whirl that went with it.<br />
Parties and clubs. Access to exciting people. Accommodators and sycophants. Insider status in an<br />
insider town. Limos and drugs. Weak, sexy men. Kup's World--updated and revised for a youth market.<br />
She fell into it. It subsumed her dialogue with a dead woman and thinned out her mad blood.<br />
The pace kept her weight down. Cocaine helped. Hallucinogens undermined her monomania.<br />
She ran through soft and self-obsessed men. "Actors." "Musicians." Studs who ran long on looks and<br />
"Potential." Her affairs burned out in similar patterns. The studs revealed themselves fast. Karyn Two<br />
possessed good antennae. She majored in Karyn One and minored in Andy Prine and David Lange. She<br />
started to put it all together. She built a generational thesis. She connected the dots back to 1963.<br />
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It came to her siow. The L.A. scene tempted and diverted her. She put it together over good time.<br />
Mad blood shared. Gifts locked within. Pj.'s and the Crescendo. The Rainbow and the Roxy. Desoxyn<br />
and hallucinogens. Weak men and skinny bodies to make them love you. Would-be actors and actors.<br />
The actors' psyche as defined by some actorsavant: "My only regret in life is that I'm not somebody else."<br />
She put it together siow. Andy Prine types distracted her. She put it together over good time. She made<br />
the connections and sealed and severed the bond all in one go.<br />
She walked.<br />
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Reopening<br />
Karyn Two went by "Kari" now. She was four years out of L.A.<br />
She married a stable guy named Brad. She owned a candle store in Chicago. She put down her bad<br />
L.A. habits. She surmounted her eating disorder and maintained a stable and slender weight.<br />
Karyn saved her. The obsession still owned her. She flew out to L.A. to see the murder file.<br />
She spent a week at the Homicide Bureau. She went through the file. Sergeant Bill Stoner studied it with<br />
her. Stoner retired in '94. He spent fourteen years at Sheriff's Homicide. He remained on the active<br />
Reserve.<br />
Kari wanted to rework the case herself. The file provided her with insights and data on the key players.<br />
She wanted to find them and interview them.<br />
I met Bill and Kari for dinner. We hogged a booth at the Pacific Dining Car. We discussed the case for<br />
three hours.<br />
The consensus at Sheriff's Homicide: Andy Prine and David Lange remained viable suspects--if it was a<br />
homicide to begin with.<br />
Karyn probably took eighty-one Desoxyns inside forty-eight hours. She might have built up a tolerance.<br />
The collective dose might not have fazed her. It might have caused dizziness and heart cramps.<br />
Hathaway and Rubin revised their statements three years after the fact. Rubin recalled minute details out<br />
of nowhere. Hathaway altered the whole tone of his first statement.<br />
Doc Kade was dead now. He did an autopsy shortly after his Kupcinet job. He allegedly told a<br />
colleague, "At least I didn't break the hyoid bone on this one!"<br />
Kade had an erratic reputation. Some cops braced him on the hyoid bone back in '66. He stuck to his<br />
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original statement.<br />
He filed his initial report on 12/1/63. He noted a hemorrhage inside the throat. It buttressed his alleged<br />
finding on the hyoid bone.<br />
Forensic glitches. Inconsistent statements. Advanced decomposition and incomplete toxology.<br />
Screwed-up witnesses in a screwed-up milieu. Exponential possibilities resultant.<br />
Kari's puzzle to ponder. Her world to explore.<br />
I juxtaposed Karyn and Kari. I melded their features and framed a tight close-up. I captioned it while<br />
the image held.<br />
Karyn owned a gene for survival. She didn't get the chance to outgrow her silly flicking dreams.<br />
December 1998<br />
HOLLYWOOD SHAKEDOWN<br />
Every time and place hides secrets that only one person can spill. History is recorded by hacks who<br />
don't know the real secret shit.<br />
L.A. History is subterfuge and lies. Outrageousness is passed off as full disclosure. Nobody has<br />
connected all the celebrated players and defined the moment that L.A. was won and lost.<br />
On March 23, 1954, I killed a rogue cop and a stick-up man and sealed the fate of a great city.<br />
I<br />
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My flight landed ten minutes early. I bribed a stewardess to let me off first.<br />
I wanted to disembark sloooooow. I wanted the newsmen to dig my stripes and campaign ribbons.<br />
The plane taxied up to the gate. The steps locked into the door. I shoved my way to the front of the<br />
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aisle. A fat nun ate my elbows.<br />
The door slid open.<br />
I stepped into the sun.<br />
I saw my agent, Howard Wormser. I saw two newsmen and counted five picket signs.<br />
DICK CONTINO, RED PAWN and DICK CONTINO, AMERICAN. TRAITOR, GO HOME and<br />
WE LOVE OUR DICK. A poster depicting me in the electric chair. I'm perched between the recently<br />
smoked Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.<br />
I walked into it.<br />
Howard grabbed me. We skirted some ground-crew guys and found a spot under the right-front<br />
propellers. Passengers filed off the plane. The nun shot me the bird. Three picket punks shouted, "Draft<br />
dodger!"<br />
Howard hugged me. His hands danced down my back to my ass.<br />
I said, "I need some tail. I need it baaaad."<br />
Howard dropped his hands. I smiled. The stewardess I bribed walked by and blew me a kiss.<br />
Howard's a fag. He got drunk once and made a dive for my dong. Tail talk and pussy patter keep him in<br />
line. It's our sex semaphore.<br />
He slipped me a pawnshop tag. "I had to hock your accordion. I needed money to get the booze for the<br />
loyalty-oath gig. Dick, Dick, Dick, don't look at me that way."<br />
My heartbeat went atomic. My body heaved. A combat ribbon popped off my pecs.<br />
Ransomed:<br />
My rhinestone-wrapped/pearl-patterned/candy-cane ax!<br />
The picket factions faced off. "Draft dodger!" and "Go, Dick!" nullified each other. Howard cupped his<br />
hands around my left ear.<br />
"Dick, you don't serve Ward Bond and Adolphe Menjou anything less than top-shelf liquor. Those guys<br />
are prepared to call you ioo percent American, and you can't stiff them with offbrand shit."<br />
Howard's tongue shot into my ear. I stepped back and shook it dry.<br />
"They're coming to the gig?"<br />
"That's right. A buddy of mine set it up. We've got the booze and cold cuts from your old man's store,<br />
and thirty American Legion guys at five bucks a head."<br />
My blood pressure depressurized. "What do I play with?"<br />
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"I got a loaner off a kid at Belmont High. You have to take the bitter with the sweet, Dick. I promised<br />
him three personal lessons."<br />
Two newsmen bucked the picket line and waved to me. I knew them: Morty Bendish and Sid Hughes<br />
from the Mirror and the Herald-Express.<br />
I joined them. Howard joined the picket clowns. He passed out accordion ashtrays. We bought them<br />
bulk at a child sweatshop in Pacoima.<br />
Sid Hughes said, "You're back, Dick. You did your time and did your duty. What's next?"<br />
I laid out my precanned pitch. "I'm going directly to the Lieutenant Colonel Sam DeRienzo American<br />
Legion Post in Glendale. I'm going to voluntarily sign a loyalty oath that declares me as i 10% American.<br />
I'm back to let the world know that I can bang that stomach Steinway better than ever."<br />
Sid laughed and hummed the "Tico Tico" finale. Morty said, "Harry Truman pardoned you--and that's<br />
good. But you've also gotten support from some pretty unsavory quarters."<br />
I said, "Keep going. That last stuff is all fresh to me."<br />
Morty checked his notepad. "Oscar Levant was on Jukebox Jury. He said, 'Dick Contino has more to<br />
fear than fear itself. He has the accordion."<br />
Oscar, you hump. Oscar, you rubber-room raconteur.<br />
Oscar's wife signed him into the Mount Sinai nut ward. His agent signed him out for local TV gigs.<br />
Michael Curtiz signed him out for cultural kicks and took him down to watch wetbacks fuck in a<br />
skid-row hotel.<br />
I said, "If that's 'support,' put me back on that airplane. I'd rather fight the Red Army than go up against<br />
Oscar's mouth."<br />
Sid laughed. Morty checked his notebook. "There's a pinko lawyer named L. Trent Woodard. He's said<br />
some pretty raw things about the LAPD, and he's gone on to call you a 'gallant young man who had the<br />
courage to acknowledge his rational and understandable fear and implicitly address the absurdity of the<br />
war in Korea."<br />
My blood pressure went presto-prestissimo. "I'm ioo% American. And Ward Bond and Adolphe<br />
Menjou will verify that."<br />
Howard walked up. He grabbed me and lip-locked my ear.<br />
"Dick, we've got to go. I've got you a quick gig on the way out to Glendale."<br />
"What are you talking about?"<br />
"You're going to serenade a young lady. She's in an iron lung at Queen of Angels."<br />
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Howard drove me downtown. I stretched out in the backseat and skimmed my recent clips.<br />
CONTINO BACK IN SOUTHLAND was good. The guy stressed my presidential pardon and<br />
soft-pedaled all the fear stuff that deepsixed me. ACCORDION KING RETURNS took a tragic tack.<br />
The guy ran down my run on The Horace Heidt Show and said I "hipsterized" the squeeze box. I "beat<br />
out vocal groups, a Negro trombone, and a blind vibraphone virtuoso" and "sent applause meters<br />
haywire for fifty-two weeks straight." I had "4,000 fan clubs nationwide" and "almost got signed to play<br />
Rudolph Valentino" in a "big bio-epic at Fox." The guy implied that I had the world by the ass and that I<br />
got more ass than a toilet seat. Too bad I "cravenly exposed a fearful nature," "crybabyingly tried to<br />
avoid Korean service," and "cringingly ran from basic training at Ford Ord, California." Too bad I<br />
"shakily served six months at the McNeil Island pen" and "shadily segued back to the army as a hardened<br />
con."<br />
Hush-Hush magazine called me "CONtino." They said my "destiny was deliriously and dolorously<br />
determined by deepseated demons dramatically and detrimentally defined as debilitating FEAR." They<br />
ran a sidebar with Oscar Levant and some dope-clinic quack. The quack said I was badly breast-fed<br />
and temperamentally toilet trained. Oscar said I should dump my box and exploit my weak pipes like a<br />
dozen famous guinea crooners.<br />
A picture ran next to the sidebar. There's Oscar and me at the Shrine. We're flying on some high-end<br />
shit that I copped from Bob Mitchum. Oscar's banging out Prokofiev. I'm winging a ditty that's half<br />
Brahms and half "Lady of Spain."<br />
I skimmed the rest of the rag. I caught some sin-sational bits that played like prime Oscar.<br />
Johnnie Ray honked a vice cop at the Vine Street Derby. The pull-quote was pure Levant: "He took the<br />
law into his own hands." LEZabeth Scott frequented a sapphic whorehouse. Matchheadhot <strong>James</strong> Dean<br />
was a mumble-mouthed masochist known as the "Human Ashtray." George Burns liked it dark and<br />
dusky. He was spotted at a browntown motel with two large congo cuties.<br />
People told Oscar things. They overestimated his dope habit and dumped their shameful shit wholesale.<br />
They underestimated his memory.<br />
Oscar heard all, remembered all, and told all. People looked at Oscar and saw all their sinful stuff<br />
personified and multiplied. They overestimated his empathy. They underestimated his guile. They flocked<br />
to the nut ward. They sought Oscar out. Oscar fed their secret shit to an L.A. cop named Freddy Otash.<br />
Otash paid him off in dope and shot the shit straight to Hush-Hush.<br />
I skimmed the rest of my clips. L. Trent Woodard sunk his hooks under my skin.<br />
The L.A. Herald, 12/19/53:<br />
Woodard calls Chief William H. Parker "the führer of the LAPD." He calls me a "sacrificial lamb" two<br />
columns down.<br />
The L.A. Times, 1/8/54:<br />
Woodard calls the LAPD "an occupation force." He calls me a "Police-State Victim" three columns<br />
down.<br />
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The L.A. Mirror, 2/20/54:<br />
Woodard boohoos "the forces that condemned Dick Contino." He rags the LAPD and the L.A. County<br />
Sheriff's for a botched robbery job.<br />
The city cops and the county cops were working a joint gig. They had the Scrivner's Drive-In at Ivar<br />
and Sunset nailed down tight. They got the drop on four bad Negroes.<br />
A cop popped his piece premature. Six cops and four stick-up men threw fire. Three Negroes and two<br />
carhops went down dead.<br />
The LAPD blamed the Sheriff's. The Sheriff's blamed the LAPD. Chief Parker blamed Sheriff Biscailuz.<br />
Sheriff Biscailuz blamed Chief Parker. A heist guy named Rudy "Playboy" Wells escaped. A city cop<br />
named Cal Dinkins caught the blame.<br />
Three pix ran with the piece. Dinkins wore a lot of fat and a tall flattop. Wells wore dark skin and a big<br />
boogie conk.<br />
They ran a Fed mug shot of me. I wore tear tracks and a grimace.<br />
I dumped the clips in the front seat. Howard turned around. His hands flew off the wheel. A truck almost<br />
blitzed us.<br />
"Dick, Jesus Christ. I had them in chronological order. You can't just--"<br />
"That Woodard guy is putting me in shit up to my ears. He's making me look like a fellow traveler."<br />
We slid into oncoming traffic. Howard grabbed the wheel and slid us out. "We'll work around it. We'll<br />
get you to snitch off some left-wing types and boost your credentials that way."<br />
"I don't know any left-wing types."<br />
Howard smiled. "We'll work around it. There's a guy at Metro I'd love to put the screws to."<br />
The iron lung was 6' by 8' and weighed two tons. The lung girl was pale and skinny.<br />
She was propped up inside the thing lengthwise. Her head poked out the top. She saw me and got<br />
choked up. Her tears hit the lung ledge and sizzled. The thing ran twice as hot as a clothes dryer.<br />
A kid brought my loaner.<br />
The keys jammed. The buttons stuck. The bellows creaked bad. The strap gouged a zit on my back.<br />
The kid brought half the Belmont High wind section. A boss blonde blew lead tenor. She buzzed around<br />
me. I told Howard to check her ID and note the date she turned legal.<br />
Howard promised me reporters. He delivered. The kiddie press showed up en masse. Six high school<br />
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papers sent scribes. The lung ward ran SRO.<br />
I strapped in and played to the lung girl. I pounded my pelvis and humped my hips and socked my<br />
sockets out at right angles. I played "Sabre Dance," "The Beer Barrel Polka," and "Cherry Pink and<br />
Apple Blossom White."<br />
I strutted. I writhed. I sprayed sweat laced with Old Spice cologne. My Tiger Wax melted. My<br />
pompadour dropped into my eyes. I bent back and resurrected it. I pressed my eighty-pound ax out to<br />
arm's length and played from a full-arch position. My spine shook, shuddered, and held. Applause<br />
eclipsed my crescendo.<br />
I bent back to a normal stance. I bowed to the lung girl. Her tears spattered off the lung ledge.<br />
Howard shot me a look:<br />
Quit while they love you/Fuck these kids/No encores and no good-byes.<br />
I dumped the ax and pulled a fast exit. A big ovation blew me out the door. The sax slipped me an<br />
envelope. I stepped into the hallway and opened it.<br />
Her note:<br />
Dear Dick,<br />
I will reach the age-of-consent at 10:49 P.M. on Thursday,<br />
March 29, 1954, which is only 6 days from now. Please call<br />
me at 10:50 P.M. (Dunkirk 4-5882) to arrange a rendezvous. I<br />
know that we will make beautiful music together.<br />
xxxxxxxxx!!!!!!<br />
Linda Jane Sidwell (Contino?)<br />
I felt a little heft in the envelope. I looked in and saw a fat reefer.<br />
We drove out to Glendale. Howard wanted to toke the reefer en route. I said no. Maryjane always<br />
flipped his switch. I didn't want him hopped-up and horny.<br />
I shut my eyes and daydreamed. Linda Jane Sidwell--six days to love.<br />
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I'd form a combo and take it to Vegas. Linda would quit school and blow sax for me. We'd work up a<br />
patriotic shtick. We'd suck up to professional patriots. We'd play lounges and move to main rooms.<br />
Linda's parents would hate me. I'd buy their love with Cadillacs and introductions to Sinatra.<br />
Howard nudged me. "Wake up. We're here."<br />
I opened my eyes. We pulled up in front of the Legion Hall. Howard said, "Shit."<br />
No banners. No reporters. No Ward Bond, no Adolphe Menjou, no Legionnaires. A table full of cold<br />
cuts rotting in the sun.<br />
I jumped out of the car. An old guy walked out of the hall and snagged some cheese puffs.<br />
He saw me. He drooped. He said, "Dick, I'm sorry."<br />
I kicked the table over. Delicatessen delights hit the sidewalk. Two dogs caught the scent and leaped<br />
from a moving car.<br />
The Legion guy said, "Dick, I'm sorry." The dogs snouted up salami and sun-ripe cheese.<br />
I said, "What happened?"<br />
The guy took off his Legion cap and wiped his face with it. "Duke Wayne called the post commander.<br />
He said, 'Lou, I hate to ask you for this, but you see how it looks. Contino paid his dues, but that Red<br />
cocksucker Woodard's screwing up his public perception. I hate to exert pressure, but you know I<br />
always buy three pages in your book every Christmas."<br />
I shut my eyes. I tried to blot it out. I saw the Duke in my revised Fort Apache. A redskin keestered him<br />
and snatched his wig for a scalp.<br />
I opened my eyes. The dogs attacked a three-pound capo-collo. I said, "Where's the liquor? I want to<br />
take it back and get a refund."<br />
The guy pointed to the door. "Your buddy took most of it, and he said he'd be back for the rest."<br />
"What buddy?"<br />
"I don't know. He said he was your buddy, and he said you went way back."<br />
Iran inside. I saw the stuff that Wayne and Woodard fucked me out of.<br />
The lectern draped in red, white, and blue. The prepaid seats and party hats. A wall-mounted flag and a<br />
cue-card gizmo to feed me the words to my oath.<br />
I ran back to the storeroom. I saw a pile of flattened cartons five feet high.<br />
Johnnie Black and Hennessy XO. Bonded bourbon, Ballantine's and Bacardi.<br />
Stacked on a shelf.<br />
A box of rubbers and a six-pack of Brew 102.<br />
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The back door opened. Danny Getchell walked in.<br />
The Hush-Hush guy.<br />
Who:<br />
Called me a "pretty-boy pantywaist" and a "pusillanimous punk."<br />
Who:<br />
Called my mom a "maladroit madonna" and my pop the "punk's paterfamilias."<br />
I saw Danny. Danny saw me. He grabbed the rubbers and ran. He cut through the parking lot and<br />
jumped into a blue Merc coupe. I chased him. He gunned the engine. He yelled, "Commie castrato<br />
Contino can't run for shit!"<br />
I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny put the car in gear and goosed it out of reach.<br />
He yelled, "Lefty loser less than lethal at Legion loyaltyfest!"<br />
I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny goosed the car out of reach.<br />
He yelled, "Ballsy bandit burgles boffo batch of brand-name booze! Less-than-lethal loser left in lurch!"<br />
I ran harder. I gained ground. I hooked around to the front of the hall and hauled ass.<br />
Danny goosed the car out of reach. I slipped on a pile of my dad's cold cuts. I hit the street<br />
ass-over-elbows and ate hot exhaust fumes.<br />
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Howard refused to front me the coin for a room. I moved into my dad's bomb shelter.<br />
I treated my elbows and knees. I climbed into a bongo shirt and peggers. I called Linda Sidwell's house<br />
and left a message with her mom.<br />
Tell Linda to pack for ground zero. Make an atom-bomb sound. Tell her we'll head for Hiroshima and<br />
level the town with our love.<br />
I was desperate. I was walking the lonely streets of Shit City. The bad guys dug me. The good guys<br />
feared me. The lung gig was my welcome-home highlight. Howard said we could sell the lung-ward kids<br />
accordion lessons and spring my ax from the hock shop. My comeback would boom from there.<br />
I didn't buy it. I felt one of my Patented Post-Passive Rages poised to pop. I lashed out once in a billion<br />
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blue moons. I imploded all my impacted shit inward and outward and took it out on inanimate objects.<br />
The bomb shelter smelled like a catbox. I taped some nudie pix to the ceiling above my cot and<br />
stretched out to slam the ham.<br />
I noticed two envelopes on the nightstand. My mom must have brought them in. They were perfume<br />
dipped and pale blue linen.<br />
I picked them up. I sniffed them. I saw my name and address. The back flaps were stained at the edge.<br />
Prison mail was steamed open, read, and resealed. This looked like the same thing.<br />
The postmarks read 2/18 and 2/20/54. The return-address stickers read:<br />
Vivian Woodard, 348 South Muirfield Road, Los Angeles, 4, California.<br />
"Woodard"--as in "L. Trent." Swank Hancock Park.<br />
I opened the envelopes. I read the letters inside. Passionate passages pounced on me.<br />
"Your art is dubious and derivative, but you play with an astounding sensual conviction." "My husband<br />
admires your struggle and your blunt and wrenching admissions of your fear, and is concurrently vexed<br />
by your power over me." "You cannot be socially enlightened without acknowledging Dick Contino as a<br />
symbol of candor and transcendent vulnerability." "I want you inside me. I want to swing off the axis<br />
where our loins meet in wetness and tumescence." "Your music is my anthem. Your seed is the hot ink<br />
that courses through my veins and my pen as I write these words."<br />
Oooooooooh, Daddy-o!!!!!<br />
I read the letters four times. I circled the sex stuff. I taped the letters to the ceiling above my cot and<br />
formed an erotic collage.<br />
Somebody banged on my door. My mom yelled, "Dick! Oscar's on the phone!"<br />
Oscar Levant said, "You're a schmuck. You're also a schmendrick, a schlemiel, and a schlemazel."<br />
Oscar was pissed. Freddy Otash cut down his dope dose. Oscar said Freddy extorted the shit out of<br />
schvartze jazz musicians. Freddy didn't want Oscar to overdose and die. Hush-Hush couldn't fly without<br />
his sinful and sincere sinuendo.<br />
I tilted my chair back. I scoped out the nut ward. Oscar tilted his chair back and tracked my eyes.<br />
The rec room was chock-full of nuts. An orderly was marching an old man around. The old man was<br />
talking non-stop and drooling into a cup.<br />
Oscar said, "Pops is a Wall Street trader. He recites nursery rhymes, with some insider stock tips laced<br />
into the flow. The orderly is Freddy O's watchdog. He keeps an eye on me, pumps the old guy for stock<br />
tips, and feeds them to Freddy."<br />
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Gail Russell and Barbara Payton were playing dominoes. Barbara ran her right foot up Gail's leg<br />
sapphically slooooow. Gail swatted it away.<br />
Oscar said, "They're both dipsos. The boss at Paramount told them to dry out or else. Babs always goes<br />
lez in stir. Gail's pining for Rock Hudson. Rock's playing skin-flute on a bartender at Don the<br />
Beachcomber's. The bartender snorts Big 'H' and moonlights at an all-male cathouse."<br />
A geek was twisting his hair in knots and doodling on a scratch pad. A dozen nuts stood around and<br />
watched him draw.<br />
Oscar said, "He's an animator for The Webster Webfoot Show. He makes animated smut flicks on the<br />
side and sells them down in Tj. He thinks he's Webster Webfoot. His wife shows up once a week and<br />
throws popcorn at him."<br />
I laughed. The orderly noticed me and sized me up. Oscar lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my face.<br />
I said, "You want something. You're playing some kind of angle here."<br />
Oscar blew concentric smoke rings. "I want to contemporize you. I want to revitalize your career and<br />
end your days as a schmuck, a schmendrick, a schlemiel, and a schiemazel."<br />
"What's in it for you?"<br />
"You check me out on a pass, right this goddamn instant. You take me down to Darktown and get me<br />
what I need to survive."<br />
He was headed for Shake City. He sucked that cigarette down to a stub in sixteen seconds.<br />
He started twitching. He started shaking. His eyes started begging me.<br />
I said, "Let's go."<br />
We drove south and smoked Linda's reefer. Life lapsed into slow motion. We were bebop bwanas on<br />
the Dark Continent. My dad's '50 Ford was a barge on the River Styx.<br />
Dig the jazz clubs! Dig that drive-in mosque! Dig the unkinkyour-hair parlors and the<br />
chopped-and-channeled chariots in cool coon maroon!<br />
We cruised Central Avenue. A voodoo moon beamed down and lit the way. Oscar found Rachmaninoff<br />
on the radio. We rolled our windows down and shared him with our wild-ass world.<br />
The weed unkinked Oscar. He stopped twitching and abusing me. I steered the barge with one finger.<br />
Water lapped under my feet.<br />
Oscar said, "The Pharaoh Club. They've got a steam room, and all the hip junkies sweat themselves out<br />
there before their Nalline tests. Freddy 0 jacks them up and steals their stuff."<br />
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My life lapsed out of slow motion. Oscar wrecked my reverie. He sounded like a 45 single spun at 78.<br />
I spoke slooow and easy. "Freddy O is a cop. He can flash his badge and pull that kind of thing off."<br />
Oscar lit a cigarette and sucked it down to a cinder in one drag. He flicked the butt out the window and<br />
flashed two little gold stars.<br />
Toy badges.<br />
"Junior Deputy" at the bottom. "SheriffJohn's Lunch Brigade" at the top.<br />
I blinked. The Belgian Congo disappeared and cohered as Darktown L.A. A bazaboo bipped in front of<br />
the car. I missed him by a snatch-hair margin.<br />
Oscar said, "You can't pass this up. It's too sweet. You'll do anything to prove you're not a<br />
crap-your-pants crybaby."<br />
I gulped. I popped a sweat. I saw the Pharaoh Club three doors down and pulled to the curb.<br />
I wore a babaloo bongo shirt and peg pants. Oscar wore a nutward robe and pj's. Hepcats, hipsters,<br />
and hopheads knew our faces.<br />
Oscar said, "Fearful faigeleh fiddle-faddles while--"<br />
I jumped out of the car. Oscar jumped out. We squared off on the sidewalk. Oscar passed me my<br />
badge. I concocted an intro line and pushed the door open.<br />
We entered Pharaoh's Tomb. A big schvartze in Egyptian threads materialized. I caught the layout<br />
behind him.<br />
Black crepe walls. Tables shaped like scarabs going sixty-nine. A bandstand inlaid with a<br />
gold-embossed Ramses II holding crossed scepters. A jazz combo decked out in fezzes--blasting to an<br />
allsepia crowd.<br />
Steam seeped through some ceiling cracks. The spa was upstairs.<br />
The schvartze eyeballed Oscar's pajamas. "You lookin' for a bed, or you come for some milk and<br />
cookies?"<br />
Oscar flashed his badge and said, "Fuck you, King Tut."<br />
The schvartze laughed.<br />
I reached for my intro line. I lost it in the flight path of Marijuana Airways. I said the first thing that hit my<br />
head:<br />
"My name's Friday. I carry a badge."<br />
Fuck--straight out of Dragnet.<br />
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The schvartze laughed. He leaned back and howled. His sheik shirt rolled above his sheik pants. He<br />
packed a beavertail sap in his waistband.<br />
Oscar grabbed the sap and cracked him in the head. The schvartze hit the side wall and knocked a<br />
liquor license loose. I grabbed him by his conk and bent his head back. Oscar cracked him again.<br />
He spit out some denture debris and a slice of his tongue. Oscar said, "Who's holding? Who's got the<br />
stuff to feed the monkey on my back?"<br />
The schvartze quaked and quivered. I dropped his head. Oscar propped it up with the sap.<br />
"I asked you, 'Who's holding?' Who's got the doughnuts, the strudel, the shit?"<br />
The schvartze stammered, stuttered, and pointed upstairs. He got out a string of popped P's and the<br />
single word "Playboy."<br />
Go, Oscar!<br />
The schvartze stammered and stuttered. He got out more popped P's and the words "Please don't hit<br />
me!"<br />
I looked at Oscar. Oscar looked at me. We tore through the Pharaoh Club.<br />
People laughed. People snickered. People ducked and dove under their tables. Oscar's robe billowed.<br />
It snagged on chair backs and chicken-and-waffle plates. We distracted the combo. They blew their<br />
beat. "Bumble Boogie" bent off-key.<br />
We ran up the backstairs. We kicked down a door marked Private. Black faces poked out of a steam<br />
cloud. Dissipating dope drifted through it. Oscar sucked the shit into his lungs and swung his sap blind.<br />
A black blip blipped into black-and-red. Blood spritzed through the cloud. I heard bones crack. I heard<br />
a man scream. Oscar yelled, "Where's Playboy?"<br />
A black face yelled, "Out back!" A black face yelled, "The parking lot!" A black face yelled, "Out back<br />
with some white guy!"<br />
We ran downstairs. We kicked down an exit door. That voodoo moon lit up the parking lot. I saw a<br />
white man and a Negro man huddled by a '49 Olds.<br />
They had their backs to us. I tapped Oscar and made the sssshhh sigh. Oscar nodded and zipped his<br />
lips shut.<br />
We tiptoed up. I heard every word they said.<br />
The white man said, "You weren't supposed to pull heists. That was part of our deal."<br />
The Negro man said, "Sheeit."<br />
The white man said, "You were supposed to recruit colored tail for the movie gig and chauffeur the girls<br />
out of Sybil Brand, and that's fucking all you were supposed to do."<br />
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The Negro man said, "I didn't like the way that Harvey creep was lookin' at my bitch."<br />
The white man said, "He's harmless. All he wants to do is take pictures."<br />
Oscar held up his badge and said, "Freeze, shitbirds."<br />
The men turned around. I made them from the Mirror-News.<br />
Cal Dinkins--LAPD bull. Rudy "Playboy" Wells--robber.<br />
Dinkins laughed. Wells laughed. I dug my feet into the ground and reinforced my spastic sphincter.<br />
Dinkins said, "Holy shit! Oscar Levant and Dick Contino."<br />
Oscar said, "We just look like those punks. It's part of our cover. Cough up the dope, Playboy."<br />
The word "Playboy" tripped Playboy's trigger. He looked at Dinkins. The look said, "They know us."<br />
Dinkins said, "Kill them."<br />
Oscar twitched and dropped his sap. Playboy pulled a shiv and flicked his tongue down the blade.<br />
Blood trickled over his lips. He licked it off and giggled.<br />
I kicked him in the balls. He jackknifed. I pried the shiv out of his hand and jammed it in his right eye.<br />
Oscar picked up the sap and whacked Dinkins in the knees.<br />
Dinkins yelped. Playboy screamed. I pulled the shiv out of his eye and lashed it across Dinkins's throat.<br />
It snagged on his windpipe. I pulled it out loose and ripped Dinkins down to the breastbone.<br />
They gurgled. They spat blood. They hit their knees in one big convulsion. I picked them up and tossed<br />
them in the '49 Olds. Oscar picked their pockets.<br />
They gurgled. They spat blood. They moaned. I saw a hunk of hose on the seat beside them. I got a<br />
flick-their-ID-up idea.<br />
I popped the gas cap and stuck the hose in the tank. I siphoned six inches of ethyl and spat it in their two<br />
gasping gullets. They choked. They gasped. They opened up wiiiide.<br />
I pulled the gun off Dinkins's hip. I popped the clip. I dropped four slugs in his mouth and fed three to<br />
Playboy. I chased them with two matches.<br />
The bullets blew up. I heard dental work destroyed and saw detective work deconstructed. They shot<br />
mouth flames. They scorched the upholstery. The Olds went up like Cinder City.<br />
Oscar shook and twitched. He lit a cigarette off the car flames and killed it in a third of a drag.<br />
I picked him up. I threw him over my shoulder and ran.<br />
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I opened my eyes. I saw the mash notes and the girls taped to my ceiling.<br />
It all came back. I almost pissed in my pajamas.<br />
I got Oscar back to Mount Sinai. We tossed Playboy's billfold en route. I kept Cal Dinkins's address<br />
book. I wanted to know who he knew. Maybe I could frame some freak for my murders.<br />
I was hung over from Maryjane and mayhem. I made up for the men I didn't kill in Korea. They<br />
sheltered me in Seoul. They didn't know that candid cowards could kill with correct provocation.<br />
I was scared.<br />
I showed my face at 83rd and Central. Oscar showed his face and shot off his dope-deprived mouth.<br />
People knew us. We were penny-ante public personas. Oscar played piano and portrayed pissants in a<br />
dozen flicks in constant rerun. A Pharaoh Club patron might see Humoresque and buzz the fuzz. My<br />
career might soar and plant my puss in a million memory banks. I might fall from cloud nine to the gas<br />
chamber.<br />
I stared at my ceiling. I strafed words and pix. I lingered on "I want you" and a blonde with a heat rash.<br />
Yesterday and today. The tightrope and the abyss.<br />
I rolled off my cot. I cooked up some coffee and skimmed the radio dial. I caught the morning news on<br />
six stations. Nobody mentioned the Pharaoh Club inferno.<br />
I went through the address book. I saw a bunch of no-names listed in alphabetical order and some<br />
names and numbers listed at the back.<br />
Two name-names/one familiar name/one no-name.<br />
The no-name:<br />
Harvey Glatman (Harvey's TV Repair, HO-492 36). $2,000.<br />
The familiar name:<br />
Johnny Stompanato, CR-2 8609. $4,000.<br />
Johnny Stomp: ex-Mickey Cohen goon.<br />
I knew Mickey at McNeil Island. He said Johnny poured the pork to Donna Reed and Rita Hayworth.<br />
Orson Welles filmed the trysts through a 2-way mirror and screened them at a stag night at the Cannes<br />
filmfest.<br />
The name-names:<br />
Ida Lupino/CR-622 1 1/$6,000. Steve CochranlOL-65189/ $6,000.<br />
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Ida Lupino: Mrs. Howard Duff. Film star and director. Steve Cochran: B-movie stud.<br />
I kicked the names around. I retrieved two things that Wells and Dinkins said:<br />
"You were supposed to recruit colored tail for the movie gig." / "I didn't like the way that Harvey creep<br />
was lookin' at my bitch."<br />
Dinkins: rogue cop. Wells: heist man. They colluded on the drive-in job. The "movie gig" had to be<br />
something else.<br />
I ran out to my parents' porch and picked up the Herald. On page two: NIGHTCLUB NIGHTMARE.<br />
They tagged the victims John Doe #1 and #2. The schvartze described his assailants: "Big guys--they'd<br />
have to be to mess with me." Two sketches ran on page three. The sketch artist did not draw Oscar and<br />
me. He drew two bullet-headed pachucos.<br />
I laughed. I roared. I did an impromptu shimmy. We took two Gs off the stiffs. My half would spring my<br />
ax and rent me a slick little love shack.<br />
A big man stepped out of a shadow. He held out a badge and blocked out my brand-new sunshine. He<br />
said, "You silly cocksucker."<br />
The badge was real. The man was all muscle. He pulled out a claim tag and flicked it on my nose. He<br />
said, "You silly fuck."<br />
He wore a gold watch and a gold-plated .45. He wore a gold ID link. The "EO." ID'd him.<br />
Fred Otash--the big-time Big O.<br />
I twitched. I shook. I popped a Popsicle sweat. A van pulled into the driveway. Dig the side panels:<br />
HARvEY'S TV REPAIR.<br />
A creep stared out the windshield. He picked his nose. Otash flicked the claim tag on my nose.<br />
"You dropped it by the car you torched, and that orderly saw you check Oscar out of Mount Sinai. He<br />
called Danny Getchell. Danny tailed you down to niggertown and lost you. He figured you went down<br />
there for some smoky meat, and he thought he might nail you coming out of some coon whorehouse."<br />
I shook. I shivered. I shrugged like I didn't give a shit. A gyroscope popped out of the van and spun on<br />
the roof. The next-doorneighbor lady walked out on her porch and picked up her morning paper. The<br />
creep ogled her.<br />
I looked at Otash. Otash looked at me. It hit me hard:<br />
A fix was in. The cops John Doe'd Wells and Dinkins deliberately. Otash did not know that I knew that.<br />
Otash did not know that I knew my victims' names. I did not tell Oscar their names. I had to hold it all<br />
back from Oscar and Otash.<br />
Otash yawned. "Let's wrap this up before your folks get back. First, quit shaking and lay out last night<br />
for me."<br />
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I laid out a condensed version. "Oscar Levant and I got in some trouble at the Pharaoh Club. We tried<br />
to cop some dope, and a white guy and a colored guy attacked us. I killed them in selfdefense."<br />
Otash smiled. The creep smiled back. Otash nodded. The creep hit a switch on his dashboard. My<br />
voice boomed off the gyroscope and covered the whole block:<br />
"Oscar Levant and I got in some trouble at the Pharaoh Club. We tried to cop some dope, and--"<br />
Otash nodded. The creep hit a switch. My voice died out.<br />
I shook. I weaved. My legs went. I fell back and hit a porch post. Otash pulled his gun and pinned me<br />
toit.<br />
"Did you take anything off the bodies?"<br />
I lied big. "We took the money out of their wallets and tossed the wallets down a sewer grate."<br />
"Did you find an address book on the white guy?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Are you sure?"<br />
"Sure I'm sure. Do you think I'd--"<br />
Otash slapped me. A big gold ring raked my nose.<br />
"Here's thequestion, paisan. Do you want to burn for this? Do you want me to sweat Oscar cold turkey<br />
until he gives you up to corroborate your confession, or do you want to get some middleaged pussy and<br />
make friends in the LAPD?"<br />
My head spun six ways. My tongue tripped over six ways to express acquiescence. I stammered. I<br />
stuttered. Otash slapped me. Blood burst out of my nose.<br />
"I'll take that response as a yes and lay it out for you. One, the Feds intercepted some letters that a<br />
certain pink lady wrote to you and shared them with us. Two, the pink lady's husband has said some<br />
entirely unacceptable things about the LAPD and has to be punished. Your job is to meet the pink lady at<br />
a bash at the Wilshire-Ebell tonight, fuck her silly, and get her to admit that her pinko husband is a<br />
member of the various Commie-front organizations that we suspect he is. Do you understand your job,<br />
paisan?"<br />
I said, "Yes." My voice sounded too deep and overamplifled. It wah-wahhed off the van.<br />
Otash glared at the creep. The creep hit a switch. My voice wah-wahhed and died.<br />
Otash tapped his gun on my chest. "That's Harvey Glatman. He's a genius, but he likes to play with his<br />
toys too much. You meet him at his shop at 5:3 0. He'll wire you up for the job."<br />
The neighbor woman walked out again. Glatman ogled her. He panted and fogged up his windshield.<br />
Otash slapped me. I tasted his ring.<br />
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"Stay scared, Dick."<br />
I had to act like I still had a future. I had to tap the shallow showmust-go-on part of my soul and dig up<br />
some desperate ego to pass off for courage. I had to sort out the shit I stepped into and get up the guts<br />
to shaft L. Trent Woodard for the shit he slung my way.<br />
I repo'd my accordion. I called Linda and outlined her birthcontrol options.<br />
I called Howard. He said I was poison. No booking agent or casting boss would touch me. I was<br />
poison. I was contagious. I was the syph and the clap. L. Trent Woodard lavishly lauded me in the<br />
morning Mirror. He smeared me and slathered me pink.<br />
I called Oscar at Mount Sinai. He sounded bombed. He didn't remember the Pharaoh Club and our<br />
double homicide. He thought we drove to Tj. We caught the mule act and played Gershwin for the mule<br />
and a queer matador. We drove back to L.A. at dawn.<br />
I pumped him for dope on Fred O. He said Freddy ran a string of snitches for Hush-Hush. He kept the<br />
secret dirt stash that was too hot for Hush-Hush to handle and had every fag bathhouse in the swish alps<br />
wired for sound.<br />
Freddy beat up Japs at Manzanar. Freddy killed Japs on Saipan. Freddy broke the strike at the Ford<br />
plant in Pico Rivera. Freddy popped a Mickey Cohen punk named Hooky Rothman. Jack Dragna paid<br />
him ten grand. Freddy popped a Dragna punk. Mickey paid him ten grand.<br />
I dropped the address-book names. Oscar didn't know Johnny Stomp or Harvey the Creep. He said<br />
Steve Cochran packed the biggest schvantz in Tinseltown. He said Ida Lupino dried out at Mount Sinai<br />
last year. Freddy O snuck her Turpenhydrate. Ida loved Freddy. Ida feared Freddy. She fed him bits for<br />
Hush-Hush. Ida and the Schvantz were making a picture right now--some lox called Private Hell 36.<br />
I hung up and called a guy at Variety. He said Private Hell 36 was shooting nights out in Duarte.<br />
Howard Duff costarred with Ida and the Schvantz.<br />
I drove downtown and skulked around the main library. I pulled old clips and new clips and rolled<br />
microfilm. I came up with insinuating shit.<br />
The drive-in heist was hot. Cal Dinkins took heat for Playboy. He bopped away from his stakeout post.<br />
Playboy plowed a barricade and skedaddled.<br />
I saw a shot of Dinkins and Jack Webb. The Times called them "tight-knit." Dinkins taught Webb how<br />
to play his part on Dragnet.<br />
The Times ran heist copy. The Herald ran context.<br />
The stakeout was covertly co-op: the LAPD and L.A. Sheriff's. The stakeout was steeped in<br />
interagency grief. It went way back.<br />
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The Sheriff's sanctioned Mickey Cohen's Sunset Strip incursion. The LAPD hated Mickey. Mickey was<br />
bushwhacked on Sheriff's turf in July '49. He took two .12-gauge pellets and walked. His pal Neddie<br />
Herbert took a spread in the face. The case was unsolved. The LAPD was suspected. The key suspect<br />
was Officer Fred Otash.<br />
Chief Parker hated Sheriff Biscailuz. Biscailuz hated Parker. The LAPD and Sheriff's were knocking<br />
noggins now. The state legislature had their budgets up for review. Both agencies wanted more money.<br />
Both agencies wanted a cut of the other guys' coin. The LAPD got more money now. Biscailuz wanted<br />
that money and more.<br />
I skimmed a piece on Johnny Stompanato.<br />
Johnny made bail on an extortion bounce. The Herald hinted at horny housewives and naughty<br />
snapshots. The D.A. declined to file charges.<br />
The Herald ran a picture. Johnny looked like me. He was one handsome guinea side of beef.<br />
I found a piece on Viv and Trent Woodard. Viv wrote poetry. Viv took colored kids to the Civic Light<br />
Opera. Trent lived off a trust fund. He filed suits for drunks and derelicts pistol-whipped and pounded by<br />
the LAPD.<br />
I saw a shot of Viv. She's doing a curtsy at some debutante ball. It's '47. She's dark haired, rangy, and<br />
busty. She's coming up on 45 fast.<br />
The picture goosed my gonads. I wanted to rip it off the microfilm roll and tape it to my bomb-shelter<br />
ceiling.<br />
I found a piece on Private Hell 36. It said the Schvantz disrupted the shoot with two dates in court. It<br />
implied Mickey Mouse misdemeanors.<br />
I walked to a pay phone and called Oscar. I ran it by him. He said the Schvantz beat up a hooker and<br />
got caught with a fat bag of boo. Ida Lupino told him. She said the judge shot the Schvantz a suspended<br />
sentence in exchange for a part in his next picture.<br />
My head buzzed like a bumblebee on Benzedrine. My names bopped in a tight spread.<br />
I pressed Oscar. I wanted more dirt. Oscar said he couldn't think. The doctors deregulated his daily<br />
dope drip.<br />
He wanted Demerol. They gave him Dilantin. He wanted to duck down to Darktown and dig up some<br />
Dilaudid.<br />
I pressed harder. Oscar said he talked to Barbara Payton. Babs said she had a thing with the Schvantz.<br />
She said the Schvantz measured in at 12.4 inches.<br />
Harvey Glatman shaved my chest and taped on a microphone. I looked around his back room.<br />
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TV tubes dumped on chairs and a dusty old couch. A six-slat shelf packed with diodes and diagnostic<br />
devices. Four walls of perverted pinup pulchritude.<br />
Women trussed with rope. Women spread-eagled. Women gagged with black rubber balls. Chaste<br />
shots of Joi Lansing on the Dragnet set.<br />
I lingered on Joi. Harvey caught it.<br />
"She just broke up with Jack Webb. Jack's torching. Joi's working the line at Ciro's, and Jack sits<br />
ringside every night."<br />
Cal Dinkins knew Jack Webb. Webb was LAPD Shill #1.<br />
"Did you take those pictures of her?"<br />
Harvey twisted three wires and taped them above my right nipple. "I used to be Jack's unit<br />
photographer."<br />
I took a big whiff of Harvey. I took in his peeper pix and his panty-sniffer paraphernalia. I smelled<br />
ex-con. I smelled snitch. I smelled rabid Rottweiler.<br />
"Let me guess. Jack heard you served time. He cut you loose, and Freddy 0 picked up your option."<br />
Harvey deadpanned me. "You should stand away from electrical appliances. They screw up the sound<br />
quality."<br />
I said, "Jack's tight with Chief Parker. I heard the LAPD runs R & I checks on the Dragnet crew, and<br />
I'll bet they turned up a rap sheet on you."<br />
Harvey pulled a wild hair off my chest. I yelped. Harvey dabbed a styptic pencil on the raw spot.<br />
"I'm a certified genius. I can broadcast TV pictures from any installation to any individual TV set, which<br />
means I don't have to sit still for your insinuations."<br />
I looked at the bondage pix. I saw yellow bands on the girls' wrists. Sybil Brand inmates wore yellow<br />
wristbands.<br />
Cal Dinkins to Playboy:<br />
"Recruit colored tail for the movie gig" / "Chauffeur the girls out of Sybil Brand" / "All he wants to do is<br />
take pictures."<br />
"What did you go up for, Harvey? Statch rape? Flimflam? Some weenie-wagger beef? I think you--"<br />
Harvey pinched a tuft of hair and ripped it off my chest. I yelped. Harvey said, "Be nice, Dick. You're an<br />
ex-convict yourself."<br />
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My chest stubble itched. My tape wrap stung. My tuxedo smelled like mothballs.<br />
I parked outside the Wilshire-Ebell. I saw a sign by the door: SISTER KENNY FOUNDATION<br />
GALA. I saw the nut-ward orderly and a strapping goon parked in a tow-away zone.<br />
I walked inside. They watched me. I flashed my invitation to a hostess and zoomed straight back to the<br />
bar.<br />
I was early. The ballroom was almost empty. Two nuns and a priest were blasting scotch at a bar-side<br />
table. The nuns looked half-gassed. They saw me and giggled.<br />
I ordered a quadruple martini. I told the barman to put it in a pail or a dog dish. He brought me a pitcher<br />
and a glass and cleared out fast.<br />
I drank. I kept my back to the ballroom and heard it fill up behind me. I heard people at the bar<br />
whisper, "That's Dick Contino."<br />
I kept my snout in my glass. The booze sparked political conversions and apostasies. I moved left and<br />
denounced Joe McCarthy. I moved right and shot Alger Hiss 2,000 volts. I freed the Scottsboro Boys<br />
and beat Helen Gahagan Douglas to death with my accordion.<br />
The booze enlightened. The booze obfuscated. I figured I'd see Viv and respond to stimuli like Pavlov's<br />
fucking dog.<br />
I heard a familiar voice. I recognized it. I glanced two stools down.<br />
Gene Biscailuz plucked the fruit off an old-fashioned. L. Trent Woodard sucked a cherry out of his<br />
Manhattan.<br />
I saw Woodard. He didn't see me. I eavesdropped.<br />
Biscailuz made small talk. Polio and Sister Kenny--blah, blah, blah. Woodard said, "Sheriff, let's talk<br />
turkey. You can't let Bill Parker and the city cops bootjack all that money. You can't--"<br />
Woodard saw me. He dropped the Sheriff in midspiel and slid two stools down. I slid to the far right<br />
and got right up in his face.<br />
"Back off, baby doll. I'm a pistol-packing white man, and I don't like your leanings. And don't blast the<br />
LAPD and invoke me in the same breath. Those guys are the thin blue line between freedom and the fifth<br />
column."<br />
Woodard dropped his glass. A priest spun off his stool and spilled scotch in my lap. I shouted my<br />
declaration. My chest mike must have caught every word.<br />
I locked orbs with Woodard. An eyeball duel ensued. I broke it off and barged into the crowd. A little<br />
bit of my soul broke loose and bopped off unbidden.<br />
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People watched me pass. I heard a dozen "Dick Continos." Tuxedos and taffeta swirled around me. I<br />
caught a split-second blip of Chief William H. Parker in dress blues.<br />
I walked out to a palm-lined portico. It was private and peaceful. I figured she'd find me and pounce.<br />
I leaned on a railing and watched cars bomb down Wilshire. I counted up from zero. She pounced at<br />
twenty-two.<br />
"I thought you'd at least send me an autographed picture."<br />
I pulled a perfect pivot and spun around close enough to kiss her. I said, "I knew you'd be here."<br />
She smiled. She smelled like Tweed or Jungle Gardenia. She was 49 or 50 and looked it. She wore a<br />
tight black gown. Her right breast was half again as large as her left. Her cleavage dipped<br />
proportionately. Her right nipple was half-exposed. It was dark and pebbled up from cold air or<br />
excitement.<br />
I wanted to fuck her. My heart lurched to the left.<br />
"How did you know I'd be here?"<br />
Freddy O briefed me. He said to cite Harrison Carroll's column.<br />
I stepped closer. Viv reached up and tossed her hair off her right shoulder. I saw a razor nick under her<br />
arm.<br />
I said, "I read about the Sister Kenny thing, and I saw your name mentioned."<br />
Viv stepped back. Her heels snagged on her floor-length hemline. She tottered and caught herself. My<br />
heart lurched. I wanted her to reach for me.<br />
I looked over her shoulder. Her husband slid through the ballroom. He had one arm around a young<br />
man.<br />
Viv said, "Can I tell you why I came on so strong?"<br />
I nodded. I jammed my hands in my pockets. I didn't want to touch her too soon.<br />
She said, "To begin with, I acknowledged our age difference and decided to risk the chance that you'd<br />
find me elderly, then I thought you might be lonely and vulnerable after all that time in prison and Korea,<br />
then I thought I owed you something for the injudicious way my husband has expressed his admiration for<br />
you, then I thought that anyone who's been as candid about their fear as you've been would appreciate<br />
my candor and not judge me as desperate, and then I figured I'd better act fast before I hit menopause<br />
and get indifferent to sex."<br />
My heartbeat escalated. My chest expanded. A strip of Harvey Glatman's tape popped loose.<br />
Viv said, "Say something. I had that speech prepared, and you're just looking at me."<br />
I said, "Your husband's in the next room."<br />
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She said, "He's a homosexual, and he wants me to be with you."<br />
I said, "What?"<br />
She said, "You're an artist, so don't pretend you don't understand."<br />
I backed into the railing. L. Trent Woodard walked by the doorway and winked at me. His young man<br />
blew me a kiss.<br />
I said, "Jesus fucking Christ."<br />
Viv said, "Be less vulgar, and follow me home. I'll be in the Packard Caribbean."<br />
Viv led the way. I followed. The nut-ward guy and the goon tailed me.<br />
We caravanned to 3rd and Muirfield. The nut-ward guy and the goon goosed my tailpipes. Viv stopped<br />
in front of her house. She pointed me into the driveway and pulled up behind me.<br />
She boxed my dad's car in. She didn't want me to rabbit.<br />
The pad backed up to the Wilshire Country Club. Viv walked in ahead of me and turned on some lights.<br />
The nut-ward guy and the goon disappeared down the block.<br />
The house was big and salmon pink Spanish. I walked up and peeped the peephole. Smoked glass<br />
smeared my view. My martini-mottled mind went wild.<br />
I saw a Commie commissar corps. I saw my mom strapped to a rack. Trent Woodard brandished a<br />
branding tool. Dig that hot hammer and sickle.<br />
I blinked. I saw a dozen old women. They were dowager demons and sex-starved succubi. They<br />
craved my seed. They bared their geriatric genitalia.<br />
Viv was their siren and shill. Trent couldn't get hard and hose women. They needed ME.<br />
I blinked. A car pulled up to the curb. Somebody whispered, "Ring the bell, shithead."<br />
I yipped and cringed. I turned around. I saw the nut-ward guy and the goon in the goonmobile.<br />
I rang the bell. Viv opened the door. My peephole panorama went poof!<br />
I stepped inside. Viv handed me a martini. I sniffed it for Spanish fly or knockout drops.<br />
Viv shut the door. My drink looked kosher. I chugalugged it and ate the olive.<br />
The living room was king-sized and leftist primitive chic.<br />
Labor posters. Furniture fabrics finished in gold filigree. Atavistic statues with fat phalluses and pointy<br />
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pudenda.<br />
Viv tracked my eyes. "I'm eclectic. And the fertility gods are special to me."<br />
I said, "You married a fag, so I guess you needed all the help you could get."<br />
Viv walked to a sideboard and mixed herself a martini. My martini sent me mixed messages:<br />
Fuck her/Don't fuck her/Fuck her rich Red pawn of a husband. Fuck the LAPD for the way they flicked<br />
you/Fack everyone and flick no one at all.<br />
Viv said, "You shouldn't underestimate my husband. He has some powerful allies."<br />
"I know. I saw him talking to Sheriff Biscailuz."<br />
Viv dropped an olive in her drink. "Gene's a friend, yes. He kept Trent out of the papers when he--"<br />
"Got picked up during a fruit roust at some joint in West Hollywood?"<br />
Viv smiled. "You're correct. He saved Trent from a great deal of embarrassment and turned him into<br />
quite a resource."<br />
"What do you mean?"<br />
"That's Trent's a good lawyer, and Gene Biscailuz isn't so blinded by a hatred of homosexuals that he<br />
can't utilize his talent."<br />
I said, "Too bad the LAPD doesn't feel that way."<br />
Viv sipped her drink. "Yes and no. For one, Trent hates them too much to work with them. Gene hates<br />
them, too, and Trent's been working with him on this budget contretemps that the Sheriff's and the LAPD<br />
are embroiled in."<br />
"On the Q.T., you mean."<br />
"That's correct. Gene doesn't want it known that Trent's working with him, and Trent doesn't ever want<br />
the LAPD to learn that he's quite fond of young men. He's quite sure that the LAPD is out to<br />
compromise him any way they can, so of course he's remained quite discreet."<br />
I looked around the room. The labor posters were laid out in gold-lacquered frames.<br />
"Is Trent an actual Communist?"<br />
Viv laughed. "Nobody with brains and a soul is a real Communist."<br />
"What about Commie front groups?"<br />
"For instance?"<br />
I pulled names off Freddy 0's crib sheet. "The People's Committee for a Free Philippines, the<br />
Free-the-Rosenbergs Defense Fund, the National Alliance for Social Justice, the--"<br />
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Viv cut me off. "It sounds like you have those names memorized."<br />
I shuddered. My chest mike shifted and settled off to the left.<br />
Viv said, "Fixate on me. Don't fixate on my husband."<br />
I got pissed. I got wild-hair-up-the-ass pissed.<br />
"I can't get work because of your husband. He's run a big, goddamn guilt-by-association number on<br />
me."<br />
Viv shrugged. "Then work for social justice. Teach underprivileged Negro children to play the<br />
accordion, and I'll pay you what Las Vegas entertainers earn."<br />
Don't blow your cool/Don't blast your cork/Don't--<br />
"Really, Dick, you must overlook the few injudicious comments my husband has made about you. Look<br />
to the real historical source of your troubles and try to understand the big picture."<br />
I tamped my temper down. "For instance?"<br />
"For instance, my husband is involved in big issues."<br />
"For instance?"<br />
"For instance, a woman came to Trent recently. Trent wouldn't tell me her name, but he told me she<br />
broke up with her boyfriend, and she knew something about a horribly draconian LAPD plot to initiate<br />
some truly Fascistic measures, all of it tied in to TV propaganda. You see, Dick, those are the types of<br />
issues my husband deals with."<br />
My skin prickled. My hackles hopped. The pitch tweaked and tantalized me.<br />
"What else did your husband say about the woman?"<br />
Viv said, "That she was a big, busty blonde."<br />
My synapses snapped and snagged a connection.<br />
Joi Lansing was a big, busty blonde. Harvey Glatman said she just dumped Jack Webb. Webb: LAPD<br />
lapdog. TV propaganda. Dragnet: top-rated TV fare and the LAPD'S PR lightning rod.<br />
Viv said, "Dick, what is it? You look abstracted all of a sudden."<br />
I moved in on her. I mixed a martini and guzzled it for guts. Viv ran a sloooow hand down my cheek.<br />
"I'm tired of talking about my husband, and I'm tired of talking in general. Let me duck into the loo for a<br />
moment."<br />
I kissed her hand. I made her as musk as Matchabelli's Midnight Madness. She smiled and popped into<br />
a powder room by the door.<br />
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I popped to the front window. I pulled the drapes. I doused a light behind me and looked out. A breeze<br />
blew in. I peeped and perked my ears.<br />
Two cars at the curb. A curbside confab. The nut-ward guy and the goon. Danny Getchell and the kid<br />
who cozied up to Woodard at the gala.<br />
Standing and smoking and staring into a book.<br />
The goon said, "What's that?" The kid said, "It's a flicking thesaurus." Danny said, "Limp-wristed lawyer<br />
lollygags at lavender lovefest! Pinko plutocrat paralyzed as cops cop preadult playmate!" The kid said,<br />
"Cute, but remember--a C-note down and no ass action."<br />
"Come here, Dick."<br />
I pulled the drapes. I turned around slooooow.<br />
Vivid Viv in a sheer peach peignoir. Embroidered: crossed cocks and pointy pudenda and fierce fertility<br />
gods.<br />
"Come here, Dick."<br />
She wanted to siphon my seed. SHE was the succubus!!!<br />
I panicked. I tore through my pockets for garlic cloves or wolfsbane. Viv jumped on me.<br />
She tore at my jacket. She tore at my shirt. She tore at the power pack packed on my pectoral muscles.<br />
She stopped. My microphone flopped free and dropped down to my cummerbund. She saw the wires<br />
and the tangled-up tape.<br />
The succubus shrieked. She clawed my chest and kicked me in the balls.<br />
The succubus went for my eyes.<br />
I blocked her hands. I judo-chopped her. I caught her on the neck and dumped her flat. I ran--<br />
I got out the door. The nut-ward guy and the goon counterattacked. They jumped in their car and<br />
blocked off the driveway.<br />
I went for my car keys. They were gone. I lost them when I grabbed for garlic cloves or wolfsbane.<br />
Somebody whispered, "Get back in there and fuck her!" Danny Getchell whispered, "Don't run!"<br />
Somebody whispered, "Quiet-- or she'll hear us!"<br />
I ran to the Packard Caribbean. I found the keys in the dash. I hit the gas and rammed my dad's car.<br />
It spun into the big backyard. It spun off wet grass and spun into a swimming pool. It sunk down to its<br />
tailpipes.<br />
I hit my headlights. I saw a trellised fence and a dark golf course. I punched the gas and plowed through<br />
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I made it up to the Strip. I leveled nine golf holes and left three miles of grassy tire tracks behind me.<br />
The Packard was mud mottled and stained grass green. I ditched it with the valet outside Ciro's. I<br />
walked in and caught three bars of "You Belong to Me."<br />
It tremolo'd and trickled through the foyer. I stepped into the main room and caught it full on. Joi Lansing<br />
held the room hostage. Blonde hair and spray-painted spangles in a hot spotlight.<br />
I stood at the back and scoped the room long-distance. Harvey Glatman stood behind some drapes<br />
draping off a side exit. He stared at la Lansing. He had his hands full.<br />
He held out a little camera. The drapes popped and puckered off his pelvis. Harvey was pounding his<br />
pud.<br />
I looked left. I looked right. The room rocked to a torch-song tempo. Jack Webb sat ringside. He wept<br />
into a Rob Roy and tossed red roses onstage. Joi ignored him. Two toady types consoled him.<br />
They screamed "LAPD." The scene outside the Woodard house screamed "BACKUP<br />
SHAKEDOWN." I was set to crucify a Commie. Hush-Hush was set to humble him as a homo. The<br />
package screamed "LAPD."<br />
Joi whispered. Joi warbled. Joi torched Jack Webb's heart and tossed it away.<br />
I couldn't brace her yet. I got the Packard and laid tracks for the San Gabriel Valley.<br />
I found the location. I watched Private Hell 36 wrap. The shoot had to shoot into my whole web of<br />
intrigue.<br />
They shot at a trailer park in downscale Duarte. I parked in a vacant lot across the street. I found<br />
binoculars in the backseat and freeze-framed my focus. Arc lights gave me added eyeball oomph.<br />
The trailers were beat-up and slapped down in rows sans tow hooks and cars. They looked empty. The<br />
crew stood on a pavement patch off to the left. They looked itchy.<br />
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They dispersed at 12:01 A.M. They peeled out in individual cars. They left their arc lights up. Two<br />
people stayed behind and paced the pavement.<br />
Ida Lupino. Steve "the Schvantz" Cochran.<br />
Ida smoked and sucked on a hip flask. The Schvantz sniffed a dress rack. It was standing by a trailer<br />
marked #36.<br />
I waited. I watched.<br />
12:08 A.M.:<br />
A car pulls up. Freddy O and Johnny Stompanato get out.<br />
Ida shoots Freddy a tongue kiss. Johnny Stomp shoots the Schvantz a mean look. Stomp enters #36<br />
and exits with a small movie camera. The Schvantz dumps it in Freddy 0's car.<br />
12:13 A.M.:<br />
An LAPD van pulls up. Six women hop out. They're dressed in jail denims. The driver hops out. He's<br />
dressed in LAPD blue.<br />
The girls hit the dress rack. The girls hit #36. The girls exit looking vampy and dressed va-va-voom. The<br />
Schvantz licks his chops.<br />
12:26 A.M.:<br />
The girls get back in the van. Ida and the Schvantz hop in Freddy O's car. Freddy and Johnny Stomp<br />
hop in. The LAPD man pulls down the arc lights and straps them to the roof of the van.<br />
12:34 A.M.:<br />
The car pulls out. The van pulls out. I pull out behind them.<br />
We drive three blocks east. The car and the van pull into a courtyard motel. I pull into a vacant lot fifty<br />
yards east.<br />
The Larkcrest Motel. Abandoned. One light in one room lit. A long string of dark doorways and<br />
windows.<br />
I grabbed my binoculars. I crept into the courtyard. I peeped the scene perspiringly close.<br />
12:46 A.M.:<br />
The girls hit the lit-up room. The cop hauls the camera and arc lights in. Ida and the Schvantz hit the<br />
room.<br />
12:50 A.M.:<br />
Johnny Stomp walks around the courtyard. He opens the doors and turns on the lights in every other<br />
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Six rooms are now lit. Six rooms remain dark.<br />
12:59 A.M.:<br />
Freddy 0 hauls a box from his car. He circuits the six lit-up rooms. He drops a bottle of booze and two<br />
paper cups on six bright blue bedspreads.<br />
1:04 A.M.:<br />
The cop climbs in his van. He unloads a dolly. It holds six movie cameras. The cop circuits the six dark<br />
rooms. He dumps six cameras on six bright blue bedspreads. He shuts the doors behind him.<br />
I got the picture. I got it in SIN-emascope.<br />
The cop climbed back in his van. I snuck way into the courtyard. I hunkered down and entered a dark<br />
room on his blind side.<br />
I flicked a light on. I flicked it off fast. I saw a 2-way peek built into the wall. I fumbled in darkness and<br />
bumbled into a door.<br />
I opened it. I entered a lit-up love room. The 2-way looked out on the bed. I pulled the microphone and<br />
power pack off my chest and taped itto the bottom of the mattress.<br />
I snuck back to the vacant lot sloooooooooow. I grabbed my binoculars. I waited. I watched. I<br />
patiently peeped the courtyard. I listened to grunts and groans in Ida Lupino's room.<br />
1:36 A.M.:<br />
Ida's door opens. Johnny Stomp walks out. I get a two-second tantalization.<br />
Ida's got her camera in tight. A blonde's got the Schvantz trapped in her tonsils.<br />
He's huge. He's a pineapple impaled on a pipe threader.<br />
Stompanato shut the door and lit a cigarette. I waited. I watched. I patiently peeped the courtyard.<br />
2:08 A.M.:<br />
Six cars pull in. Six middle-aged men jump out. They've got smirks on their lips and guns on their hips.<br />
They whoop. They holler. Johnny Stomp greets them.<br />
I zoomed in on their cars. I latched my lenses on their license plates and memorized them.<br />
I ran to my car. I peeled out. I heard Ida Lupino yell, "Cut! That's a take!"<br />
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3:26 A.M.:<br />
I peeled into the alley behind Ciro's. There's Joi Lansing.<br />
She's dressed in a Girl Scout getup. She's dumping red roses in a trash bin.<br />
She blinked into my headlights. I doused them. She said, "Jack, Jesus Christ."<br />
I got out of the car. A flashlight flashed me. Joi said, "Jesus, Dick Contino."<br />
I didn't know what to say. I hummed three bars from "Lady of Spain."<br />
Joi laughed. "I don't know what you're doing here, but at least I know thatJack didn't send you."<br />
I leaned on the trash bin. Joi flipped off her flashlight. A late moon lit the alley low and languorous.<br />
"How do you know Jack didn't send me?"<br />
"Sergeant Joe Friday and you?"<br />
I laughed. "You haven't asked me what I'm doing here."<br />
Joi lit a cigarette and looked me over. "You're wearing a tuxedo, and you look like you've been crawling<br />
in dirt. Your shirt's unbuttoned, and it looks like you've shaved your chest. I couldn't begin to guess, and<br />
as long as Jack didn't send you, I don't care."<br />
I laughed. I coughed away a cloud ofJoi's smoke and tossed her a teaser.<br />
"I heard you and Jack broke up. I think I read it in Hush-Hush."<br />
Ba-boom, bam, bingo:<br />
Joi went bug-eyed and choked on a chestful of Chesterfield.<br />
I let her cough up some composure. She came back strong.<br />
"Over's over. Jack didn't want to get married and have kids, and I did. I wouldn't be playing den mother<br />
to a bunch of Mexican brats in Boyle Heights if I didn't. Jesus, I mean, look at this outfit."<br />
I tossed Teaser #2. "Politics had nothing to do with it?"<br />
Joi dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. "I'm an actress, a chorus dancer, and an occasional singer.<br />
I've got about as much interest in politics as you do."<br />
"You'd be surprised."<br />
"Try me."<br />
Try this:<br />
"You went to L. Trent Woodard last year. You told him you had inside information on an LAPD plot to<br />
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put out propaganda on TV I'm betting Jack Webb was in on it, and I'm betting you had second thoughts<br />
and just dropped the whole thing, and I'm betting Woodard can't put any more of the plot together."<br />
Joi said, "Jesus, Mr. Accordion." She said it breathless and very Hush-Hushed.<br />
I said, "I nailed it?"<br />
Joi lit a cigarette and flicked ash off her Girl Scout sash. "I got ahold of some Dragnet scripts that Jack<br />
and Chief Parker wrote. They had Joe Friday running speeches on how the LAPD needed to round up<br />
all the bums in Los Angeles and deport them to Cuba permanently, and how they needed to establish<br />
debtors' prisons and work farms to take all the deadbeats off the streets. I told Jack, 'You and Bill<br />
Parker can't possibly be serious about proposing this sick shit,' and Jack said, 'It isn't sick, and we'll<br />
shoot those scripts when the time is right."<br />
Puzzle pieces popped into place. I said, "Does Jack know you approached Woodard? Does he know<br />
that this sick shit convinced you to leave him?"<br />
Joi shook her head. "No. He thinks the marriage issue queered things, and wait, it gets sicker."<br />
I sniffed Jack Webb's red roses. Joi shut the trash bin and smothered the smell.<br />
"I overheard Jack and Parker talking a few times. Their plan was to shoot the scripts and air them on<br />
Dragnet, to soften the public up. Then they'd get up a public petition to deport the bums and build the<br />
debtors' prisons and work farms. Now, dig this. Jack and Freddy Otash own a big construction firm<br />
under the table, and Parker's tight with that Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista. The plan was for the<br />
LAPD to sell the bums to Batista, so he could use them as slaves in his sugarcane fields, and Jack's<br />
construction firm would get the contract to build the debtors' prisons and work farms, and once they<br />
were built, the inmates would build the sets for all the movies Jack wanted to make. The only thing<br />
holding all this back was seed money. They needed a few quick million to get things going."<br />
More pieces popped into place. I said, "The LAPD's tangling over money with the Sheriff's right now.<br />
Parker wants to get his hands on that seed dough."<br />
Joi shivered. "William H. Parker is the devil with horns."<br />
I said, "Freddy O's right up there."<br />
"He is. He's got a big dirt dossier on all of Parker and the LAPD's enemies, and he's got this sick twist<br />
Harvey who does bug work and phone taps for him. Harvey's got this sick thing for me. He used to<br />
follow me around the set when I visited Jack."<br />
Pieces PERCOLATINGLY popping into place--<br />
"And Cal Dinkins was--I mean is--tight with Jack and Freddy?"<br />
"Yes. Dick, how do you know all--"<br />
"And the LAPD dirt dossier is sort of like the big Hush-Hush master file that Freddy 0's supposedly<br />
got?"<br />
"Yes, but it's all one file, and Parker and Otash decide who gets smeared, and it's all so ugly that I wish I<br />
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didn't know about it, and . . . and. . . and. . ."<br />
Joi ran out of breath and lit a cigarette. I said, "I need a tape recorder, and I need to get some<br />
license-plate information."<br />
Joi squawked like a squad-car squawkbox. She popped out a parcel of penal-code numbers,<br />
Dragnet-style.<br />
"I know how to do things like that. Jack taught me. And I've got a tape gizmo inside."<br />
I pulled a pen from my pocket. Joi pulled some paper from her Girl Scout skirt. She leaned over. I used<br />
her back for a blotter and jotted down my vehicle dope.<br />
She ran into the club. I bayed at the big bright moon.<br />
Pieces PALPITATINGLY popping into place. A bonaroo blonde to rescue and redeem me.<br />
Joi jumped into the alley. She handed me a tape rig and a scratch-pad sheet.<br />
"I got the vehicle information and ran an employment crosscheck. The six registered owners are all<br />
members of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department."<br />
I bayed at the moon. I grabbedJoi and kissed her. She kissed me back hard. I tasted tobacco and sweet<br />
vermouth on her tongue.<br />
We broke the clinch. Joi said, "Be brave and stupid. I go for guys like that."<br />
I drove back to Duarte. I hit the Larkcrest Motel at 5:33 A.M. The courtyard was deserted and dead<br />
quiet.<br />
I hit Love Hut #9 and pulled my power pack off the mattress. I pulled the tape spool out of the pack<br />
and popped it in Joi's tape rig.<br />
I sat on the bed. I hit the Play button. I heard bits of the Wllshire-Ebell bash and my clash with the<br />
succubus. I heard tape hiss and fuck sounds and a real male and a fake female climax.<br />
I heard voices.<br />
Male voice: "Sweetie, that was . . . Jesus."<br />
Female voice: "I could tell it's been a while for you."<br />
Male voice: "Yeah, well. . . the old lady's the old lady, but I guess that doesn't count."<br />
Female voice: "Look, it's been a while for me too. I've been out of circulation."<br />
Male voice: "What do you mean? I thought you got bit roles at M-G-M and lived here in L.A."<br />
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Female voice: "Yeah, I do. It. . . was. . . well, just a figure of speech."<br />
Male voice: "I'm glad Stompanato sets up these stag nights. We all work hard, and we need to blow off<br />
some steam from time to time."<br />
Female voice: "You must be really busy. Didn't it say 'Captain' on that badge you showed me."<br />
Male voice: "That's right, Sweetie. I'm a captain on the inspector's list."<br />
Female voice: "Tell me what you do. I just love to hear men talk about their work."<br />
Male voice: "Well, I run the West Hollywood Substation."<br />
Female voice: "That's my old stomping grounds. I used to work at a call house on Havenhurst, and the<br />
West Hollywood deputies were good to all us girls."<br />
Male voice: "Well, you know how it is. One hand washes the other."<br />
Female voice: "I think I know what you mean, but tell me more."<br />
Male voice: "Well, on the q.t., all the call houses in the county kick loose donations to the Sheriff's<br />
Annual Rodeo Fund, so the money gets laundered that way. See, Gene Biscailuz is a good guy. He's not<br />
like that prick Bill Parker, and he knows a lot of deputies have drinking problems, so he shoots some of<br />
the rodeo money to a hospital where they can dry out. I've dried out there six or seven times myself. Pass<br />
me that bottle, will you, Sweetie?"<br />
Female voice: "Tell me more."<br />
I heard footsteps. I tossed the tap shit out a back window. The door blew off its hinges and landed on<br />
my lap. Two men charged me and beat me blank with big black saps.<br />
I woke up chained to a chair. I saw a dress rack and an arc light. I recognized the dark little room.<br />
Trailer #36 on the Private Hell 36 set.<br />
Fred O and Johnny Stompanato stomped in front of me. They tapped black leather saps on their knees.<br />
I heard voices outside.<br />
Jack Webb and Ida Lupino.<br />
My head hurt. I felt woozy. My teeth felt loose. I saw tooth marks on the two saps.<br />
Otash said, "Why'd you ditch out on Viv Woodard?"<br />
Stomp said, "Why did you steal her car?"<br />
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Otash said, "Where's the bug apparatus?"<br />
Stomp said, "What did you and that Commie cooze discuss?"<br />
I played it brave and stupid. I said, "Bah fungoo," with full Italian inflection.<br />
Stomp sapped me. I spat two teeth on his Sy Devore suit. Fred O flashed a newspaper. I caught a<br />
headline: PROMINENT LAWYER A SUICIDE.<br />
Otash dropped the paper. "Our vice guys caught Woodard with his pants down. He bailed out and<br />
drank some Drãno. The kid they caught him with gave Hush-Hush a statement. The story's going on the<br />
May cover, unless you convince the widow to sit on everything she might know about a certain police<br />
agency."<br />
I said, "Fuck you, Fritz."<br />
Otash sapped me. I spat two teeth on his Sy Devore suit. Otash sapped me again.<br />
"Woodard's dead, Dick. You're not much use to us anymore, and you just might prove to be a liability.<br />
You killed a valuable buddy of ours, and brave and stupid guys like you are always better off dead."<br />
"Brave" and "stupid" clicked with "dead" and cleared my clogged head. I screamed like a scared little<br />
baby.<br />
Otash clamped down on my arms. Johnny Stomp rolled up my shirtsleeves. Harvey Glatman and the<br />
nut-ward guy popped in my periphery.<br />
Somebody stuck a spike in my arm. I whooshed into ecstasy and darkness.<br />
Light and dark came and went. Hypodermic needles slipped in and out of my arms.<br />
I went wonderful places. I returned to Private Hell 36. I fucked the mermaid from the Chicken of the<br />
Sea tuna can.<br />
Harvey Glatman photographed my arms. Ida Lupino shot me up and shot my needle tracks with 3-D<br />
film. My bladder burst. Somebody said, "Oh, shit."<br />
I flew to Mars. The succubus siphoned my python and gave birth to trident-tailed twins. I apologized to<br />
her husband. He condemned my cowardice and deplored the damage I did. Howard dove for my dong.<br />
Linda Sidwell jumped on Jack Webb. Joi Lansing saw the Lupino loop and left me for the Schvantz.<br />
I heard voices or ventriloquistic voodoo.<br />
"We've got to move the master file tonight. Stash it someplace safe at your studio."<br />
"Yeah, boss."<br />
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"Dump Contino someplace."<br />
"Levant scares me."<br />
"You never know what he knows."<br />
"He's a hophead. Those guys crap out all the time, and nobody thinks twice."<br />
"Torture him and find out what he knows, then kill him."<br />
I flew to Pluto. I asked Mickey Mouse why they named a planet after his dog.<br />
"You've got to move him or move the fucking trailer. He's starting to smell, and our location permit<br />
expired."<br />
I flew to Neptune. I flew back to Private Hell 36. Joe Friday said, "Hitch the trailer." A spike went in my<br />
arm. I flew to Venus. It looked like Las Vegas. I wondered how that could be so.<br />
White.<br />
White plastic. White Naugahyde. Maybe white leather. Tucked and tufted. Sticky. Stuck against my<br />
cheek.<br />
White.<br />
Stiff-starched. Mummifyingly tight.<br />
I blinked. I yawned. I tried to rub my eyes. My hands didn't move. My arms didn't move. I had myself in<br />
a bear hug.<br />
A big bug bounced my way. He bopped over white tucks and tufts. He got close. I tried to swat him. I<br />
couldn't break the bear hug.<br />
I rolled away. I slid on sticky white webs. I saw white-webbed walls and a white-webbed ceiling.<br />
My head hurt. My body throbbed. My white world wiggled and wobbled.<br />
It hit me.<br />
Padded cell/straitjacket/voices or ventriloquistic voodoo:<br />
"Torture him. "/ "Kill him. "/ "Dump Contino someplace."<br />
I remembered Mars and the mermaid. I remembered my trident-tailed twins. I remembered the hypo<br />
hits that hopped me up on Big H. I diagnosed my dilemma.<br />
I was hooked on Horse.<br />
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I shook. I shuddered. I shivered. I decided to probe my prognosis.<br />
I rubbed my cheek against white rubber. I felt a sticky two-day stubble. I couldn't be a junkie yet.<br />
I still hurt. I still throbbed. My white world still wiggled and wobbled. I was still mummified and<br />
dope-doctored.<br />
I scanned my white world. I saw a small black square cut into one wall about a foot above floor level.<br />
I rolled up to it. Heat hit me. I saw metal grates set six inches in. I tried to jam my ass and my rear<br />
restraint straps up against them. I couldn't get close.<br />
I rolled over and faced the wall. I bit at white plastic. I snapped three times and got a good tooth hold. I<br />
burrowed, bit and spat, burrowed, bit and spat, burrowed, bit and spat. I chewed a big hole around the<br />
grates and slammed my ass against them.<br />
Heat.<br />
It warmed me and singed me and scorched my ass. I bit the floor to staunch my pain and stifle incipient<br />
screams. I smelled toasted white cotton and burning flesh.<br />
I slammed my ass in tighter. The pain accelerated. I felt little ass hairs sizzle. I bit down harder and<br />
almost choked on a chunk of white plastic.<br />
My armiock went limp. My bear hug broke. I rolled away from the grates and rolled out of my<br />
straitjacket.<br />
I stood up. I stumbled and fell. My circulation started to circulate. I crawled to a waffle-webbed white<br />
door.<br />
I crouched. I rubbed my ass. I counted the waffle webs on the walls to stay calm. The door opened at<br />
4,806.<br />
A man stepped in. I grabbed his ankles and pulled. He hit the floor facedown. I kicked the door shut<br />
and jumped on his back.<br />
I pressed his face into white plastic. Tucks and tufts muffled his screams. I knee-dropped him nine times.<br />
I came down on his kidneys full force.<br />
Blood blew out of his mouth. It spritzed and sprayed and trickled through little white troughs.<br />
He was dead.<br />
I pulled a key ring off his belt and stumbled to the door. I looked out. I saw an empty hall. I saw a door<br />
marked "Pharmacy/ Restricted."<br />
I shook. I shivered. I braced myself into the door. My hands hopped to heavy rpms.<br />
I needed a fix.<br />
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I looked down the hallway. I recognized the pink walls. I thought I heard a screech two doors down.<br />
Mount Sinai. The locked ward.<br />
I stumbled to the pharmacy door. I fumbled and bumbled my keys. My hands hopped. I stabbed keys<br />
at the keyhole. The fourth key let me in.<br />
I shut the door. I turned on a light. I dumped three drawers of dope into a sink. I dug through Digitalis,<br />
Desoxyn, and Dilantin. I tossed Tuinal and Terpin Hydrate and shoved Seconal aside. I grabbed four<br />
vials of Methedrine Hydrochloride and dumped every drawer in the room.<br />
I sifted through morphine Syrettes and pawed through pills. I found a portable spike and jabbed up a big<br />
jolt of Meth. I tied off my arm with my black lizard belt and mainlined my way back to Mars.<br />
I strafed the stratosphere in six seconds. I returned to Earth and ran toward that screech two doors<br />
down.<br />
I kicked the door in. I entered another white world.<br />
Oscar Levant was strapped to a king-size dartboard. A dozen darts dotted his chest. The nut-ward guy<br />
held jumper cables and a squirt gun. The cable cord was socked into a wall switch.<br />
He saw me. He squirt-gunned me. He charged at me with his cables. I slipped on wet white plastic and<br />
hit the floor.<br />
He stabbed at me. He caught me. Voltage bounced off my chest. I rolled into the dartboard. It capsized.<br />
Oscar hit the floor and slipped free.<br />
I stood up. The nut-ward guy charged me. Oscar pulled a dart off his chest and let fly. He nailed the<br />
nut-ward guy in the neck.<br />
It stunned him. He dropped the squirt gun. I grabbed it and squirted him. Oscar lobbed two darts at his<br />
face.<br />
They stunned him. He dropped his cables. I grabbed them and clamped them down on his balls.<br />
He screamed. I slipped Oscar the squirt gun. He shot him in the balls and electrocuted him.<br />
6<br />
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Joi Lansing hid us out. We turned her house into a kick pad.<br />
I kicked Big H. Joi knew a dope doc and a Chinese herbalist. They collaborated and cooked up<br />
compounds to cleanse me. I popped their portions and felt all the poison pour out of my pores.<br />
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Oscar kicked cold turkey. He played Joi's piano twenty hours a day. He played himself into and way<br />
past exhaustion. He played blistering Bartok and soft Brahms ballades. He perched on Joi's balcony and<br />
played for the Hollywood Hills. People stood on their rooftops and listened.<br />
Busy hands can't shake. Busy brains don't dwell on dope deprivation.<br />
I kicked Horse. I didn't know if I could kick my homicide habit.<br />
Murder was a monkey on my back now. I found a context to make mayhem mine. Most men found it in<br />
war. I attracted it with my fear and put myself in peril to perpetrate it. I was a murder magnet. I'd<br />
continue to kill as long as it felt justifiable and erotic.<br />
I wanted to juke Jack Webb and Johnny Stomp and hang their hides out to dry. I wanted to fry Freddy<br />
Otash in hot oil and pulverize William H. Parker. I didn't know if I wanted to avenge Trent Woodard or<br />
go on another kill spree. My murder motives were convoluted and ego-polluted. I didn't know if I<br />
wanted to save L.A. or annihilate it and go down behind a big ovation.<br />
I ran it byJoi. She told me to relax and let things play out hushhush. Dinkins and Wells were still John<br />
Doe'd in the papers and on TV. The Mount Sinai massacre never made print. The LAPD plot was huge<br />
and unverifiable. Oscar was a hophead. I was a draft dodger. Jack Webb was Joe Friday. Let it go. It<br />
was all too big to flick with.<br />
I couldn't let it go. My murder-mangled memory said no. Joi took me to bed and tried to induce<br />
amnesia.<br />
We made love to Bartok and Brahms. We slept to soft Schubert and Schumann. Oscar played to our<br />
passion. His music molded my memories of murder and sparked my lust for more of the same.<br />
We made love and slept for a week. A Rachmaninoff opus 32 prelude pushed me over the edge.<br />
I called my parents and told them to hide in their bomb shelter. I told Joi to call Harvey Glatman and<br />
suggest some publicity pix.<br />
7<br />
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Voices or ventriloquistic voodoo:<br />
"We've got to move the master file tonight. Stash it someplace safe at your studio."<br />
"Yeah, boss."<br />
I heard those words in a hop haze. I was half-ass sure that Freddy 0 and Harvey Glatman said them. I<br />
had a hunch that Harvey took his pervert pix in some sick sanctum sanctorum.<br />
Joi walked into his repair shop. Oscar and I watched. We were staked out in Joi's Jag coupe.<br />
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We watched the door. We waited. Joi went in wired.<br />
Oscar hooked her up. We bought a "Sergeant Joe Friday Surveillance Kit" at a toy store and went wild.<br />
Joi packed a "Jill Friday Purse Pistol" and a signal device. Oscar held the "Trap-Your-Man Transmitter."<br />
We parked two doors down from the shop. Joi was set to signal us to the sanctum sanctorum.<br />
We watched the door. Oscar sucked cigarettes. I fought the homicide heebie-jeebies.<br />
I wanted to hurl some hurt on Harvey. I wanted to kick my homicide habit and reembrace my<br />
accordion.<br />
Seconds slogged by. Minutes meandered. We watched the door.<br />
Our beep device beeped.<br />
We jumped out of the car. We ran into the shop. We shut the door and threw up the Closed sign. We<br />
followed the beeps. We beeped through the back room. We beeped up to a big green door.<br />
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP--<br />
Oscar kicked the door. It stayed upright. Oscar grabbed his foot and yelled, "Shit!" I kicked the door. It<br />
stayed upright. Oscar picked up a TV set and threw it at the door. The door blew off the doorway.<br />
We ran into a little green room. It looked like the gas chamber up at San Quentin. Joi held Harvey<br />
hostage. He sat in a gaschamber chair. Joi held her toy gun on him.<br />
I smelled stale gas. I pried open a floor vent. I smelled it stronger there. I saw cardboard boxes stacked<br />
in a hidey-hole. I saw a crawl space behind them.<br />
Oscar grabbed a box. Joi pistol-slapped Harvey. Her toy gun decomposed in her hand.<br />
Harvey yelped. Joi said, "He tried to tie me up, the sick shit."<br />
I eyeballed the room. It had a feral feel and an abattoir air. Oscar opened a box and skimmed some<br />
carbon paper. He said, "It's the big Hush-Hush file."<br />
Harvey yipped and yelped. Joi jammed a high heel down on his foot. Oscar spieled scandal-rag skank:<br />
"Otto Preminger sniffs coke and H speedballs. Mayor Bowron's got a Filipino love child. Randy<br />
Randolph Scott wrangles with a Mexican middleweight. Dean Martin moves Mob money direct to Pope<br />
Pius at the Vatican. Dick Powell delivers dope to--,,<br />
I cut him off. "Talk, Harvey."<br />
Harvey squirmed. I sniffed more stale gas. I caught a bitteralmond subscent and felt my hackles hop.<br />
Harvey said, "What do you want to know?"<br />
I said, "All of it. Off-the-record, on the q.t., and very hushhush."<br />
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Harvey talked. Harvey laid out the whole ball of wax. I sniffed bitter almond and shivered as he spritzed<br />
it.<br />
He was Freddy 0 and Johnny Stomp's Einstein. He ran their "Subscription TV" scam. They sold<br />
smut-film subscriptions to pervs and the Great White Priapic all over L.A. Harvey could beam film from<br />
his shop to any Joe Blow's TV set. The pervs paid prime prices for home pornography.<br />
Cal Dinkins and Playboy Wells provided inmate actors. LAPD goons transported them to the flick-film<br />
set in Duarte. Freddy 0 coerced Ida Lupino into director duty. Freddy fixed her manslaughter beef. Ida<br />
plowed a car full of wetbacks dead drunk and killed all four passengers. Freddy forced the Schvantz to<br />
star in her films. The Schvantz had three reefer-roust priors and a current case pending. The Schvantz<br />
skin-popped White Horse and loved jungle-bred jailbait hot off a slave boat from Zanzibar. The<br />
Schvantz was viably pliable.<br />
Freddy O was Chief Parker's pet pit dog. Parker wanted to shaft the Sheriff's Department and take a fat<br />
share of its budget. Freddy concocted a covert operation. He coopted Johnny Stomp's stagnight racket<br />
and put six ranking Sheriff's men in bed with six inmate hookers. The men shot their mouths off. They<br />
shamelessly shared Sheriff's Department secrets. Ida Lupino filmed their philandering.<br />
Parker needed money. He wanted to build debtors' prisons and work farms. He wanted to wipe the<br />
winos and strong-arm the stumblebums off the streets of L.A. and sell them to spic dictators.<br />
It was all working well-oiled and wonderful. Until Playboy pulled an unpermitted heist with Cal Dinkins<br />
right there. Until Oscar Levant and Dick Contino bumbled down to Darktown.<br />
Harvey stopped talking. Joi blew cigarette smoke in his face and said, "Creep." Oscar tossed a dozen<br />
film cans out of the hideyhole.<br />
I looked in the hole. I saw pipes pointing up to the hot seat. I caught a biting blast of bitter almond.<br />
Oscar said, "I've been through six boxes. There's enough dirt in them to outextort the gross national<br />
product. Bing Crosby bangs underage tail in an archdiocesan ark moored in San Pedro! Dave Garroway<br />
checks out the chicken in---"<br />
I jumped into the hole. I bent down and followed a shaft of light. The cyanide scent went south. I<br />
smelled something worse.<br />
The hole expanded into a tunnel. Wood walls shut out dirt and foundation debris. I saw a pile of bones<br />
and smelled mothballs mixed with decomposed flesh.<br />
Skulls. Arm bones. Leg bones. Wide female pelvic bones flecked with red gristle.<br />
I ran out of the hole. I ran up to Harvey Glatman.<br />
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Harvey smiled. Harvey said, "Seventeen. But then, who's counting?"<br />
The terror trove went telepathic. Time stood still.<br />
Joi dropped her cigarette. Oscar dropped a scandal skank sheet.<br />
Nobody said a word. We all let IT sink in.<br />
Nobody talked. Nobody breathed. We all looked at the hole.<br />
Harvey read my mind.<br />
"I know you want to kill me, Dick. I know how it is when timid men smell blood."<br />
Nobody talked. Nobody breathed. We all looked at Harvey.<br />
He said, "Don't be hasty. I'm the only one who can help you out of this scrape you're in."<br />
He explained.<br />
I granted him a stay of execution.<br />
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I hogged a booth at Ollie Hammond's Steakhouse. I held a cross and a big garlic bulb.<br />
The succubus was late.<br />
Oscar and Joi guarded the gas chamber. They barricaded the shop and held my dad's shotgun on<br />
Harvey. Harvey hammered away at my Home-TV Show. He thought he could buy me out of the shit I<br />
slid into and slide on his seventeen snuffs.<br />
He was wrong. I passed sentence. Oscar and Joi played public defenders and petitioned me for a<br />
pardon. I said no. They said they were glad and conceded their collusion in Contino's kangaroo court. I<br />
said Harvey's death would bea real gas. Oscar and Joi laughed. We drew straws to pick who'd drop the<br />
pellets. Joi won. Oscar dipped down to Western Costume. He bought her a boss black death robe.<br />
I felt righteously righteous and smilingly smug. I ratified my rationale a dozen times and reveled in its<br />
logic. Harvey was a freelance freak. The LAPD did not know he killed women. The LAPD could not be<br />
trusted to rein in their rabid Rottweiler. I could gas Harvey and give up gore for good.<br />
The succubus was late.<br />
I felt valiantly virile. I felt spectacularly spiritual and alluringly alive. I had the big Hush-Hush file. I had<br />
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dirt. I knew who fucked and sucked and licked and dicked and boozed and coozed and injected and<br />
elected to genuflect to their basest desires. I could wreck careers and resurrect my own. I could shake<br />
down booking agents and casting agents and columnists. I could run a prime portion of the press and<br />
have them castrate my competitors. I could regulate my rise to Mount Olympus. I could humble those<br />
who humbled me in the spirit of Hush-Hush hegemony.<br />
The succubus walked in.<br />
I shook. I shivered. I squeezed my garlic bulb.<br />
She sat down at the table. She wore her widow's weeds witchingly well.<br />
Vivid Viv.<br />
She said, "Jesus, Dick. You smell."<br />
I dropped my garlic. I picked up my cross. I aimed it at her crotch under the table. I said, "You're<br />
probably wondering why I called."<br />
She nodded. "I'm wondering where you found the audacity."<br />
I said, "I've been having an audacious time lately."<br />
"That's an evasion, and it's not a suitable answer."<br />
Vicious Viv.<br />
I said, "I'm sorry about your husband."<br />
Viv flicked some tobacco off her tongue. "That's a craven response, and it's what you should have said<br />
first."<br />
Vindictive Viv.<br />
I tamped my temper down. I made a neutral and nut-neutered statement. "I didn't have a choice. The<br />
LAPD was squeezing me."<br />
Viv laughed. "You had a choice. Your options were suicide or direct action."<br />
I laughed. Viv laughed. It was shitty laughless laughter.<br />
"You blew your most immediate options and your chance to father my child. I suspect that you'll blow<br />
whatever else comes your way."<br />
I popped a few tears. Wicked words and garlic fumes sucked them out of me. A waiter walked up. Viv<br />
waved him away.<br />
"You never returned my car, Dick."<br />
I shrugged.<br />
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"I found another handsome Italian man to impregnate me. He's much more famous than you, and I'm<br />
sure that he has a larger penis."<br />
I said, "Who?"<br />
Viv said, "Dean Martin."<br />
I dropped my cross. It hit the floor. It made a wop! sound.<br />
I said, "Fuck Dino. He moves Mob money to the Vatican."<br />
"Yes, and my husband was a homosexual. If you're trying to shock me or titillate me, you're employing<br />
the wrong tactics."<br />
I wiped my eyes. I wiped my nose. Viv tossed me her napkin.<br />
"Tell me what you want, Dick. I'm meeting Dean at Chasen's, and I don't want to be late."<br />
I blew my beak on white linen. "I want direct action, and I need to talk to Sheriff Biscailuz."<br />
Viv stood up. "I'll arrange it in the spirit of what we could have had."<br />
I smelled her perfume. I recognized it. Joi said she wore it to funerals.<br />
Matchabelli's Mourning Madness.<br />
Viv said, "Wash my car before you return it."<br />
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I walked in on the Sheriff's arm. Chief Parker almost shit on his living-room floor.<br />
I said, "What's shakin', Daddy-O?"<br />
Daddy-O went raging red and pulmonary purple. His veins bulged blue and vibrated violet.<br />
The Sheriff sat him down in front of his TV set. He drilled me with Draculean eyes and hexed me from<br />
the heart. I knew he couldn't talk. I knew a catatonic cat captured his tongue.<br />
I shut the door. I said, "Nice pad, baby doll. Those plaid drapes and that wall flag are so you."<br />
Parker sputtered and spit split syllables. His tortured tongue and paralyzed palate could not connect.<br />
The Sheriff said, "This won't be fun, Bill. But I can promise you we won't prolong things."<br />
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I grabbed a spot by the TV set. The Sheriff stood beside me. Parker sat two feet behind us.<br />
I checked my watch. I counted down. The TV blipped on, black-magic-style.<br />
Jack Webb in close-up. Duh-duh-duh-duh/duh-duh-duh-duhduuuuh--the Dragnet theme on the sound<br />
track. Jack's toking a big stick of tea. He's giggling and goofing on his craaaaazy existence.<br />
He says, "My name's Friday. I carry a badge. I use it to coerce hookers into blow jobs. My name used<br />
to be Webb, but I got lucky and met this tight-assed chump Bill Parker, who got laid once in 1924,<br />
decided he preferred power to pussy, and took over the Los Angeles Police Department.<br />
Duh-duh-duh-duh!"<br />
I turned around. I looked at Parker. I couldn't count the colors he turned.<br />
Jack says, "Bill hitched his badge to me, or maybe it's the other way around, but who gives a shit when<br />
you're making all this money? And if you think Dragnet is all that I'm talking about, you're wrong, 'cause<br />
we've got some biiiiiiiiig plans with a Cuban guy names Batista--off-the-record, on the q.t., and very<br />
hushhush, and Bill's the number one cop in America, not that faggot Gay Edgar Hoover, and boy do we<br />
have some dirt to fuck him with if he ever gets uppity! Duh-duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duhduh-duuuh!"<br />
I turned around. I looked at Parker. I couldn't peg all the pastel pallors he passed through.<br />
Jack Webb laughed. A man laughed offscreen. It sounded like Fred O. Jack Webb flipped out a fat<br />
middle finger.<br />
"Hey, Bill, fuck you! This is for that time you humiliated me at the Jonathan Club, you frigid cocksucker!<br />
Hey, Bill, your mother fucks the mule down in Tj.! Hey, Bill, you better be nice to me or I'll tell Mayor<br />
Bowron your boys set him up with that Filipino whore! Hey, Bill--"<br />
I heard a shot. The TV screen imploded. Glass blew out the back of the set and took out the window<br />
behind it.<br />
Diodes decomposed. Wires whipped and wiggled. The console cracked and popped into pieces.<br />
I turned around. I looked at Parker. I kicked the gun out of his hand.<br />
The Sheriff said, "No slaves. No work farms and no debtors' prisons. No reprisals on Contino, Levant,<br />
or their families. No shakedowns on my men and no more attempts to steal money off my budget."<br />
Parker couldn't talk. The catatonic cat had his tongue. The Sheriff said, "We're hooked into J. Edgar<br />
Hoover and Mayor Bowron's set, and 8,ooo random sets in Los Angeles. Nod to signal your<br />
compliance."<br />
Parker nervously-nellingly nodded and turned six sheets of seraphim white.<br />
The TV debris ignited. It sparked and sputtered and metamorphosed into a mushroom cloud.<br />
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I drove back to Harvey's repair shop. I found the whole block leveled and torched to a trash-heap hell.<br />
Fire trucks. Rubberneckers. Cop cars.<br />
Soot. Smoke. Ash-afflicted air. A wiped-out wasteland with a single scorched skeleton standing.<br />
The gas-chamber chair.<br />
I saw Oscar and Joi. I ditched my car and ran up to them. They wore black executioner's robes. They lit<br />
cigarettes off a piece of red timber and looked at me.<br />
I said, "What the fuck happened?"<br />
Joi said, "Harvey tricked us. He crossed three or four wires and blew himself out a fake wall panel. One<br />
of the arson cops said he probably created a sonic boom and controlled the downdraft. The fire started<br />
about a minute later."<br />
I yelled, "He's gone?"<br />
Joi nodded. "We underestimated a genius."<br />
Oscar said, "And we overestimated you."<br />
I kicked a rubble pile. My tennis shoe ignited. I hopped on one foot and swatted out the flames.<br />
"What about the files? I've got plans. Those files can make me!"<br />
Joi said, "They burned up. Tough luck, Dick. I was hoping they could help you mount a comeback."<br />
I threw a tantrum. I stamped my feet and kicked at hot rubble. My shoes caught fire. I let them burn.<br />
Oscar said, "Dick, you're fucked."<br />
* * *<br />
43 years, 6 months, 26 days. A twisting twirl of time to now.<br />
Covert connections. Contaminations cataloged in conflagrated carbon paper. Secrets lost in smoke.<br />
The contamination that I witnessed. The collusion that I tried to contain. The rampaging ramifications that<br />
still ram L.A.<br />
History hidden and soooooooo hush-hushed.<br />
The Sheriff sheltered me for three years. I lived in exile on the Sunset Strip. Joi dumped me. I married an<br />
actress named Leigh Snowden.<br />
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Parker kept his promise. He did not visit violence upon me or mine. He did not sell slaves to Bad-Boy<br />
Batista. He did not imprison the impecunious. He did not juke Jack Webb in any public manner and did<br />
not drag Dragnet into the dirt. He dramatically drove Fred Otash out of the LAPD. Dragnet dragged<br />
onforfive more seasons.<br />
Fred O became a private eye. He shagged shit and skimmed skinny from a thousand insider informants.<br />
He brokered abortions. He set up dry outs and dope cures. He sold pictures of Rock Hudson with a<br />
dick in his mouth. He doped a racehorse in '59 and almost did time. He died old and rich in 1992.<br />
Heart attack.<br />
Johnny Stompanato ran sex shakedowns and took up with Lana Turner. Lana's daughter shanked him in<br />
April '58. Fred 0 made a mint on morgue memorabilia. Slab shots sold for a C-note. Marilyn Monroe<br />
bought Johnny's hair. A pederast purchased his penis.<br />
The Schvantz died in '6g.<br />
On his yacht. Alone with five women.<br />
Heart attack.<br />
He lived fast, loved hard, died hung.<br />
Ida Lupino died in '95.<br />
Cigarettes and booze and attrition.<br />
Sheriff Biscailuz died in '69.<br />
Old age.<br />
I went to his wake. I got drunk with some robbery cops and joined them on a liquor-store stakeout. I<br />
told them the REAL Harvey Glatman story. They didn't believe me.<br />
Harvey disappeared for three years. He resurfaced in L.A. in '57. He snuffed three women and dumped<br />
them in the desert. A pinup model dumped Harvey. She disarmed him and dropped him with a flesh<br />
wound. The cops grabbed him. He copped out to his three recent killings and no more. He was tried and<br />
convicted. He sucked cyanide in September '59.<br />
The three women weigh on me. The unidentified dead undermine my sleep and own me at odd<br />
moments. Harvey escaped on my watch. He killed his last three victims and other women under my<br />
imprimatur I exploited his genius. It saved my life. I sold him a death-house reprieve. He exploited the<br />
time and bought himseiffive years and untold victims.<br />
Time.<br />
Oscar and Joi died in '72. They put in a million showbiz miles and burned out every part of their bodies.<br />
I miss them.<br />
Viv Woodard died in '61.<br />
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Suicide.<br />
She never hatched her half-guinea love child.<br />
Jack Webb died in '82. Heart attack. He promulgated police propaganda with other tuna TVshows and<br />
tapped out to the tune of authority. His malevolent mentor William H. Parker died in '66.<br />
A heart attack hastened by his bri ef blast of me.<br />
He passed on as one pissed-off patriarch. I derailed his most demonic designs and forced him to settle<br />
for second-class methods of suppression. He stepped up his stern measures in indirect defiance of me. I<br />
destroyed his dystopia and devastated his most darkly held dreams. Ifragged his frazzled and fragile ego.<br />
He suppressed the suppressible underclass and dicked the disenfranchised as dickable Dick Contino<br />
surrogates.<br />
His boys kicked black ass and brown ass and poor-white ass. Parker paternalistically popped his rocks<br />
along with them. He left a lethal legacy. He left his suppression-minded successors the unlearned lesson<br />
that suppression has a price.<br />
Rodney King. The '92 riots. The repellent and radically race-ratified O.J. Simpson verdict.<br />
The twisting twirl of time.<br />
Back to 1954.<br />
And me.<br />
I never resurrected my career. I banged my box and made maintenance money and raised three kids.<br />
My draft-dodger drama dogged me and diverted my audience. My wife died in '82.<br />
Cancer.<br />
I'm 67 now. I'm healthy. I live in Las Vegas and work lounge gigs. I chase women. Women chase me. I<br />
chase the twisting twirl back to THEN.<br />
My fear flared and flowed THEN to NOW My Patented PostPassive Rages popped once in a billion<br />
blue moons. I mainlined my way into madness and meandered out with more mini-myths.<br />
I've mentioned this aforetold myth to a million myth-hungry people. They don't accept my secret history.<br />
They tell me the players are dead and unable to confirm or refute. They point to my genetic link to<br />
Alzheimer's disease.<br />
They tell me I'm lying. They say I'm wrong. They say it's a fever dream. They get frenetically frustrated<br />
and say no no no.<br />
I get righteously righteous and smilingly smug. I point to L.A. and claim credit for the nightmare.<br />
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November, December 1997<br />
HUSH-HUSH<br />
L.A. TIMES, JUNE 5, 1998:<br />
TURNER-STOMPANATO LOVE LETTERS TO BE AUCTIONED<br />
Smith & Kleindeinst, the Beverly Hills auctioneers, announced today that they will sell the late actress<br />
Lana Turner's love letters to reputed hoodlum Johnny Stompanato at their August 16 auction in Century<br />
City. A Smith & Kleindeinst spokesman said that the letters were consigned to them by a source who<br />
prefers to remain anonymous. There are a total of 14 letters, dated between October 9, 1957, and<br />
March 12, 1958. They will be sold as a block purchase.<br />
The Turner-Stompanato liaison occupies a prominent place in Los Angeles criminal history. Their violent<br />
relationship culminated on the evening of April 4, 1958, when Cheryl Crane, Miss Turner's 14-year-old<br />
daughter by the late restaurateur Steve Crane, came to her mother's aid and stabbed Stompanato to<br />
death. No criminal charges were filed against Miss Crane. She was sent to a youth treatment facility for<br />
psychiatric evaluation and care.<br />
The Smith & Kleindeinst spokesman said that bidding for the letters will most likely begin in the<br />
"mid-six-figure" range.<br />
THE ADVOCATE, JUNE 6, 1998:<br />
SCANDAL-SHEET WRITER IN CRITICAL CONDITION<br />
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Daniel "Danny" Getchell, 68, editor-in-chief and head writer for the infamous Hush-Hush scandal<br />
magazine of the I950s and early 1960s, was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last week. An<br />
undisclosed source at the center revealed that Getchellis in the "final, deadly throes" of a "severe brain<br />
tumor."<br />
Hush-Hush and the other scandal sheets of the era--Confidential, Whisper, Rave, Lowdown, and<br />
Tattle--waged a collective smear campaign against gays and lesbians and accomplished it with vicious<br />
outing tactics. Innuendo and intimidation were their most commonly applied methods, and their goal was<br />
titillation at any human price. The scandal sheets destroyed the lives of many gay and lesbian Americans,<br />
and Hush-Hush was arguably the worst of the lot.<br />
Benjamin Luboff, ex-Whisper writer and author of the mea culpa memoir Scandal-Rag Scourge,<br />
described Danny Getchell as "viciously single-minded in his fast-buck pursuit of naming homosexual<br />
names" and "pathologically driven by a sadistic urge to out gays." When asked to comment on Getchell's<br />
hospitalization, Luboff replied, "What can I say? I wish no person-- straight or gay--a painfully<br />
protracted death, but the world will be a better place without Danny Getchell."<br />
A hospital source said that Getchell is under intensive around-the-clock care and would not be able to<br />
answer a list of questions submitted by The Advocate.<br />
Cheryl Crane did not shank Johnny Stompanato, and I don't have a fucking brain tumor. And I always<br />
gave the fags Ifragged a chance to buy their stories back.<br />
And you won't believe the shit I've got on Ben Luboff<br />
The brain-tumor bit is a smoke screen smoked by a hosp ital flack. I'm ensconced in a secret Cedars<br />
ward built from an old bomb shelter I'm sunk subterranean with sixty-three male patients and sixteen<br />
doctors set to vanquish our virus. They'll hypocritically ignore the Hippocratic oath and sell their cure<br />
exclusively to the rich. I'm selling everything I own to buy bed space at twenty grand a day.<br />
I've got AIDS. The worst thing about having it is having it. The fact that people think you're afag runs a<br />
close second.<br />
I'm not a fag. I'm a junkie with a 40-year-old monkey on my back.<br />
Reliable rejuvenations ruined me. I periodically purge myputrefied system with black-market blood<br />
transfusions. I bought some Desert Storm surplus blood back in '91. It dried out my sex drive,<br />
downsized my redblood count, and devastatingly deep -sixed me into total devolution.<br />
Or somebody poisoned me on purpose.<br />
Maybe a minor miscreant I maligned in May '6i. Possibly a punk I pilloried as purple-tinged a loooong<br />
time ago. Perhaps a perpetrator with a perfect sense ofpoetic justice.<br />
I'm pulsatingly paranoid now. I'm a hemophiliac homophobe and a crucifiable Christian abed at the Gay<br />
Roman Inn.<br />
I see six of my scandal-rag scapegoats hooked up to hydration machines. They strategically strafe me<br />
with hate in their eyes. They huddle within hailing and hurting range and haunt me as I hatch this harangue<br />
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in the Hush-Hush style.<br />
I've got a sharp shiv shoved under my bed. I've got the guardedly gayfriendly tale that you're about to<br />
get. I'll pander to pederastic pride or hurl some hurt in the spirit of the Hush-Hush holocaust.<br />
The gonif three gurneys down is staring straight through me. I can't place him in my backlog of blackmail<br />
and bad juju. I'm going to cut him out of my thoughts and concentrate on my story while I can still<br />
alliterate alluringly.<br />
I<br />
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The debilitating dirt drought of Spring, '58.<br />
It hindered, hampered, and hog-tied Hush-Hush. It forced us to print presumption as veracity verified. It<br />
forced me to misconstrue old morgue memos and pass them off as fresh scandal skank.<br />
JACKIE GLEASON FIGHTS FOOD FIXATION AT FAT FARM OUTSIDE PHILLY! JOHNNIE<br />
RAY MAULED IN MEN'S-ROOM MISADVENTURE! STARLETS STATE STEVE COCHRAN<br />
TOPS TAPE AS TINSELTOWN'S MR. KINGSIZE.<br />
Bum bits and rumor retreads. Libelous liabilities and lightning rods to lasso lewd litigation. Unprovable<br />
assertions to attract unremitting heat in an unenlightened climate.<br />
Maureen O'Hara keestered Confidential last year. The mag maligned her and said she groped a guy at<br />
Grauman's Chink. She sued successfully. Confidential detailed Dorothy Dandridge's dipso descent. She<br />
sued successfully. Monkey see, monkey do: A chain of chimps sued Hush-Hush. Our current courtroom<br />
count stands at o-and- 3. We're mainlining monetary liens and moving toward Bankrupt Boulevard and<br />
Moribund Mesa. We're taking it up the ass bad.<br />
We've dramatically downscaled our dimensions. We moved into a dumpy building down from the<br />
downtown dog pound. The doped-out dentist down the hail drives my new crew crazy. I cut my old<br />
crew loose to cover court costs and slapped up some fresh slaves from the Salvation Army. They're all<br />
dry drunks with the shimmy-shimmy shakes. Dental-drill noise drips through the walls and drills its way<br />
under their skin. They drop type trays and drizzle glue all over my pasteup plates.<br />
Our circulation has circled down to the scandal-rag cellar. Whisper was whispered to top our toll by ten<br />
figures per month. Ben Luboff scammed skank for Whisper. I hated him. I owed his bookie brother two<br />
big on Basilio-Robinson. Ben bought bonus buzz-dirt off me and bought down my debts with his brother<br />
sometimes. I hated to humble Hush-Hush and humiliate myself-- but I had to now.<br />
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I looked around the office. A dry drunk dropped a cigarette and scorched a scalding shot primed for<br />
pasteup:<br />
Lezzie Lizabeth Scott with a loin-lapping look at Linda's Little Log Cabin on Lankershim Boulevard.<br />
Shit--<br />
It was time to pound the pavement proactive. I walked down the hall and wiggled into Dr. Dave<br />
Dockweiler's chair.<br />
Dave said, "How long?" I said, "Forty-eight hours straight." Dave jacked joy juice into a spike and found<br />
a vividly viable vein in my left arm.<br />
He said, "Three good ones too hot to print. I'm going to an American Legion smoker tonight." I<br />
concocted a commie conspirator's clique and twisted a fist to twang my target vein.<br />
"Paul Robeson is pouring the pork to Pat Nixon. I swear this is no shit. He's got her hooked on that big<br />
roll of tar paper he's packing, and she's leaking him all of Tricky Dick's secrets, and Robeson's feeding<br />
them to the Kremlin, and they're feeding them to Senator John F. Kennedy, who's going to run against<br />
Dick in '6o. This is no shit, I swear to you. Oh, and Sammy Davis Jr. is flicking Mamie Eisenhower. I<br />
swear to you, Dave, this is no fucking shit."<br />
Dave spanked his spike on my vividly violet vein. "You swear this is no shit?"<br />
"This is no shit, Dave, I swear to you."<br />
Dave bit the bait and shook his head and let my shit sift into his system. He shot me up with his shit and<br />
watched me shift up to the stars.<br />
I went into orgasmic orbit. I spun past Sputnik and jived with Jesus himself. I jumped back to Earth and<br />
jumped out of the chair like a jacked-up jungle bunny.<br />
I fly on methamphetamine moored in male hormones and a multivitamin mix. Here's why scandal sheets<br />
fly:<br />
People are ambivalently amped up on celebrities. They wildly worship them. They aim their adolescent<br />
adulation at them and get bupkis back. It's depressingly disassociative. It's idiotic idolatry. Fan magazines<br />
fan the flames of fatuous fancy and reinforce the fact that your favorite stars will never fuck you. Scandal<br />
rags rip that reinforcement and deliriously deconstruct and deidolize the idols who ignore you. It's<br />
revisionistic revenge. It reduces your unrequited lovers to your own low level of erratic erotics. It rips the<br />
rich and regal and guns them into the gutter beside you. It fractiously frees you to love them as one of<br />
your own.<br />
I was flying on high-grade meth and a high-faluting head full of Hush-Hush homilies. I hit Hollywood<br />
hopped-up to dish dirt and dig my way out of debt.<br />
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Every bartender, bouncer, B-girl, busboy, and B-movie bimbo in town has his hand out to Hush-Hush<br />
or whispers to Whisper or tattles their tails off to Tattle. I tripped a path through my tipsters and said,<br />
"How's tricks?" I locked in the following lowdown:<br />
Howard Hughes had a hard-on for a high-yellow hooker named Dusky Deelite. Rin Tin Tin ripped<br />
Lassie into renal distress at a recent kiddie roundup. Mickey Cohen can't afford to keep Candy Barr.<br />
Candy's starring in stag flux and moving a mountain of Mary Jane. Mickey's tapped out and tapping his<br />
old legbreakers for loans. Johnny Stompanato stood Mickey up at the Statler and stiffed him on a<br />
long-term debt. Lana Turner was lamenting the loss of Lex Barker. Stompanato stomped into her life. He<br />
bullies her and beguiles her into long bouts of bury the brisket. Lana now lisps, "Lex who?"<br />
Bob Mitchum mauled a mulatto mama at a niggertown niteclub. Porfirio Rubirosa pulled out his pud at a<br />
Bel-Air bash for Bill Bendix. Rock Hudson humps prodigiously pretty call-service boys. He gets them<br />
from a sweaty swish carhop at Delores's Drive-In. Lenny Bruce is handing up hopheads to the Sheriff's<br />
Narco Squad.<br />
The Rin Tin Tin riff rated zero. The Mitchum mishigaas might be milkable and make for a good<br />
miscegenation piece. Stompanato was stale stuff--Confidential cornholed him three months back. I'd<br />
played up Porfirio's pud and Howard Hughes's hooker hungries already. Ben Luboff wouldn't bite for<br />
that batch.<br />
But he'd bite for the boffo bit on Rock Hudson.<br />
Ben wanted to ram Rock out of the closet. He wanted to push him past the Pink Curtain and parade him<br />
around in a purple peignoir. Every scandal scribe wanted to skewer and scupper the Rock. He was the<br />
hunky height of the homo heap. Hush-Hush, Whisper, Rave--we all got cloyingly close to the clasp on<br />
the closet door. But pugnacious publicists grabbed at our greed, bought our stories back, and heaped us<br />
with heat on their other homo clients. The Rock remained ramrod erect--just past the Purple Passage.<br />
Ben Luboff hogged a back booth at Googie's twenty hours a day. Tipsters trucked in and tossed him<br />
tidbits. I bopped back to his booth and blew out a blast of bravado.<br />
"I owe your brother two Gs. Take care of it and slip me an item for the May issue, and I'll give you the<br />
Rock."<br />
Ben belched bicarbonate of soda. Bubbles bipped off his lips. He looked disturbingly drawn and<br />
dyspeptic. The dirt drought had drained him dry.<br />
He nudged me a napkin. I pulled out my pen and wrote down my rap on Rock and the sweaty swish.<br />
Ben Scripto scrawled his own napkin note. We noodled our notes across the table simultaneously.<br />
His read:<br />
"Don Jordan (top welterweight contender) running string of wetback maids as hookers out of the Luau."<br />
MOONLIGHTING MEXICAN MAIDS MAKE FOR MISCHIEVOUS--<br />
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Ben noshed my napkin note and blew me a big bicarbonate kiss.<br />
2<br />
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The Luau:<br />
A tiki-torchlit restaurant rendezvous on Rodeo Drive. A mecca for movie-biz mavens and Beverly Hills<br />
business boys.<br />
Big booths and baroque backlighting. Tricked-up tropical trappings. Rambunctious rum drinks and<br />
rumaki sticks at the bamboo bar.<br />
A polyurethane Polynesian paradise--with peekaboo posts perched behind wall panels by the bar and<br />
the ladies' too.<br />
Steve Crane owned the Luau. Steve loved to lurk and look. He voyeur-vamped the joint every night.<br />
Steve owed me. I bought him out of a blow-job beef back in '54. Ben Luboff tried to trap him with a<br />
16-year-old San Quentin quail. Steve let me lurk in peeper perpetuity.<br />
I was lurked out behind the ladies' lay. My peephole post provided a prime view. I saw Helen Hayes<br />
hitch up her hose. I saw the Misty June Christy crimp a crisp twenty and crib coke up her nose. I ducked<br />
down a dark panel passage and peeped out a peephole right behind the bar.<br />
Dreamy drunks adrift in demerara rum. Don Jordan fretting a frosted fruit frappe. Demonic Don from the<br />
Dominican Republic--a maladroit mulatto now in moonlight mode with a melange of Mexican maids.<br />
Donkey Don: rumored to reach twelve inches. Devil Don: rumored to run a right-wing death squad back<br />
in the D.R. A ripe recent rumor: Mickey Cohen owned a prime piece of Don's prizefighting percentage.<br />
I bored my eyes in on the bar. Don downed his daiquiri and doodled up his napkin. Three wetback<br />
wenches wiggled up to him.<br />
Luscious Latinas pulling out va-va-va-voom volts. A stellar stable too starkly dark to strike up biz in<br />
Steve Crane's lily-white Luau.<br />
Steve stuck to a strict B-girl Bill of Race Rights. Negro: Nyet, nein, no, not at my place. White:<br />
Welcome, what will you have? Latin: Light-skinned Lupes and Lucitas only.<br />
Something was twisted two twirls off.<br />
It hit me:<br />
Two twists in twin frocks fresh out of Frederick's of Hollywood. Pulchritudinous--but not pulsingly so.<br />
The supreme señorita: languidly lissome in Lana Turner's light blue gown from last month's Oscar show.<br />
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Lana Turner:<br />
Steve Crane's ex. Movie-star mama to Steve's starstruck daughter, Cheryl. Steve was still starved for<br />
Lana's lewd love. Steve couldn't stomach thoughts of Johnny Stompanato sticking it to her.<br />
I panted and peeped out my peephole. A methamphetamine breath mist glazed up the glass. I wiped it<br />
off and watched a waiter walk up to the mass magnifica mama.<br />
He passed her a piece of paper. Don Jordan passed his other prosties Mickey Mouse--size Minox<br />
minicameras.<br />
What the fuck--<br />
The main mamacita mainlined her way out of the bar. I peephole-patched a path through the main<br />
passageway and kept her within peeping range. She walked out to the back parking lot and stepped over<br />
to Steve Crane. Steve was poised by a powder blue Packard Caribbean.<br />
I pushed out a passageway panel and pulled myself into a storeroom. I pushed aside some rum crates<br />
and pried open a window. Whisper-close: Steve and the stark dark stunner.<br />
I loitered. I lurked. I lolled my head below the window ledge and listened.<br />
Steve said, "--come on, you know the deal. Don can run you and the other girls out of here, but only--"<br />
The girl said, "Pleeeese, Mr. Crane. I don't know what joo want me to say."<br />
Steve said, "Don't play coy, Yolanda. We've been through this before."<br />
Yolanda said, "Well, all right, but joo should say exactly what joo--"<br />
"Does Johnny ever hit Lana or Cheryl?"<br />
"No, he just yells at them. It eeesn't very nice, but--"<br />
"Are you still mailing the letters that Lana writes him?"<br />
"Well, yes . . ."<br />
"Love letters, right?"<br />
"Well . . . I don't . . ."<br />
"Yolanda, you told me that she dips the letters in perfume, and you saw her drop in curly little hairs when<br />
she sealed the envelopes."<br />
Man-o-Manischewitz! What a pussy-whipped provocateur and masochism-mangled motherfucker!<br />
Yolanda said, "Please, Mr. Crane. I don't like to--"<br />
"Yolanda, I want you to give me the next letter that Lana gives you."<br />
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"No. No, no, no, no no. I cannot do that to Miss Lana."<br />
Steve--stern, strong, and strident-voiced now: "I only let you and the others work out of here because<br />
you give me information. Don wouldn't like it if I eighty-sixed you."<br />
Yolanda, fetchingly firm and faultlessly focused: "I cannot betray Miss Lana, as long as Mr. Johnny does<br />
not hurt her or Miss Cheryl."<br />
Steve, resoundingly resigned and ripped with regret. "Well... shit. . . okay. . . for now, at least. But I just<br />
want to protect Lana from herself, and I want you to promise me that you'll let me know if Johnny ever<br />
puts a hand on her or Cheryl. You see, I've got a gangster buddy who hates the son of a bitch."<br />
Yolanda, a mellifluous madonna: "Oh, yes, I will. I care about Miss Lana and Miss Cheryl just as much<br />
as joo do."<br />
Mickey Cohen hated Johnny Stompanato. Mickey was the meshugenah mouseketeer on the L.A. mob<br />
scene. Mickey had a minor cut of Don Jordan's contract and not much else. Mickey was too Minnie<br />
Mouse to stand up for Steve and stomp out Stompanato--and I started to smell money in the mix.<br />
I could steal the steamy Lana letters. I could sell them to Steve or some lascivious Lanaphile. I could<br />
lube-job Ben Luboff and lay a few lackluster excerpts on him for big bread. I could proudly print the<br />
whole tumescent text in Hush-Hush.<br />
The truth is my moral mandate. Dirt digs define my devotion to that difficult discipline. "Disillusionment Is<br />
Enlightenment"-- some pundit popped that platitude and clipped a clear chord in my soul. I live to edify,<br />
entertain, enlighten, and enforce moral standards. It all entails enterprising entrapment. I'm a zealous First<br />
Amendment zealot. I contentiously contend that scandal skank scores free free speech to its fullest<br />
extension. I set tricky traps to track down the truth. My methedrine-mapped mandate makes it all<br />
morally sound.<br />
I got Stompanato's stats from the West L.A. White Pages. I called his number and nailed a nigger maid.<br />
She said, "Mr. Johnny be back soon," and, "I just be leavin' myself." She sounded like some shine in<br />
Song of the South.<br />
I bopped up to Benedict Canyon and buried my Buick coupe behind some bushes off Beverly Drive. I<br />
beat feet a block to Johnny's boss bunker: a big all-glass A-frame.<br />
Lavishly landscaped and lit up light at i:oo A.M. Wide windows to wiggle your eyes at and high hedges<br />
to hide behind. Peeper Paradise and Voyeur Valhalla.<br />
Motherfuck--<br />
The mail slot slid straight into the front French doors. I couldn't lift a latch and liberate Lana's love letters.<br />
I hid behind a hydrangea hedge. I bored my beady browns into a big picture window ten feet away.<br />
Johnny Stomp stomped into sight. Don Jordan jiggled up and joined him.<br />
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They yelled and yowled at each other. They paced paths around the parlor and poked themselves in the<br />
pecs. Popped Ps popped off the plate-glass window--but I couldn't pick out particular words.<br />
Jordan pulled a passel of pix out of his pockets and fanned them full. I popped up and peered through<br />
the plate-glass powerfully hard. I saw darkroom-dipped photos still wet with developing doo. Interior<br />
shots: bountiful bedroom suites with balconies and wide walk-in closets.<br />
My brain went bim, bango, bingo:<br />
Don Jordan's moonlight maids with Minox minicams. Wetback women hooked in as hookers.<br />
Luau-lounging B-girls brought to Brentwood and Beverly Hills. Papa pops the girls to the pad while<br />
Mama meanders in Miami or mingles at her Monday mah-jongg club. The girls pop perspective pix and<br />
juke them back to Jordan. Jordan jukes them to some big bad burglary man. Jordan juked Yolanda into<br />
the plan. Johnny yanked Yolanda's chain, scammed the skinny on Demon Don's designs and demanded a<br />
cut. Yolanda lounged around the Luau in Lana Turner's low-cut gown. Stilltorching Steve Crane<br />
recognized it. He yipped, yelled, and yodeled at Yolanda. He demanded that she double-agent for him.<br />
Yolanda agreed to dump domestic dirt on Lana and Johnny.<br />
Stompanato stamped his feet. Jordan jabbed his chest. They stepped back and countermanded the<br />
course of a counterproductive contretemps. They smiled. They commandeered a couch. They pored<br />
over their pix and penciled a map on a piece of paper.<br />
I hunched down and hunkered back to my hedge. I smelled Methedrine popping out of my<br />
pores--mixed with the musk of MONEY.<br />
I needed names. I could B&E Johnny's pad and boost a burglary list. I could bug the pad and bug<br />
Demon Don's digs. I could tap their telephones and tape their talks and wire up the wetback wenches. I<br />
could impersonate an Immigration agent and intimidate them. I could contact the feckless fools that they<br />
flicked and feed them an ultimatum: Feed me in five figures, or I'll tell your wife who you fucked one<br />
freaky Friday night.<br />
Oooooh, Daddy-o!!!!! I was digging it all, delirious!<br />
I hauled back to the Hush-Hush office. I had to hook my hands on a boss batch of bug shit.<br />
The office was occupied. My crew was crapped out on the floor. They were blasted, blitzed, blotto,<br />
zilched, zorched, and zombifled. They'd gone off the wagon en masse.<br />
They got tanked on Tokay and T-Bird. They got stinko on Sterno and got wiped out on White Port.<br />
Short-dog bottles shifted and shimmied on every spare inch of floor space.<br />
I checked my equipment chest. All my bug mikes were bunched up, broken, frayed, frazzled, and<br />
fucked. My condenser cords were stripped and striated down to mere strips. My diode dials were<br />
ripped, rusted, and ratched to shit.<br />
FUCK--<br />
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I had to find a freelance bug freak and co-opt him into my conspiracy. That meant pitching him a prime<br />
piece of my potential payout.<br />
FUCK--<br />
I called Freaky Fred Turentine. His wife said he was working for Whisper tonight. I buzzed Buddy "Bug<br />
King" Berkow. His wife said Ben Luboff just brought him in on a big bug job. I called Voyeur Vance<br />
Vanning. His wife said he was out on a wire job for Whisper. He left her a late-nite number: a pay phone<br />
at Wilshire and La Cienega.<br />
It all congealed and constellated.<br />
My tip to trap homo hunk Rock Hudson. The sweaty swish at Delores's Drive-In. Ben Luboff poised to<br />
scale the Purple Parthenon.<br />
3<br />
It had to be huge. Three bug boys at twenty bucks an hour boded big. My bet: Ben wanted bug bits on<br />
the bun-boy biz--to buttress his hit on hunky Rock Hudson. He'd set some phone-tap traps and bug<br />
baits on the sweaty swish carhop and develop some derogatory dish on Delores's Drive-In. A<br />
prick-tease prelude to priapic Rock and some prick-happy call boy.<br />
I had to see it. It beckoned as big as the Bikini Atoll atom-bomb blast. A bifurcated motive bolstered<br />
my urge to merge with the moment. I wanted to boost a batch of Buddy Berkow's bug gear for my gig.<br />
I whizzed down to Wilshire and La Cienega at warp speed. I whipped by Delores's Drive-In and dug all<br />
the dirty details.<br />
The 2:00 A.M. tumult. Late-nite L.A. out for burgers, borscht, and bagels. Beatniks and beaten-down<br />
benny-heads in battered Bonnevilles. Cholos in chopped-down Chevys riding on cheater slicks.<br />
Carhops rolling roisterous on roller stakes. All mincy males laid out in lacy lounge wear. Buddy<br />
Berkow's bugmobile back by the men's room. Beside it: Voyeur Vance Vanning's van. Freaky Fred<br />
Turentine wolflng french fries at an inside counter.<br />
I whipped back to Wilshire and parked. I brought my beady browns up against my Bausch & Lombs<br />
and went into ocular orbit.<br />
Dig:<br />
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Sweat beads bipping off the brow of that too-tall carhop topping off the tape toward 68". A sweaty<br />
swish with the shakes: His tray twitched and twisted and almost toppled two twincheeseburger plates.<br />
He fed the food to two Filipinos in a Ford Fairlane. He flitted back to a little shack lit by floodlights. He<br />
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stood by the door and chain-smoked two Chesterfield Kings.<br />
Envy entered my heart. An enlightened sense of entitlement entered my soul. A cosmic course of<br />
covetousness covered my whole being.<br />
This gig should be MINE. I was the scandal-scamming, skinny-skimming scopophiliac king. The<br />
scopophiliacal scope of this gig screamed GETCHELL!<br />
I alakazammed to Allah, genuflected to Jesus, and called out to that cat the kikes call God. I said I'd<br />
keester communists and bash ban-the-bombers, and dig up dirt on that dowager dyke Eleanor<br />
Roosevelt. I'd donate dough to a Moslem mosque. I'd put in with Pat Boone, wear white buck shoes,<br />
and warble at a Billy Graham Crusade. I wouldn't print my piece on Rabbi R. R. Ravitz and that<br />
Hebrew-school Hannah he humped last Hanukkah.<br />
I shut my eyes. I gave the God guys time to get together and go for my deal. I could feel them finagling<br />
the fine points. Divine deals demand deliberation.<br />
I opened my eyes. Ben Luboff bopped in front of my binoculars. He slid the sweaty swish a C-note and<br />
slid into the shack alone. The swish sashayed up to a lavender Lincoln and leaned in.<br />
Ben bribed the too-tall brunser. That meant he didn't want to roust his racket. The gig developed<br />
different dimensions--maybe divinely deigned.<br />
I latched my lenses on the Lincoln and locked my eyes in hard. I saw hunky Rock Hudson hand up a<br />
handful of hard cash.<br />
All praise to Allah! Joy to Jesus! Hush-Hush hosannahs to the Hebrew God!<br />
Rock locked his Lincoln, ditched the drive-in, and joyfully jaywalked straight across Wilshire. He<br />
walked up to the front of the Fine Arts movie house and made with a wicked wolf whistle.<br />
A winsome wolf whistle whisked back his way. A muscular manchild meandered out of a moonbeam<br />
and leaned in the lobby doorway.<br />
Rock, you rambunctious rump ranger--<br />
Rock loped into the lobby. The kid locked them in. They disappeared near a dark candy counter.<br />
I blew out of my Buick and flew around the Fine Arts fast-footed. I saw blue lights blink at the back of<br />
the building upstairs. I shimmied up a shaky drainpipe and shagged myself onto a ledge. I undulated<br />
through an unlocked window and heard Rock ululating.<br />
I landed on a lopsided pile of film cans. I pitched forward and pulled myself up. I peeped through a<br />
pebble-glass door and saw shadows shifting down a short hallway.<br />
I fast-footed it out of the film-storage room. I saw flickery flits of light flick out from below two<br />
doorways. I ducked down the dark hall. Shifty shadows shot up from the door slits. I crept up on them<br />
and got down in a crab-crawl crouch. I slid one eye up against the door slits.<br />
I saw a punk cameraman with a Panflex porta-cam packed into a pod-shaped peephole. Next door:<br />
Rock and the monster-hung man-child making meat-mangling motions on a light-colored couch with the<br />
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lights on. Motherfucker: minuscule mini-mikes taped to a tall table lamp!<br />
I flew back to the film-storage room. I rapidly reshimmied down that drainpipe. I whizzed across<br />
Wilshire, looped around La Cienega, and ducked down an alley behind Delores's Drive-In. I vaulted a<br />
vine-covered fence, veered past Vance Vanning's van, and vibrated up to that shitty little shack that the<br />
sweaty swish had swayed by.<br />
The drive-in was deep in a late-nite lull. I spotted six sleds snouted into snack-serving slots. I looked left<br />
and wrapped my eyeballs right. I didn't see the sweaty swish or Ben Luboff. I saw Vance Vanning and<br />
Buddy Berkow buzzing logs in their bug vans.<br />
I fearlessly faced the shack door. I nervously knocked and locked my loins to fight a scandal-skank war<br />
of some scope. Nobody answered. I wiggled the door open and walked in uninvited.<br />
A lousy little all-linoleum office. Disinfectant stench, a dirty desk, and a doily-covered chair.<br />
A closet.<br />
A preciously apropos prop and a prime hideout hole.<br />
I hid in the closet. I hunched myself up and heaved for breath. Methedrine-mad minutes marched by. I<br />
sweated and swore out a warrant on Ben Luboff's hide.<br />
I heard the outer door open and shut. Furtive footsteps and vague voices. I peered through a pint-size<br />
pinhole in the closet door. I saw Ben Luboff and the sweaty swish.<br />
Perspiration poured over the pinhole and voided my view. I locked my eyes shut and listened.<br />
Ben said, "You know, it's ironic. I've been hearing about your service for years, but it took a tip from<br />
fucking Danny Getchell to get me to contact you."<br />
The sweaty swish said, "Choice chicken, doll. The best boys in the West, and a good rep for discretion."<br />
Ben said, "Yeah, and that's why the Rock buys all his extracurricular tail from you."<br />
The sweaty swish said, "The Rock ain't nothin' but a hound dog. He's got a perfectly gorgeous lover at<br />
home--an art director at Metro--but he's got to roll around with every Tom, Dick, and Harriet he can<br />
find--with the emphasis on Dick."<br />
Ben said, "You've never forgiven him, have you? He broke your heart, and that's what makes this deal<br />
so sweet for you."<br />
The sweaty swish said, "Truer words never spoken, doll. And godddd, it was torture selling boys to<br />
him."<br />
Ben said, "Vengeance is sweet, baby-cakes. You get your shot at the Rock, I get mine at the<br />
schmendrick Getchell."<br />
In your faigeleh-finagling dreams, you fucking--<br />
The sweaty swish said, "You're sure we can't get hurt on this?"<br />
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Ben said, "Nix. My camera guy set up a breakaway set at the Fine Arts. If the Rock takes the fuzz back<br />
there, they won't find the room he told them about. It was all strictly clandestine. My camera guy let your<br />
boy in the theater, and none of the theater chumps know that any of this happened."<br />
The sweaty swish said, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth both of us."<br />
Ben said, "Especially me. See, I gave Getchell that tip on Don Jordan's whore racket, and I called Don<br />
and clued him in that Getchell was onto his biz. Now, Don Jordan is a bad hombre to flick with. He killed<br />
lots of guys in the Dominican Republic, and he's tight with this spic gang--the Apaches--out in Boyle<br />
Heights. I think it's safe to say that Danny Getchell's days are numbered."<br />
I swirled sweat off my face and popped an eye up to the pintsize pinhole. Ben said, "And look, call it<br />
penance. I've done a shitty thing by exposing our kind of people, but now I'm doing all of us a mitzvah by<br />
taking Getchell out."<br />
"Penance"? "Our people--"?<br />
Ben leaned in and kissed the sweaty swish on the lips. He said, "Later, Lover," and languidly loped out<br />
the door.<br />
I crashed out of the closet--crazily out of control. The sweaty swish saw me. He swirled and swung a<br />
switchblade out of his pocket.<br />
He pirouetted and pounced. I closed the closet door, swiveled, and swung it at him. His switchblade<br />
swiped wood. He swung off balance. I swatted at his knife hand and kicked him in the kidneys and the<br />
cojones.<br />
He clipped the closet door. I clotheslined him and claimed his knife off the floor. I clamped down on his<br />
neck and kicked out his legs and laid him out on the linoleum.<br />
I pinned him prone and swicked sweat beads off his beak with my blade. I said, "Sing, shitbird."<br />
He coughed and caught some breath. He hemmed, hawed, and hummed in hyperventilation. He stopped<br />
and stared at me. He got hip to the hard hophead hate I had for him and put it all out prestissimo.<br />
"It all went down today. You tipped off Ben to my operation, which he'd heard rumors about for years.<br />
Ben told me you'd ratted me out, but why blow a potentially sweet partnership when we could work<br />
breakaway-bedroom jobs and snag some big people? I wanted to put some hurt on Rock, and Ben and<br />
I both wanted to nail you for all the gay folk you've messed with."<br />
I leaned in laceratingly low. "So this was a scandal squeeze on the Rock. Pay, or see yourself in<br />
Whisper."<br />
The sweaty swish said, "Yes." I said, "How much were you going to squeeze him for?" The sweaty<br />
swish said, "Twentyfive G's."<br />
I leaned in lower and laughed. "Rock doesn't have it. I heard he took a bath on a real estate deal."<br />
The sweaty swish swung a sweet smile at me. "Then look for the Rock on the cover of the June 1958<br />
issue of Whisper."<br />
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WHISPER WINS WICKED WAR OF WORDS! THE HUSH-HUSH HEGEMONY WIPED OUT<br />
WITH A WHIMPER!<br />
I blinked. The sweaty swish blindsided me blindingly fast.<br />
He landed a left on my lips. He ratched a right to my chin. A knee bit my balls and bounced me<br />
backward.<br />
The sweaty swish swung to his feet. I flattened myself to the floor, grabbed his two fat Florsheims and<br />
watched him fly back where he'd been. He landed on linoleum, lurched upright, and laughed. I lobbed my<br />
knife and lanced him in the larynx.<br />
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I punked out and panicked. I left the sweaty swish larynx-lashed and laid out in lurid state. I ran from the<br />
hellacious homo-cide.<br />
I popped up to my pad off Pico. I saw a pack of pachucos parked outside. Mean Mexicans in mohair<br />
shirts and mohawk haircuts. Machismo-mangled minions. Don Jordan's homicidal hermanos.<br />
I hauled to the Hush-Hush office. I hit on a horrific scene out of Hieronymus Bosch.<br />
Heaps of Hush-Hush dirt files tossed and torched to Cinder City. Scandal skinny scorched and dumped<br />
into dust piles. Art sheets shivved and shorn to shit. Type trays trashed and chairs chopped into chop<br />
suey.<br />
My crew:<br />
Bruised, contused, confused, and ripped from a raid on Dave Dockweiler's dope stash.<br />
Dawn.<br />
I dashed back to Delores's Drive-In and dipped by at a safe distance. I drove one-handed and drilled<br />
the dive with my Bausch binoculars.<br />
Cops--a bevy of bulls from the Beverly Hills PD. Two guys swinging the sweaty swish onto a<br />
sheet-shrouded stretcher. A biiiig bull bracing Ben Luboff--nellyingly nervous and limpwristedly lily-white<br />
now. Shit shaking inside the shack--drones dripping print powder on the symbiotically symbolic closed<br />
closet door. Checking it out: Chief Clinton Anderson.<br />
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I fought a fit of foul flicking fear: I fondled that door and forgot to wipe my prints.<br />
I buzzed by the BHPD Building. By the back door: two bulls and Buddy "Bug King" Berkow. Buddy<br />
looked beat on. I knew the bulls had bopped him with beaver-tail saps.<br />
I bombed my Buick out of Beverly Hills. I ran my radio for random newscasts. KMPC coughed up crap<br />
on Croatian commies and switched to a swift bit on the sweaty swish.<br />
A commentator called it a suicide. Clinton Anderson confirmed the call conclusively.<br />
I was prespiringly perplexed and pulsatingly puzzled. I sent up guarded thanx to my guardian angel and<br />
dipped the dial to the BHPD band.<br />
"All BHPD units only, APB on Daniel Douglas Getchell, G-E-T-C-H-E-L-L, white male, 28, 61, 18o,<br />
brown and brown, driving a 1953 Buick Skylark, license G-B-D, 88z. Be advised, BHPD units only,<br />
approach and bring to station."<br />
What?--a pristinely private bulletin to bag me. A BHPD exclusive--to swing with the sweaty swish<br />
"suicide."<br />
I felt bad boogie bopping my way. I bombed to Burbank and breezed by Brad's Auto Dump. I boosted<br />
fresh plates off an old Oldsmobile and placed them over my plates. I plowed back to L.A. and mainlined<br />
myself to the L.A. Times morgue.<br />
I felt intertwined intrigues interdicting me. I played a Hush-Hush hunch and read reports on recent<br />
Beverly Hills burglaries.<br />
Six--slickly slotted from late '57 to last week. Ulceratingly unsolved. Salivatingly similar stats: bedroom<br />
boosts while Mama and Papa went out to separate parties. Large losses and no standard talk of<br />
stakeouts to bag the B&E bad boys.<br />
Bad BHPD boogie bopping my way? Twisted twirls and circles circumscribing me--<br />
I popped to a pay phone and called Steve Crane. I told him to light out to the Luau lickety-split.<br />
I beelined to Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. I Bausch & Lomb'd Lana Turner's backyard. I saw Johnny<br />
Stompanato jump on Lana and lash out with limitlessly lewd language. Lana lashed back. She julienned<br />
Johnny with jive on his jilt-happy gigolo ways. She spritzed spite. She shot shit at him shamelessly. She<br />
pounced on his pint-sized penis and his wicked welterweight dupe Don Jordan. She called him a guinea<br />
gangster and said he poured the pork to her Mexican maid with his poquito pee-pee. She said he<br />
pandered and pimped her and got her gussied up in her own Givenchy gown.<br />
Some show: A bracing breakfast bash on beautiful Bedford. Dig the all-star audience, perched on their<br />
porches with pancakes and poached eggs:<br />
Dino, Duke Wayne, Walt Disney, wolfing Wheaties. That white-haired wimp on The Webster Webfoot<br />
Show.<br />
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Steve Crane said, "So I'm letting Don Jordan run girls out of here. So Yolanda Paez brings me back the<br />
latest on Lana and Johnny. So what? You want to write the story up, great. But it's the last you'll ever<br />
peep out of my peepholes."<br />
The Luau was listlessly still. Steve opened up early to meet me. My meth jolt was melting down. I mixed<br />
a mammoth martini to remagnetize it.<br />
"I think Johnny crashed Jordan's whore racket and lured Yolanda into it. And I think the girls are the<br />
advance team for a burglary angle thatJohnny and Jordan are working."<br />
Steve stirred his planter's punch and braced his back into the bar. "I'm sure there's lots of angles in this<br />
thing. Yolanda told me the girls are hooking so they can bring their families up from Mexico and that<br />
Jordan will smuggle them across the border, get them kitchen jobs, and take a cut of their pay. I can't<br />
complain. He's promised me three dishwashers off his next run."<br />
I said, "Don's a flicking sweetheart."<br />
"Yeah, and he may be the next welterweight champ. I heard he's fighting Honeybear Akins in the fall."<br />
"And Mickey Cohen's got a piece of his contract."<br />
"Right, which is not exactly a news flash."<br />
"Does Mickey have some truck with Don?"<br />
"He can calm him down and get him to call off some of his crazier stunts. Why?"<br />
I gulped Gilbey's and Vermouth. "Nothing, but let me run some names by you. Jack Hanson, Chick<br />
Nadell, <strong>James</strong> B. Harris, Ted Jaffe, Russ Pearce--"<br />
Steve stopped me. "All Luau regulars, all men with big fucking money."<br />
I said, "All burglary victims that Don and Johnny's girls picked up here, all married men too embarrassed<br />
to cop to the fact that they let whores into their pads and got B&E'd as a result."<br />
Steve said, "Jesus fucking Christ." I said, "No--Daniel Douglas Getchell. And listen--Johnny and Don<br />
are operating a bit too freely in Beverly Hills. Can you throw some light on that?"<br />
Steve drained his drink and munched a Maraschino cherry. "Clinton Anderson's got a regular john thing<br />
going with Yolanda. He met her here, and she told me thatJohnny knows all about it."<br />
Circling circles. Puzzle pieces popping into place.<br />
Chief Anderson chewed up Ben Luboff at Delores's Drive-In. Ben blew the word: He'd dished me dirt<br />
on Don Jordan's doings. The Chief charged him to silence. The print pros took my prints off the closet<br />
door. The Chief chewed things over and decided not to swear out a warrant on the sweaty swish<br />
homo-cide. The Chief wanted to check me out up close and clip me--I might be Hush-Hush hip to his<br />
yen for Yolanda. I might make him as a Mexican whoremonger and Stompanato stooge.<br />
Steve made himself a massive mai-tai. He said, "Lana, it was so goooooooood with you, baby."<br />
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I said, "Call Yolanda. Tell her I can get her a permanent green card, if she beds a guy who doesn't like<br />
girls."<br />
I was Hush-Hush hot. I was warrant-wanted and baited by a BHPD bounty. I traded my boss Buick for<br />
a busboy's boogied-out wheels. A real congo coach: coon maroon paint matched to matted mink seats. I<br />
left the Luau in lieu of a new hideout hut.<br />
I rocked up to the Rock's pad on Roscomare Road and rang the bell. Rock opened up--regal and<br />
righteously razzed off in a royal blue kimono. I caught sight of a kimono-clad cutie behind him--a pretty<br />
punk pouting into page two of today's paper.<br />
Rock ripped into me. "You're getting bold, Danny. I usually find you going through my garbage or trying<br />
to crawl in my bedroom window."<br />
The playmate flipped me the finger. I blew him a bitchy kiss and latched a look on his Herald-Express.<br />
Wow! A sharp shot of the sweaty swish sheet-shrouded and dead.<br />
Rock reripped me. "An old friend of mine killed himself last night, and I'm in no mood to fuck around<br />
with a lowlife like you."<br />
I deflated his diatribe. "I'm moving in with you. You're going to hide me out, so I can flick Ben Luboff for<br />
fucking me, and fuck him for fucking you with that kid you flicked at the Fine Arts last night."<br />
Rock rocked, rolled, listed, lurched, and landed in my arms.<br />
I moved in. I moved out of my Methedrine mode with Miltown and Macallan scotch. I made<br />
machinations to save myself and rescue the Rock.<br />
I called Mickey Cohen. I tipped him to Candy Barr's barrage of shit behind his back and begged him to<br />
call off Don Jordan. Mickey tossed a tantrum and told me he'd try. I called in a cautiously coded note to<br />
Clinton Anderson. I told the Chief's chief chump to check this: I chomp at the chance to be the Chief's<br />
chief informant--and I need to stay alluringly alive. Let's talk later-- I've got lots of lovely dirt to drop on<br />
the BHPD.<br />
Steve Crane did his duty and duped Yolanda Paez into my plan to play out here at Rock's playpen. Said<br />
plan: to plant Yolanda and Rock in the sack and sock in a prank prowler call to my plant with the LAPD.<br />
The plant plants calls to his private press contacts-- prowler prowls at Rock's Roscomare rancho right<br />
now! Blackand-whites bomb to Bel-Air! Reporters run to Rock's ranch! I fire shots out a back<br />
bedroom! Cops kick the door in and find Rock and his Mex mama flicking feverishly! Reporters find<br />
them and flood them with flashbulb flares! I sell my pre-shot sex shots to Randy Rothstein at Rave and<br />
Terry Tompkins at Tattle. Ben Luboff gets skinned alive and scooped by the scoop of the scopophiliac<br />
century: ROCK HUDSON IS STRAIGHT!<br />
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I yanked Yolanda to the playpen and played her through rehearsals with the richly reluctant Rock. The<br />
Rock's live-in lover took it all horrifically hard. He drank himself into dramatic hysterics and hurled hate<br />
hexes at me in a slithery and scintillating silence. I had constellated his self-contempt and crisply<br />
crystallized it. He hated himself for his love for hunky hound dog Hudson. He'd sweated the sweaty swish<br />
story out of the Rock. Rock's call-boy carousing blistered and blackened his heart. He was afraid that<br />
Rock would renounce his rump-happy ways with a real revisionistic yen for Yolanda. He blamed all this<br />
multiplied mishigaas dead on me.<br />
Rock promised to drop some graft gelt and glom Yolanda a green card. Yolanda laid out some lurid<br />
Lana-Johnny tales of late. Lana and Johnny were wrapped in a ripe roundelay of sex and self-hatred.<br />
Brazen brawls and licentious language. Lana was ready to cut the cord and juke Johnny out of her life.<br />
Yolanda said she'd pay prime pop to liberate her love letters. I called Lana and laid out a deal. I said I'd<br />
latch onto the letters. She said she'd lure Johnny to her lair and call Yolanda at Rock's rancho. I'd run to<br />
Johnny's pad and pounce on her packet of purple prose then.<br />
I set the date for the prowler-prowl press gig: 4/4/58.<br />
Good Friday. A good day to crucify and crush the rumor that Rock ran the Greek way. A good way to<br />
resurrect him and hail him as heterosexual.<br />
We waited. We worried details. Rock and I belted bonded bourbon and bullshitted our way down to<br />
D-Day.<br />
Rock psyched me out and psychoanalyzed me. I told him about my chickenshit childhood in Chillicothe,<br />
Ohio. I told him how my meshugenah mom mistreated me. She only let me read one book: a thick<br />
thesaurus. Rock bestowed a bourbon-bombed benediction on me. I told him that Hush-Hush would<br />
always run and rag him as a raging pussy hound. I think we might have hugged once--but don't tell<br />
anyone.<br />
8:10 P.M., Friday, 4/4158. The lilac-colored carpet on Rock's living-room floor.<br />
Rock jumped out of his jockey shorts. Yolanda yanked off her dress and stamped herself with the<br />
stations of the cross. I bored my eyes in on her and buzzed the fuzz.<br />
My cop buddy caught the call. "Los Angeles Police Department. Sergeant Helgeland speaking."<br />
I said, "Prowler at 841 Roscomare, Bel-Air. Shots fired." I hung up, hauled upstairs, and smoked two<br />
Smith & Wesson rounds out a rear window. I heard the live-in lover boohoo and beat his fists on the bed<br />
he bounced on with the Rock. I bounced back downstairs and went big-time bug-eyed.<br />
It was supposed to be a faux-fuck. It wildly and willfully wasn't. Rock had Yolanda priapically pinioned.<br />
She had her eyes shut. She couldn't catch Rock surreptitiously centered on a malecenterfold spread.<br />
The phone rang. Yolanda yelped and rocked off of Rock. She said, "It is Good Friday. I have a<br />
premonition." She pounced on the phone. I perched by the earpiece and heard what she heard-- hissingly<br />
Hush-Hush.<br />
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"Johnny. . . hitting me. . . I'm so afraid. . . ."<br />
Yolanda wrapped herself in Rock's robe and ran out the door. She ran to Rock's lavender Lincoln and<br />
raised rubber. I ran out and tailed her in my coon coach. We passed a big bevy of blackand-whites<br />
rolling toward Rock's rancho.<br />
We bombed to Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. We lashed into Lana Turner's house sixteen seconds<br />
apart. We bombed up to an upstairs bedroom. I froze in the doorway and caught a frightful freeze-frame<br />
frisson:<br />
Lana--terrified, tear streaked. A teenage girl--shiny eyed, in shock, and scared shitless. Johnny<br />
Stompanato staring at the knife Yolanda just jammed in him.<br />
That's the real story: off the record, on the Q.T. and very Hush-Hush.<br />
I latched onto Lana 's letters late that night. I leaked two to Ben Luboff and bought Rock back into the<br />
closet. I closed the closet door on Ben's big toe. I told him to clear me with Clinton Anderson or I'd clip<br />
him for that sweet smack he swung on the sweaty swish,<br />
He capitulated and kowtowed and called me back. He passed me a cautiously codified Anderson aside.<br />
I know where you were Good Friday. YE going south. Let's go with the public version.<br />
A deal went down behind BHPD doors. Anderson could not afford to yank Yolanda and push her<br />
public and stamp her for the Stompanato snuff The Chief chiseled out a deal and chilled himself out of<br />
trouble and chipped Cheryl Crane into a chump child charge. Lana let it go down. Anderson addressed<br />
her with a big bag of dirt he took from Terry Tompkins at Tattle. Lana liked to lez with Lila Lee once in a<br />
soft sapphic moon. Terry had a pack of Polaroids.<br />
Don Jordan decided to let me live. He decisioned Honeybear Akins and wore the welterweight crown<br />
for fifteen fat months. Benny "Kid" Paret mugged him and took his title in May 1960. Some malefactors<br />
mugged him for real and murdered his mulatto ass in the mid- '90s.<br />
Yolanda moved back to Mexico. Hollywood had its hooks in her She transcended the tragedies of her<br />
life and triumphed as a snuff-film auteur<br />
Steve Crane crapped out in '85. Those lavish Luau liquor libations lopped out his liver<br />
The live-in lover left the Rock for Liberace. He maliciously maintained that I turned Rock<br />
straight--despite a massive mountain of definitive data that conclusively contradicted him. Rock and I<br />
remained friends. 1 pressed his preposterous straight credentials in Hush-Hush and herded him to a<br />
herbalist when I heard he had AIDS. Potent potions prolonged Rock 's life for a small parcel of time. My<br />
current prognosis is presumably much better<br />
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I want to LIVE. I want to lay out the scopophiliac scope of my life in a NON--mea culpa manner I want<br />
to slap myself in serial form all over GQ. I've got an artful array of dirt on Art Cooper--the editor-in-chief<br />
I've extorted him into publishing this piece. I've got dirt to illegitimize Ilena Silverman--Art's most artful<br />
editor They'll print what I tell them to.<br />
I talked to my doctors today. My red-blood count is oscillating optimistically up. I might make it to the<br />
moment that they dig up and discover a cure.<br />
The gonif three gurneys down is still staring at me. He 's looking more and more familiar He 's tripping<br />
out of the tableaux that I just tantalizingly tattled. I've got him on the tip of my tongue.<br />
Right there. Right--<br />
The Rock's lachrymose live-in lover. The cuckolded kid who cursed me back in--<br />
He made me make him. He made a geriatric jump in my direction. He's got a hypodermic full of<br />
hyper-hazy, health-hazarding shit. He wants to reinfect me and get his revenge on the Rock.<br />
I grabbed the sharp shiv shoved under my bed.<br />
September 1998<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
by Art Cooper, Editor-in-Chief, GQ<br />
It was love at first sight. I first met <strong>James</strong> <strong>Ellroy</strong> in the fall of 1993 at The Four Seasons restaurant, a<br />
midtown Manhattan mecca for publishing poobahs where lunch for two can easily exceed the advance<br />
for a first novel. The first word <strong>James</strong> uttered was "Woof!"--and thus did the Demon Dog of American<br />
Literature enter my life and GQ's. In the five years since, <strong>James</strong> has contributed some of the finest<br />
journalism and fiction we have published, and all of it is included in this volume. Contrary to the<br />
convention that writers make their names in magazines before turning to books, <strong>James</strong> was at the top of<br />
his game as a novelist when he decided to try magazine writing.<br />
<strong>James</strong> is a big man with a big voice and a big personality. Those who don't know him well find him<br />
intimidating. So do those who know him well. And he is fearless as a Doberman, which I discovered<br />
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early on when we were trying to decide on a perfect story. Having admired his The Black Dahlia, I<br />
acknowledged my own fascination with Hollywood murders of the '4os and '50s. The conversation went<br />
something like this:<br />
ME: You know, some Miss Idaho goes to Hollywood to be a star, doesn't make it, works as a cocktail<br />
lounge waitress or a hooker, and winds up horribly and mysteriously murdered. JAMES: Well, I'm<br />
obsessed by an unsolved murder. My mother was murdered when I was 10. She had been drinking in<br />
some bar and left with a guy. They found her body on an access road by a high school. She had been<br />
strangled. They never found who did it. ME (excitedly): That's it! Write your obsession. Reinvestigate it.<br />
Write it. Right away. JAMES: Yes, Godfather. (He calls me Godfather all the time. I like it. It makes me<br />
feel well-tailored.)<br />
I didn't find out until a couple of years later that <strong>James</strong> went immediately from my office to visit with his<br />
agent, Nat Sobel, a wise, compassionate man on every occasion but this one. Art wants me to write<br />
about my mother's murder, said <strong>James</strong>. Don't do it, advised Nat. It will dredge up a lot that I don't think<br />
you want to confront. I'm gonna do it, said the Doberman. The article, "My Mother's Killer," appeared in<br />
our August 1994 issue and was one of the most widely praised magazine pieces of that year. <strong>James</strong> later<br />
expanded the piece into his bestselling memoir My Dark Places.<br />
I am not alone in thinking that everything that <strong>James</strong> has written, indeed his very essence, has been<br />
shaped by the murder of Geneva Hilliker <strong>Ellroy</strong>. He acknowledges as much when writing of her in "My<br />
Mother's Killer": "The woman refused to grant me a reprieve. Her grounds were simple: My death gave<br />
you a voice, and I need you to recognize me past your exploitation of it." <strong>James</strong> inscribed my copy of My<br />
Dark Places "She lives!"<br />
Accompanying the article there was a photograph of <strong>James</strong> just after he has been told of his mother's<br />
death. Look at his eyes. They are shocked, uncomprehending. Raised by his father, a rakish "Hollywood<br />
bottom feeder" (<strong>James</strong>'s words), who did or did not "pour the pork" to Rita Hayworth, <strong>James</strong> grew to be<br />
a teen punk, a peeping torn and a petty thief who broke into houses to sniff women's panties. He filed<br />
away, in his mind, everything he saw when he was strung out on drugs or drunk on cheap booze or<br />
spending nine months in local lockups--nightmarish, photographic visions that would fuel his noirish<br />
fiction.<br />
These complex tales of Los Angeles's seamy underside provide the truest social history of the city in the<br />
1940s and '50s, an era of "bad white men doing bad tings in the name of authority." <strong>Ellroy</strong>'s stories are as<br />
dense as an overcrowded prison, but his syiicopated style is deceptive: short, staccato, often alliterative<br />
bursts. But they are not riffs. Each muscular sentence follows the next and orderly advances the plot. His<br />
protagonists are deeply wounded men on both sides of the law, scarred and corrupted by what they have<br />
seen.<br />
<strong>James</strong> had achieved a reputation as the best American hardboiled crime writer when his novel L.A.<br />
Confidential was turned into a critical and commercial hit movie, which happily introduced him to a much<br />
larger audience. He writes about that experience here in "Bad Boys in Tinseltown." In this volume, too,<br />
are three short fictions that continue where L.A. Confidential ended: "Hollywood Shakedown,"<br />
"Hush-Hush," and "Tijuana, Mon Amour." <strong>James</strong> reprises Danny Getchell, the cannily corrupt star writer<br />
of Hush-Hush magazine, who has the grisly goods on almost everyone in Tinseltown and will blackmail<br />
anyone to obtain exclusive dirt. <strong>Ellroy</strong> gleefully dips in the muck his band of merry miscreants, including<br />
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Jack Webb, Mickey Cohen, Frank Sinatra, Lana Turner, Johnny Stompanato, Dick Contino, Sammy<br />
Davis Jr., Oscar Levant, and Rock Hudson. There is a raunchy ring of verisimilitude, a truly bizarre<br />
believability, to the way <strong>Ellroy</strong> makes them behave.<br />
Two years ago I hosted a dinner party at The Four Seasons for another '5os icon, 7 1-year-old Tony<br />
Curtis, who arrived wearing a ruffled white shirt, a tuxedo jacket without lapels, a medal from the French<br />
government on his chest, and his stunning 2 6-yearold, 6'1" girlfriend, Jill Van Den Berg, on his arm.<br />
<strong>James</strong> was there as were Tom Junod, who had written a brilliant profile of Curtis for GQ, and an editor<br />
whose name will come to me in a moment. When I suggested that Tony be seated away from the other<br />
diners, <strong>James</strong> thought it would be better if he sat near them. <strong>James</strong>, of course, was right. All evening,<br />
middle-aged suburban matrons fawned over Tony, pleaded for his autograph, touched him, told him he<br />
was the handsomest movie star ever.<br />
We drank some surpassingly good wine, laughed a lot, and listened raptly to Tony and <strong>James</strong>, back and<br />
forth like a shuttlecock, tell ribald tales of Hollywood in the '5os. It became clear to me that no one alive<br />
knows more than <strong>James</strong> about that particular time in that particular place. He seems to know everything<br />
about the famous, the near-famous, and the infamous. Especially their penis size. His novels, like his<br />
conversation, abound with references to it. Some of his characters are "hung like a donkey," others "like<br />
a cashew." Why he is so obsessed is best left to Freudians, but for <strong>Ellroy</strong>, more than any other writer,<br />
anatomy is truly destiny.<br />
<strong>Ellroy</strong>'s destiny was to be a moralist. But he doesn't ride his moralism like some hobbyhorse. When he is<br />
outraged by some wrongdoing, he gets really juiced. Shortly after 0. J. Simpson committed the<br />
double-slash of ex-wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman, I asked <strong>James</strong> if he'd write an essay on the<br />
<strong>Crim</strong>e of the Century. Yes, indeed, he replied. The result made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.<br />
"Sex, Glitz, and Greed: The Seduction of 0. J. Simpson" is a passionate, powerful piece that skewers<br />
Simpson and the horrific Hollywood celebrity culture that spawned him. Several months ago, <strong>James</strong> was<br />
in moral high dudgeon again, this time outraged at Bill Clinton's sexual dalliance with Monica Lewinsky<br />
and his rather bizarre pronouncement that a blow job really isn't sex. <strong>James</strong> was itching to rip Bubba, and<br />
I, perhaps unwisely, declined.<br />
This white-hot morality and a singular narrative gift aside, I think <strong>James</strong> has become one of the finest<br />
writers of our time because he is the most disciplined scrivener I have ever known. He rises early and<br />
spends io hours every day writing. He has never been blocked. He seems always to be juggling a novel,<br />
short fiction, and his magazine work. Astonishingly, he has never missed a deadline. He possesses the<br />
concentration--and the confidence--of a cat burglar; the outline of his novel-in-progress runs 343 pages.<br />
Genius has its rewards. <strong>Ellroy</strong> now commands advances robust enough to dine regularly at The Four<br />
Seasons. Last October he flew from his home in Kansas City to New York where, resplendent in black<br />
tie (<strong>James</strong> is some bespoke dandy), he accepted GQ's Man of the Year Award for Literature, for which<br />
he was selected by our ferociously intelligent readers. The two previous winners are Norman Mailer and<br />
John Updike. Mr. Mailer and Mr. Updike should feel flattered.<br />
LET'S TWIST AGAIN<br />
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Seasons of grace come and go. People never designate them in th moment. They look back individually<br />
or en masse and imposc narrative lines. It all comes down to what you had and what you lost.<br />
The lines apply to nations, cities, and people. Kodachrome snapshots offset them. Faded colors send<br />
out a glow. Gooey music fills in the rest of the picture and tells you what to think.<br />
It was better then. We were better then. I was younger then.<br />
It's specious stuff all the way. It's schmaltzy hindsight built from verisimilitude. It obfuscates more than it<br />
enlightens. There's just enough hard truth in it to keep it running strong.<br />
One season defines the whole mind-set. A formal name denotes it. Knights and maidens in a savage<br />
time. A three-hanky weeper on stage, screen, and CD.<br />
A corny musical and a worn-out media concept. With a threepoint intersection running soft and sure in<br />
my head.<br />
I had my own Camelot. It ran concurrent with the Broadway show and Jack Kennedy's spin in the<br />
White House. I lived in a dive apartment with my pussy-hound father and our unhousebroken dog. I had<br />
a fancifully corrupted mind and poor social skills. I had a Schwinn Corvette with gooseneck handlebars,<br />
chrome fenders, rhinestone-studded mud flaps, fringed saddlebags, and a speedometer that topped out<br />
at 150 miles per hour. I had a great city to roam and a shitload of kid lore to assimilate.<br />
Our pad straddled Hancock Park and lower Hollywood. To the south and southwest: Tudor castles,<br />
French chateaus, and Spanish haciendas. To the north: small houses and studio back lots. To the east:<br />
wood-frame cribs and apartment dumps on a hilly plumb line downtown.<br />
My beat covered Hollywood to Darktown. The southern border was a race line that white kids never<br />
crossed. It was pre-riot L.A. L.A. was pre-hysteric. Parents told their kids not to stray south of Pico and<br />
let the little flickers roam.<br />
I started roaming at age i i. It was summer I had to start junior high in September. It scared the shit out<br />
of me.<br />
I bike-roamed. I shoplifted books and candy bars. I ran into strange kids in bike cliques and picked up<br />
information.<br />
How this girl popped some Spanish fly and impaled herself on a shift knob. How Hitler was still alive.<br />
The word on aspirin and Coke. The word on Liberace and Rock Hudson. The word on your local junior<br />
high schools.<br />
Le Conte Junior High, AXA "Le Cunt": Coool guys. Fast girls. Partyville, U.S.A. A breeding ground for<br />
studs in the "Lochinvars" and "Celts." Be cool or stay out.<br />
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Virgil Junior High: Full of cholos with Sir Guy shirts and slitbottomed khakis.<br />
King Junior High: Full ofJaps and creeps from Silverlake--the "Swish Alps." Lots of homos who wore<br />
green on Thursdays.<br />
Louis Pasteur Junior High: Full of uppity spooks who thought they were white.<br />
Berendo Junior High: Danger zone. Pachuco rumbles. Full of Catholic girls who smoked Maryjane and<br />
had babies out of wedlock.<br />
Mount Vernon Junior High, AKA "Mount Vermin," AKA "Mau-Maunt Vernon": Niggerland, U.S.A.<br />
Beware! Beware! Frequent homicides and race riots on campus.<br />
I was slated to attend John Burroughs Junior High, AKA "J.B." I asked about it. Nobody had a riff<br />
down pat.<br />
I spent three years at J .B. It was the buffer zone between my dark childhood and bleak<br />
postadolescence. J.B. was Camelot writ small and contained and unimpaired by hokey images of lost<br />
innocence to come. It was my taste of earned privilege and potent destiny and the unacknowledged<br />
secret pulse of my wild L.A. trip.<br />
J.B. stood at 6th and McCadden. It was the southwest edge of Hancock Park. Kosher Canyon kicked<br />
in a few blocks away. J.B. divided two diverse and significant hunks of Central L.A.<br />
Pedigreed goys and big-ass homes to the east. Hard-scrabbling Jews in duplex pads and stucco huts to<br />
the west. A legacy of entrenchment and a prophecy of powerful emergence. A contentious demographic.<br />
Two gene pools programmed to spawn swift kids.<br />
J.B. was red brick and built to last. The main building and north building were contiguous and joined at<br />
an L-shaped juncture. Offices and classrooms covered two floors linked by wide stairwells.<br />
The main building adjoined a large auditorium. A blacktop athletic field stretched south to Wilshire. Shop<br />
bungalows and two gyms abutted the main and north buildings perpendicularly. They enclosed the "Lunch<br />
Court"--a paved space dotted with benches and green-and-gold trash cans.<br />
J.B. was named after a dead guy who fucked around with plants or soybeans. Nobody stressed his<br />
accomplishments or gave him much play as an icon. He was stale bread.<br />
The student body was 8o% Jewish. I didn't know from Jews. My father called them "Pork Dodgers."<br />
My Lutheran pastor called them complicit in the famous Jesus Christ homicide.<br />
Fifteen percent of the kids hailed from Hancock Park. Their parents preferred J.B. to prestigious prep<br />
schools. My guess: they wanted their kids to compete with Jews so they'd grow up tough and kick ass in<br />
business.<br />
The final component: Gentile riffraff and a few Negro kids who escaped restrictive housing laws and<br />
certain death at Mount Vermin.<br />
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There's J.B., '59. I storm Camelot on my steed--a two-wheel taco wagon.<br />
I'm tall. My dog shits on my living-room floor. I pick my nose with gusto. I stick pencils in my ears and<br />
excavate wax in full view of other kids.<br />
I'm afraid of all living things. I pull crazy-man stunts to attract attention and deter kid predators. My<br />
psycho act is now in its third or fourth school year. The performance lines are starting to blur. I can't tell<br />
when I'm putting people on and when I'm not.<br />
It's '59. Performance Art has not been conceptualized. I'm prescient and avant-garde and unaware that I<br />
just got lucky. Art requires an audience. Camelots play out on stages--large and small. I hit the one place<br />
that would tolerate and occasionally laud my amped-up and wholly pathetic act.<br />
I didn't know it going in. J.B. was regimented and rule-bound.<br />
A dress and appearance code was strictly enforced. Jeans, Capri pants, and T-shirts were banned.<br />
Boys kept their hair neatly trimmed--under threat of swats on the ass. Girls wore oxford shoes and<br />
maintained low hemlines.<br />
The boys' vice-principal ran J.B. His name was John Hunt. He was a short, blustery man. He had<br />
bloodshot eyes and ruptured veins and strutted like a low-rent Il Duce.<br />
Hunt stressed hard work, hard play, and physical reprisals for fuckups. He addressed Boy's League<br />
assemblies and got borderline bawdy. He said shit like "You're young men now, soon you'll discover that<br />
broads should be broad where they ought to be broad," and "I know you're studying hormones in<br />
science class. You know how you make a hormone? Don't pay her."<br />
Hunt dispensed swats with a space-age paddle. Air shot through holes on the downswing. He made you<br />
drop trou. The aftermath exceeded the impact. The welts, blood dots, and sting lingered loooooong.<br />
Hunt had a teacher/goon named Arthur Shapero. Hunt was 56". Shapero was 64. He looked like Lurch<br />
and Renfield from Dracula. I kept waiting for him to say, "Master, I come!"<br />
Shapero hulked around the lunch court. Hunt kept him on a long choke chain. He ran the Space Cadets,<br />
Space Legion, and Solarons--kiddie cops empowered to cite other kids for littering and dress-code<br />
infractions.<br />
The little shits abused their power. Hunt and Shapero backed them up. It was minidrama worthy of a<br />
mini-Camelot--and as futile as JFK's attempts to suppress Fidel Castro.<br />
You couldn't quash the exuberance oftheJ.B. rank-and-file kid. You could infiltrate his imagination and<br />
hope your lessons took. The J.B. rank-and-file teacher knew this. He knew he was up against a big ego<br />
and a spongelike mind eager to soak up the latest and greatest knowledge--if it was sold in a<br />
boredom-proof package. He learned to digress off his basic curriculum and work in topical angles. He<br />
never played down to his kid audience.<br />
I had my act. The teachers had theirs. We shared the same audience.<br />
I infiltrated it as aJ.B. student. I stood apart from it as a grandstanding leper afraid of his peers.<br />
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It's fall I hitJ.B. I scope out the turf and rule out assimilation. I'm a stranger in a strange fucking land. Ike<br />
is still in the White House. I don't know from Camelot. I don't know that I'm about to embark on my first<br />
and most formative season of discourse.<br />
With:<br />
Little sharpsters with hungry eyes and paperbound copies of Exodus in their hip pockets. Jokesters who<br />
said, "Did you know Abraham Lincoln was Jewish? He was shot in the temple." Twelve-year-olds who'd<br />
read more books than I had and could recite baseball stats back to the time the Nazis ran Mom and Dad<br />
out of Poland. Hancock Park surfers who dry-surfed the main building on slick-soled penny loafers. Girls<br />
with stunning big features die-cast for sex appeal generations back in the shtetl. Girls bred breathtakingly<br />
blonde and raised refined by the back nine at Wilshire C.C. Kids with their own acts. Kids who could<br />
spiel, spritz, run shtick, and perform without hocking their soles.<br />
I settled in.<br />
I listened. I learned. I performed.<br />
I observed.<br />
Formal learning came easy. I read fast and retained well. My father did my math homework and<br />
supplied me with crib sheets. I gave oral reports on real books and books that I concocted<br />
extemporaneously. I hipped a few kids to my ruse and watched them howl. No teacher ever busted me<br />
for book-report fraud.<br />
J.B. had some très hip teachers. Lepska Verzeano was Henry Miller's ex. I asked my father what this<br />
meant. He waggled his eyebrows at me.<br />
Walt Macintosh killed Reds in Korea. His gun barrel melted during a Red death charge. He doped out<br />
the '60 campaign and held a classroom election. The Jewish kids backed JFK. The Hancock Park kids<br />
backed Nixon. I backed Tricky Dick--because my father said that JFK took his orders from Rome.<br />
Laurence Nelson got me hooked on classical music. Beethoven wrote the sound track for myJ.B. years.<br />
I fell for an English teacher named Margaret Pieschel. The kids called her Miss "Pie-Shell." She was<br />
dark-haired and slender. She had bad acne. The J.B. boys considered her a dog. I sensed her inner<br />
torment and caught her sex vibe full on. It was Beethovian. I stared at her and tried to zap her<br />
telepathically. I tried to tell her, I know who you are. I looked at her and knew what it was like to love a<br />
lonely woman to death.<br />
J.B. teachers were classifiable and divisible by two. Call them the Quick and the Dead.<br />
The Quick contingent swung hip. They dug the Peace Corps, cool jazz, and Mort Sahl. The Dead<br />
contingent swung limp--as in elderly and sincere and content to rest on J.B.'s hot rep. The Deads were a<br />
needle stuck in the groove of a looooong-play record. The Quicks faced a Camelotian dilemma: whether<br />
to toil for chump change in the L.A. school system or strike out and try to make it in the real world.<br />
J.B. kids were classifiable and divisible by two. Call them the Naked and the Dead.<br />
The Dead contingent swung square--as in no spiel, spritz, shtick, or performance capability and no sexy<br />
angst. The Deads did not know from discourse. The Deads accepted J.B.'s social<br />
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stratification--regardless of their status. The Naked contingent swung hungry--as in voluble,<br />
argumentative, hormonally unhinged, and hip to the fact that the world rocked to a Rat Pack beat and<br />
lots of people got fucked in the ass. The Nakeds faced a Camelotian dilemma: whether to accede to the<br />
realities of social stratification and capitulate to appearances as eveiything and deny your own hunger and<br />
seek contentment in conformity and tone down your spiel, spritz, shtick, and performance capability and<br />
rework it to suit a mainstream audience-or go iconoclastic all the way and fuck this overweening<br />
adolescent urge to BELONG.<br />
The Nakeds formed the bulk of the J.B. student body. I was an uber-Naked. I was genetically<br />
programmed for self-destructive kid iconoclasm. I expressed it in a buffoonish manner that marked me as<br />
harmless. My antics amused on occasion. My antics reminded the rank and file that they weren't as<br />
whacked-out as I was. I made them feel secure. They rewarded me with tolerance and a few pats on the<br />
back. I listened to their spiels, spritzes, and shticks. I performed impromptu or on command. My<br />
three-year J.B. discourse was rarely interactive.<br />
I went for my own jugular. I trashed liberal pieties and ragged JFK. I trashed Jewish pieties and yelled,<br />
"Free Adolf Eichmann!" I listened to sincerely fevered classroom debates, measured their value, and<br />
voiced ridiculously reasoned opinions calculated to agitate and spawn belly laughs. I inspired a few<br />
sad-assed guys with no riffs of their own. We became friends. We dissected the J.B. boys and stalked<br />
theJ.B. girls that we craved.<br />
I bopped around the lunch court with my stooge, Jack Lift. We lurked, loitered, listened, and leched.<br />
There's David Friedman. He pulled in a bundle for his bar mitzvah and laid it down on blue-chip stocks.<br />
There's Bad John and his fat sidekick, "Hefty." The word: they pour glue and glass shards on cats and<br />
blow them up with cherry bombs. There's Tony Blankley--a weird kid with a British accent. He's some<br />
kind of child actor--catch him in that Bogart flick, The Harder They Fall. There's Jamie Osborne. Check<br />
his British accent. He says he's <strong>James</strong> Mason's nephew.<br />
There's Leona Walters. She's a tall Negro girl. I danced with her at "Co-Ed": the mandatory gym class<br />
hoedown held on Friday mornings. Negro kids are accepted magnanimously. They rate high on the<br />
Coolometer. Teachers and kids dig their victim status and try not to act condescending. I told my father<br />
that I danced with Leona and blushed the whole time. He said, "Once you've had black, you can't go<br />
back."<br />
Howard Swancy is the alpha dog in J.B.'s black litter. He's abrupt and outspoken and a great athlete.<br />
He's always scoping out weakness in white kids. He's a dancing motherfucker. He did the Twist with<br />
Miss Byers--this redheaded English teacher with wheels like Cyd Charisse. The other twisters froze and<br />
watched. The boys' gym dance was never the same.<br />
Steve Price is a little Lenny Bruce manqué. He's the spritz personified. He's always trawling for straight<br />
men. He knows how to mine current events for big yocks.<br />
Jay Jaffe is any doppelganger. He's a popular kid with edgy nerves and some kind of wild hunger. He's<br />
socially deft and a great baseball player. He's got the stuff to get by on laced in with some crazy shit. I<br />
observe him obsessively. If I could bite his neck and mix his DNA with mine, I could remake myself and<br />
not cede my own essence.<br />
Lizz Gill is a pixielike Hancock Park girl. She works for wholesome laughs. She knows the BigJ.B. Kid<br />
Truth: Sex is the ridiculous, consuming thing that life is all about. There's something subversive in her<br />
pedigree. She probably wouldn't judge me for the dog shit on my living-room floor.<br />
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Richard Berkowitz refers to himself in the third-person. He says, "I, the Great Berko have decreed" and<br />
"The Exalted Berko welcomes you" routinely. He doesn't talk much beyond that. He's a restrained<br />
shtickmeister in a frenetic crowd. His stated ambition: to serve as the towel boy in the girls' gym forever.<br />
The girls' gym adjoined the boys' gym. There were no secret passageways between them. They were<br />
separate outposts of Camelot. The boys' gym was a comedy club. Monomania reigned. The one joke<br />
was sex and the breathlessly close proximity of the girls' gym. One shtick lasted three whole years. Boys<br />
fluffed out their pubic hair and crooned, "Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb!"<br />
The standard J.B. romantic form was the serial crush. Love affairs came and went sans physical contact<br />
or mutual acknowledgment. Crush objects rarely knew that they were crushed on. It was all decorous<br />
and voyeuristic and abetted by intermediaries.<br />
Crushers crushed on crushees and detailed their lust to their crush confidantes. I cranked my crushes<br />
and confidant duty up to sustained surveillance.<br />
There's Leslie Jacobson. She's willowy. Her black bouffant bounces and shines. My stooge, Dave, loves<br />
her. He tracks her across the lunch court. I run point and linger near her in food lines. She's the<br />
quintessential Teen Fox. Dave can't get it up to address her. We discuss her and beat every aspect of her<br />
into the ground. Dave's crush fizzles out and reignites on a new girl. He carves her initials on his right arm<br />
and gets up the guts to show her. She flees in horror.<br />
I torched my way through Camelot. I burned flames for Jill Warner, Cynthia Gardner, Donna Weiss,<br />
and Kathy Montgomery.<br />
Jill's an in-your-face little blonde. She'll talk a blue streak to anyone. Her accessibility marks her as<br />
fatally flawed and thus a kindred spirit. She's hard to stalk. She keeps spotting me. She starts intimidating<br />
conversations and forces me to respond. Jill rates high on spunk and low on hauteur. I crave mystery and<br />
elusiveness in my women. It flips my fantasy switch and gives me groovy shit to talk about with my<br />
stalking buddies.<br />
Cynthia, Donna, and Kathy radiated wholesome beauty and hinted at stern character. I stalked them<br />
inside and outside of school and across a big patch of L.A.<br />
Jack Lift backstopped my surveillance. He lived across the street from Cynthia's pad at 6th and<br />
Crescent Heights. We shined shoes around the corner at the Royal Market and used it as our stakeout<br />
point. We tailed Cynthia around on our bikes the whole Summer of '61.<br />
I knew my love was doomed. I knew the Berlin Wall thing would escalate to World War III at any<br />
moment. L.A. was scared. J.B. kids stocked up on goods at the Royal Market. We discussed the crisis<br />
and concluded that our time was running out. I told the kids that I was hot for Armageddon. They said I<br />
was nuts. Jack and I fucked up their shoes under the guise of free shines.<br />
The world survived. My crush on Cynthia Gardner didn't. I entered crush monogamy with Donna and<br />
Kathy and torched my J.B. days down to an ember.<br />
Donna had big eyes and a pageboy hairdo. She lived at Beverly and Gardner--the heart of Kosher<br />
Canyon. I set up a voyeur spot by the Pan Pacific Theater and surveilled her after school and on<br />
weekends.<br />
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I watched her front door. I watched people enter the synagogues on Beverly. Jack said they were war<br />
refugees. I perched by the Pan Pacific and watched the parade go by. I time-tripped back to World War<br />
II. I saved the people with the funny beanies and top hats. Donna loved me for it--until I left her for<br />
Kathy.<br />
I traded up to a freckled brunette and a big house at 2nd and Plymouth. I boosted some Ivy League<br />
clothes to look more Hancock Park. The makeover thrilled me. JFK never looked so good. I hit a<br />
growth spurt, popped over six feet, and rendered my new threads obsolete. My pincord pants bottomed<br />
out at my ankies and drew jeers at 2nd and Plymouth. I never got up the stones to playJack to Kathy's<br />
Jackie.<br />
I was starting to get the picture:<br />
Camelot was a private club and an inside joke--and I didn't know the password or the punchline.<br />
I went to the J.B. graduation dance on 6/14/62. I wore my father's 1940-vintage gray flannel suit and<br />
drank some T-Bird with a neighbor kid en route.<br />
I sweltered in gray flannel. I squeaked across the dance floor in brown canvas shoes. I asked Cynthia<br />
Gardner to dance. She accepted in the manner of nice girls worldwide. I sweated all over her and<br />
breathed Thunderbird wine in her face.<br />
The class of Summer '62 passed into history. The 4oo-odd members dispersed to three local high<br />
schools. My season of craaazy discourse ended.<br />
I didn't know what I walked away from. I left J.B. with no fanfare and no friendships intact. I didn't<br />
know what I'd learned about myself or other people. I didn't know that the inexorably destructive course<br />
of my life had been diverted and subsumed by a magical time and place. I didn't know that the seeds of a<br />
gift were nourished then and there or that the raucous spirit I carried away would influence my ultimate<br />
survival.<br />
My life went waaay bad. I gave up fifteen years to booze, dope, petty crime, and insanity. I rarely<br />
thought about John Burroughs Junior High School. I stumbled past it and never acknowledged it with<br />
affection. I never thought about my stooges or Jay Jaffe and the Great Berko. I carried snapshots of the<br />
girls in my head and loved them in place of real women.<br />
I almost died in '75 and cleaned up in '77. The act was reflexive and instinctive and tweaked by<br />
ambiguous forces that I didn't comprehend in the moment. It was a blessed non sequitur. I didn't dissect<br />
the act or question its componentry. I didn't want to look back. I wanted to write books and look<br />
forward.<br />
I did it. I moved east to expedite my forward momentum. I shut my unacknowledged Camelot in a<br />
time-locked vault and forgot the combination.<br />
A series of external events clicked into place and inspired me to reinvestigate my mother's 1958 murder.<br />
I spent fifteen months in L.A. and wrote a book about the investigation. It forced me to walk backward<br />
in time and linger in Camelot.<br />
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My time lock blew. All the old players flew out of the vault.<br />
There's Howard Swancy. There's Berko and Jaffe. There's the girls I stalked and all the Naked and the<br />
Dead in a jumble of faces and voices.<br />
My memoir was published in November '96. I spent ten days in L.A. on the publicity tour. Kosher<br />
Canyon and Hancock Park took on a wild new sheen. I drove byJ.B. every chance I got. I sent up<br />
prayers for the faces and voices every time.<br />
I designated J.B. as a formal phenomenon. I developed narrative lines on the players and began to view<br />
them as kids and middleaged men and women. They wore interchangeable masks. They moved between<br />
then and now in unpredictable ways. I fashioned their masks from memory and flattered them with their<br />
presentday faces. I did not know what they looked like now. I granted them beauty as a way to say,<br />
Thanks for the ride.<br />
A year passed. My memoir was published in paperback. A tollfree number and e-mail address were<br />
listed at the back of the text. They were there to solicit leads on my mother's murder.<br />
An old J.B. classmate read the book and contacted me. His name was Steve Horvitz. I didn't recall him.<br />
He remembered me vividly. He ran down a list of my antics and detailed his own life then to now.<br />
His parents were L.A. kids. His old man came out of Boyle Heights, and his old lady went to Le Conte<br />
and Hollywood High. They broke up in '55--the same year my folks split the sheets. Steve lived at<br />
Olympic and Cochran. He hung out with Ron Stillman, Ron Papell, and JayJaffe--all lawyers now. Jaffe<br />
moonlighted as a TV pundit. He worked the Oj. Simpson trial for KCBS.<br />
Steve went to San Francisco State. He stalked Jill Warner in Frisco--more successfully than I stalked<br />
her in L.A. He graduated and sold insurance. He went into his old man's wholesale candy and tobacco<br />
biz. He made a mint off high-interest CDs in the gogo years and bought a car wash and a marketing<br />
business. He did custom framing for model homes and design work for restaurants and coffee shops. He<br />
went into the sports lithograph field and lost a mint in the Bush recession. He was working on Mint #2<br />
now. Credit card processing was hot, hot, hot. He had two sons--one from Wife #1 and one from Wife<br />
#2. Wife #2 had a son from Husband #1. Wives, kids, mints--life could be worse.<br />
Steve and I became friends. We shared a similar take on Camelot and rehashed the time and place in<br />
two-hour phone talks. We debated John Hunt as sadist or man-on-moral-mission. We dissected<br />
"Kampus King" Tony Shultz and Tony Blanldey--now a big cheese with Newt Gingrich. Steve stayed in<br />
L.A. He didn't lockJ.B. in a time-vault. He retained a few friendships and had a handhold on the<br />
slenderJ.B. grapevine. He provided rumors and facts and a necrology.<br />
Howard Swancy--allegedly a cop. Jamie Osborne--dead in Vietnam. Mark Schwartz--dead--possibly<br />
a dope-related homicide. Eric Hendrickson--murdered in Frisco. Laurie Maullin-- dead of cancer. Steve<br />
Schwartz--heroin O.D. Steve Siegel and Ken Greene--dead.<br />
Lots of attorneys--the law attracted bright kids who didn't know what else to do with their lives. Josh<br />
Trabulus--doctor. Lizz Gill--TV writer. The Great Berko--Berko'd out somewhere unknown. Cynthia<br />
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Gardner--last seen as a Mormon housewife. Leslie Jacobson--allegedly a shrink.<br />
Steve lent me his "Burr" yearbooks. The photos served as synaptic triggers. My backlog of faces and<br />
events expanded fiftyfold.<br />
Howard Swancy almost trades blows with Big Guy Huber. LeslieJacobson twirls to the "Peppermint<br />
Twist." JayJaffe wins a penny stomp that leaves a half-dozen kids bloody. Herb Steiner rags the folk<br />
song craze at the Burr Frolics. I disrupt a classroom postmortem on the Bay of Pigs invasion. I contend<br />
that JFK should A-bomb Havana. Kids bomb me with wadded-up paper. I dig the attention and launch<br />
a counterattack. The teacher laughs. The same teacher laughed when Caryl Chessman got fried.<br />
Steve and I deconstructed Camelot. We conceded the predictable nature of fifty-year-olds looking<br />
back. We traced the known arc ofJ.B. lives and the mass reconstellation at Berkeley in the late '6o's. We<br />
tagged it as predictably emblematic and explored it as a cliché and an issue of enduring ideals. We<br />
questioned J.B. as a substantive endeavor or a freeze-frame from some ditzy teen flick. I categorized it as<br />
an auspicious L.A. lounge act.<br />
We opened strong. The curtain went down before we had to take it any further.<br />
Steve said, "Let's get some motherfuckers together."<br />
I said, "I'll fly out."<br />
The Pacific Dining Car defines my L.A. continuum.<br />
It's a swank steak house west of the downtown freeway loop. It's been there since 1921. It's open<br />
twenty-four hours, every day of the year. It's dark, cavelike, and lushly contained in the middle of a<br />
poverty zone. I was born in the hospital half a block south. I met my wife at the Dining Car and married<br />
her there.<br />
Steve found most of the people. A private eye found the rest. The RSVP list tallied in at 99%. One<br />
dinner turned into three.<br />
Steve and I attended them all. The Dining Car fed groups of thirteen, twelve, and nine. We convened at<br />
the same long table in the same dark room. I can't break down the specific guest lists. The whirl of<br />
laughter and reminiscence ran seamless over three nights.<br />
Camelot redux.<br />
There's Berko and Jaffe. There's Donna Weiss in a new pageboy. Howard Swancy--a preacher instead<br />
of a cop. Helen Katzoff, Lorraine Biller, Joanne Brossman--bright faces out of a big crowd thirty-six<br />
years back. Lizz Gill and Penny Hunt from Hancock Park. A big Kosher Kanyon kontingent that I knew<br />
by name and yearbook photo only. Josh Trabulus--a small boy, a tall man. More lawyers than an ABA<br />
convention. Jill Warner, in your face a la 1960. Steve Price with the same fucking grin. Tony Shultz in<br />
saddle shoes. Leslie Jacobson sans bouffant and the Peppermint Twist.<br />
We toasted the dead and the missing. Wallet photos went around. Nobody asked the childless people<br />
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why they didn't breed. We all agreed that J.B. was a blast. Anecdotes passed as insight into why. We<br />
decided to throw a mass reunion early next year and elected a steering committee.<br />
One person in ten remembered me. I recalled every name and face and could have picked half the<br />
people out of a thousand slot lineup. It told me how hungry and lonely I was then. It confirmed everything<br />
I'd come to believe about my cut-rate Camelot.<br />
We agreed that we were all observers. We all superimposed our shaky psyches against the boss bods<br />
we wanted and wished we had and came up way short. We punted then. We conformed or got raucous<br />
to cut the edge off the pain.<br />
Everyone came off prosperous and well cared for. We looked like a prophecy of affluence fulfilled. I<br />
didn't detect much smugness. The braggarts boasted too hard and vibed Naked more than middle-aged<br />
Dead. I picked out two functioning drunks. I judged as I laughed and observed. It didn't mar my<br />
enjoyment or subvert my affection one bit.<br />
I listened more than I talked. I table-hopped and found the people I carried around in my head. They<br />
told me their stories and filled in that big gap in time.<br />
Jay Jaffe played baseball at USC and went to the College World Series. He batted .306 and had a<br />
three-night tryout with the San Diego Padres. They expressed interest and never called him back. He<br />
went to law school and gravitated to the criminal defense field. He liked the combat and the mix of<br />
people in trouble. He liked to explore motive and mitigation. He'd handled some big cases. He won the<br />
celebrated "Burrito Murder Case." The LAPD tried to shaft an innocent Mexican kid. Jay got him off.<br />
He was still hungry. He loved his work the way he loved baseball.<br />
Lizz Gill wrote TV movies. She fell into it. People told her she was funny and urged her to get her shit<br />
down on paper. She had a bad run with booze and cleaned up in '75.<br />
She knew the Big Joke then. She still knew it. Other people sensed her gift and pointed her on her way.<br />
Berko Berkowitz went to Vietnam. He defecated in his pants quite a few times. He returned to the<br />
States and got strung out on booze and dope. He ran a string of businesses into the ground and cleaned<br />
up twelve years ago. He made a big wad in real estate and watched it grow. He works as a homeless<br />
advocate and digs on his wife and two kids.<br />
Jill Warner was a teacher up in Oakland. She had a daughter with her ex-husband. I told her I used to<br />
stalk her. She applauded my good taste and asked me if I defaced her house in 1963. I said, No. Jill<br />
laughed and got up in my face like she did atJ.B.<br />
Howard Swancy played all-city sports at L.A. High School. He tried to get on the LAPD and Sheriff's<br />
Department and flunked the screening process. He sold TV ad time for seventeen years and became a<br />
minister. He had a congregation in Carson.<br />
Howard looked hungry. He still had alpha dog eyes. He liked to run the show. The raw language at the<br />
table torqued him the wrong way.<br />
I spent some time with Donna Weiss. I described the Big Stakeout of 1961 and the unrequited crush<br />
that inspired it. Donna praised my stalking prowess. She never spotted me--a 6-foot, 13year-old boy-on<br />
a candy-apple bike.<br />
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I was invisible then. The world was out to ignore me.<br />
Donna spent time in Spain and studied at the University of Madrid. She learned the language and came<br />
back to L.A. She taught in the city school system and spent three years down in South Central. Some<br />
Chicano kids were stranded in an all-black school with no English language skills. Donna got the little<br />
fuckers fluent.<br />
She quit teaching and went into real estate. She's been at it twenty years. Her husband's a voice coach<br />
and the locally lauded "Cantor to the Stars."<br />
My crush burned out thirty-seven years ago. Donna's presence did not resurrect it. I was irrevocably in<br />
love with my wife.<br />
Tony Shultz starred in the first New York stage run of Grease. He worked as an actor for twenty-plus<br />
years and burned out behind the inherent frustrations. He sold real estate now. His turf bordered<br />
Donna's.<br />
Leslie Jacobson went to Berkeley and lived two blocks down from Tony. She became an antiwar<br />
activist and street agitator. She got a teaching credential.<br />
She married Husband #1. She entered the mental-health field. A colleague got raped. Leslie viewed the<br />
brutal aftermath and took it as a signal. She studied rape and post-rape trauma. She ran a rape crisis<br />
hotline and an innovative antirape program. She went out on rape calls with the Huntington Park PD and<br />
trained cops in rape awareness. She ditched Husband #1 and married Husband #2. He was a doctor.<br />
Leslie became a psychotherapist. She built up a practice. She studied breast cancer and its ramifications<br />
and counseled afflicted women. She and her husband collaborate and stage breast-cancer seminars.<br />
I listened to my old classmates. I felt the restrained warmth that you feel for decent people you shared a<br />
past with and don't really know. I observed thirty-four individuals over three nights. I detected one<br />
significant difference between them and me.<br />
They came to reconnect with specific people and dig on a collective nostalgia. I came to honor them and<br />
acknowledge their part in my debt.<br />
The debt was large. J.B. was my first testing ground. I learned to compete there. I nurtured a perverse<br />
self-sufficiency. My warped little world meshed with the real world--for "one brief shining moment."<br />
L.A. was hot and smoggy. I was wiped out behind all my time travel and the clash of old/new people. I<br />
took a ride with Tony Shultz.<br />
It felt like my seven-millionth hot L.A. day. Tony was digging it. He ran a riff on the NEW<br />
L.A.--immigrant cultures and wild cuisines and big rejuvenation.<br />
We drove down to Howard Swancy's church. We made the noon service ten minutes early. The joint<br />
was jumping jubilantly high.<br />
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A six-piece combo backed up the choir. Sixty loud voices praised God. They soared over loud<br />
air-conditioner blasts and woke me up like six cups of coffee.<br />
The church was SRO. Howard saved two pew slots near the altar. The congregation was 99.9 percent<br />
Black. The people were snazzily dressed and ran toward the plump side.<br />
I hit the Pause button on my life. Fast-Forward and Rewind clicked off. I got choked up behind a big<br />
blast of gratitude.<br />
The service commenced. I sang hymns for the first time since First Dutch Lutheran and shared smiles<br />
with Tony. I felt intractably Protestant and unassailably un-Christian. I grooved on John Osborne's<br />
Luther. He slayed the Papist beast because he was constipated and wanted to get laid.<br />
The collection plate went around. Tony and I fed the kitty. Howard hit the altar and introduced us. We<br />
stood up and waved to the people. They waved back.<br />
Howard launched into his sermon. He was main-room talent in a southside carpet joint.<br />
He strutted. He stalked. He banged the pulpit and shouted over a four-octave range. The crowd went<br />
nuts.<br />
He sustained a half-hour roar. He sweated up his vestments and blew out his lungs with the word on<br />
salvation.<br />
Go, Howard, go!<br />
It was a New Testament Greatest Hits medley. It was a deftly etched exposition of your alternatives:<br />
embrace Jesus or fry in Hell forever. It proclaimed the restrictive housing law in Heaven.<br />
I wouldn't want to buy a tract in that development. They wouldn't sell to pork dodgers or skeptics or<br />
that Moslem guy at my favorite falafel stand. They'd exclude the bulk oftheJ.B. class of 1962.<br />
Howard cranked it out. My mind wandered. I dipped thirty-six years back and thirty-six years into the<br />
future. I wondered how many bonds would rekindle and flourish in the wake of three effusive evenings. I<br />
thought about a survivors' bash in 2034. A collective senescence might color the proceedings and distort<br />
recollections for better or worse.<br />
Let's Twist again, like we did that summer.<br />
It's a teen dance party at the Mount Sinai Nursing Home. A boss combo rules the bandstand. It features<br />
all my old heartthrobs on skin-flute.<br />
Jack and Jackie appear. The kids go nuts.Jack nuked Castro just last week. He's on a flicking roll.<br />
Jack cuts a rug with Leslie Jacobson. He eyeballs Donna Weiss and Jill Warner. He can't commit to an<br />
image. He doesn't know whether to shit or go blind.<br />
Somebody slips LSD in the punch. The J.B. dead resurrect. Jackie goes down on the Great Berko.<br />
Howard cranked it out. I looked around the pews. I locked eyes with a tall black kid. He looked bored<br />
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and agitated.<br />
I winked. He smiled. The Apostolic Church of Peace turned into the Peppermint Lounge.<br />
I sent up a prayer for the kid. I wished him imagination and a stern will and lots of raucous laughs. I<br />
wished him a wild mix of people to breeze through and linger with over time.<br />
November 1998<br />
MY MOTHER'S KILLER<br />
I thought the pictures would wound me.<br />
I thought they would grant my old nightmare form.<br />
I thought I could touch the literal horror and somehow commute my life sentence.<br />
I was mistaken. The woman refused to grant me a reprieve. Her grounds were simple: My death gave<br />
you a voice, and I need you to recognize me past your exploitation of it.<br />
Her headstone reads GENEVA HILLIKER ELLROY, 19 15--1958. A cross denotes her Calvinist<br />
youth in a Wisconsin hick town. The file is marked "JEAN (HILLIKER) ELLROY, i87PC<br />
(UNSOLVED), DOD 6/22/58."<br />
I begged out of the funeral. I was io years old and sensed that I could manipulate adults to my<br />
advantage. I told no one that my tears were at best cosmetic and at worst an expression of hysterical<br />
relief. I told no one that I hated my mother at the time of her murder.<br />
She died at 43. I'm 46 now. I flew out to Los Angeles to view the file because I resemble her more<br />
every day.<br />
The L.A. County Sheriff handled the case. I set up file logistics with Sergeant Bill Stoner and Sergeant<br />
Bill McComas of the Unsolved Unit. Their divisional mandate is to periodically review open files with an<br />
eye toward solving the crimes outright or assessing the original investigating officers' failure to do so.<br />
Both men were gracious. Both stressed that unsolved homicides tend to remain<br />
unsolved--thirty-six-year-old riddles deepen with the passage of time and blurring of consciousness. I<br />
told them I had no expectations of discovering a solution. I only wanted to touch the accumulated details<br />
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and see where they took me.<br />
Stoner said the photographs were grisly. I told him I could handle it.<br />
The flight out was a blur. I ignored the meal service and the book I had brought to kill time with.<br />
Reminiscence consumed five hours--a whirl of memory and extrapolatable data.<br />
My mother said she saw the Feds gun down John Dillinger. She was 19 and a nursing-school student<br />
fresh off the farm. My father said he had an affair with Rita Hayworth.<br />
They loved to tell stories. They rarely let the truth impinge on a good anecdote. Their one child grew up<br />
to write horrible crime tales.<br />
They met in '39 and divorced in '54. Their "irreconcilable differences" amounted to a love of the flesh.<br />
She majored in booze and minored in men. He guzzled Alka-Seltzer for his ulcer and chased women with<br />
an equal lack of discernment.<br />
I found my mother in bed with strange men. My father hid his liaisons from me. I loved him more from<br />
the gate.<br />
She had red hair. She drank Early Times bourbon and got mawkish or hellaciously pissed off. She sent<br />
me to church and stayed home to nurse Saturday-night hangovers.<br />
The divorce settlement stipulated split custody: weekdays with my mother, three weekends a month with<br />
my father. He rented a cheap pad close to my weekday home. Sometimes he'd stand across the street<br />
and hold down surveillance.<br />
At night, I'd douse the living-room lights and look out the window. That red glowing cigarette tip? Proof<br />
that he loved me.<br />
In 1956, my mother moved us from West Hollywood to Santa Monica. I enrolled in a cut-rate private<br />
school called Children's paradise. The place was a dump site for disturbed kids of divorce. My<br />
confinement stretched from 7:30 A.M. to 5 P.M. A giant dirt playground and a swimming pool faced<br />
Wilshire Boulevard. Every kid was guaranteed passing grades and a poolside tan. A flurry of single<br />
moms hit the gate at 5:10. I developed a yen for women in their late thirties.<br />
My mother worked as a nurse at the Packard Bell electronics plant. She had a boyfriend named Hank, a<br />
fat lowlife missing one thumb. Once a week she'd take me to a drive-in double feature. She'd sip from a<br />
flask and let me gorge myself on hot dogs.<br />
I coveted the weekends with my father. No church, sleepover studs, or liquored-up mood swings. The<br />
man embraced the lazy life, half by design, half by the default of the weak.<br />
Early in 1958, my mother began assembling a big lie. This is not a revisionist memory--I recall detecting<br />
mendacity in the moment. She said we needed a change of scenery. She said I needed to live in a house,<br />
not an apartment. She said she knew about a place in El Monte, a San Gabriel Valley town twelve miles<br />
east of L.A. proper.<br />
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We drove out there. El Monte was a downscale suburb populated by white shitkickers and pachucos<br />
with duck's-ass haircuts.<br />
Most streets were unpaved. Most people parked on their lawns. Our prospective house: a redwood job<br />
surrounded by half-dead banana trees.<br />
I said I didn't like El Monte. My mother told me to give it time. We hauled our belongings out early in<br />
February.<br />
I traded up academically: Children's Paradise to Anne Le Gore Elementary School. The move baffled<br />
and infuriated my father. Why would a (tenuously) middle-class white woman with a good job thirty-odd<br />
miles away relocate to a town like El Monte? The rush-hour commute: at least ninety minutes each way.<br />
"I want my son to live in a house": pure nonsense. My father thought my mother was running. From a man<br />
or to a man. He said he was going to hire detectives to find out.<br />
I settled into El Monte. My mother upgraded the custody agreement: I could see my father all four<br />
weekends a month. He picked me up every Friday night. It took a cab ride and three bus transfers to get<br />
us to his pad, just south of Hollywood.<br />
I tried to enjoy El Monte. I smoked a reefer with a Mexican kid and ate myself sick on ice cream. My<br />
stint at Children's Paradise left me deficient in arithmetic. My teacher called my mother up to comment.<br />
They hit it off and went out on several dates.<br />
I turned 10. My mother told me I could choose who I wanted to live with. I told her I wanted to live<br />
with my father.<br />
She slapped me. I called her a drunk and a whore. She slapped me again and raged against my father's<br />
hold on me.<br />
I became a sounding board.<br />
My father called my mother a lush and a tramp. My mother called my father a weakling and a parasite.<br />
She threatened to slap injunctions on him and push him out of my life.<br />
School adjourned for summer vacation on Friday, June 20. My father whisked me off for a visit.<br />
That weekend is etched in hyper-focus. I remember seeing The Vikings at the Fox-Wilshire Theatre. I<br />
remember a spaghetti dinner at Yaconelli's Restaurant. I remember a TV fight card. I remember the bus<br />
ride back to El Monte as long and hot.<br />
My father put me in a cab at the depot and waited for a bus back to L.A. The cab dropped me at my<br />
house.<br />
I saw three black-and-white police cars. I saw my neighbor Mrs. Kryzcki on the sidewalk. I saw four<br />
plainclothes cops--and instinctively recognized them as such.<br />
Mrs. Kryzcki said, "That's the boy."<br />
A cop took me aside. "Son, your mother's been killed."<br />
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I didn't cry. A press photographer hustled me to Mr. Kryzcki's toolshed and posed me with an awl in<br />
my hand.<br />
My wife found a copy of that photograph last year. It's been published several times, in conjunction with<br />
my work. The second picture the man took has previously never seen print.<br />
I'm at the workbench, sawing at a piece of wood. I'm grimacing ear to ear, showing off for the cops and<br />
reporters.<br />
They most likely chalked my clowning up to shock. They couldn't know that that shock was instantly<br />
compromised.<br />
The police reconstructed the crime.<br />
My mother went out drinking Saturday night. She was seen at the Desert Inn bar in El Monte with a<br />
dark-haired white man and a blonde woman. My mother and the man left the bar around io P.M.<br />
A group of Little Leaguers discovered the body. My mother had been strangled at an unknown location<br />
and dumped into some bushes next to the athletic field at Arroyo High School, a mile and a half from the<br />
Desert Inn.<br />
She clawed her assailant's face bloody. The killer had pulled off one of her stockings and tied it loosely<br />
around her neck postmortem.<br />
I went to live with my father. I forced some tears out that Sunday--and none since.<br />
My flight landed early. L.A. looked surreal, and inimical to the myth town of my books.<br />
I checked in at the hotel and called Sergeant Stoner. We made plans to meet the following day. He gave<br />
me directions to the Homicide Bureau; earthquake tremors had ravaged the old facility and necessitated a<br />
move.<br />
Sergeant McComas wouldn't be there. He was recuperating from open-heart surgery, a classic<br />
police-work by-product.<br />
I told Stoner I'd pop for lunch. He warned me that the file might kill my appetite.<br />
I ate a big room-service dinner. Dusk hit--I looked out my window and imagined it was<br />
1950-something.<br />
I set my novel Clandestine in 1951. It's a chronologically altered, heavily fictionalized account of my<br />
mother's murder. The story details a young cop's obsession: linking the death of a woman he had a<br />
one-night stand with to the killing of a redheaded nurse in El Monte. The supporting cast includes a<br />
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9-year-Old boy very much like I was at that age.<br />
I gave the killer my father's superficial attributes and juxtaposed them against a psychopathic bent. I have<br />
never understood my motive for doing this.<br />
I called the dead nurse Marcella De Vries. She hailed from my mother's hometown: Tunnel City,<br />
Wisconsin.<br />
I did not research that book. Fear kept me from haunting archives and historical sites. I wanted to<br />
contain what I knew and felt about my mother. I wanted to acknowledge my blood debt and prove my<br />
imperviousness to her power by portraying her with coldhearted lucidity.<br />
Several years later, I wrote The Black Dahlia. The title character was a murder victim as celebrated as<br />
Jean <strong>Ellroy</strong> was ignored. She died the year before my birth, and I understood the symbiotic cohesion the<br />
moment I first heard of her.<br />
The Black Dahlia was a young woman named Elizabeth Short. She came west with fatuous hopes of<br />
becoming a movie star. She was undisciplined, immature, and promiscuous. She drank to excess and told<br />
whopping lies.<br />
Someone picked her up and tortured her for two days. Her death was as hellishly protracted as my<br />
mother's was gasping and quick. The killer cut her in half and deposited her in a vacant lot twenty miles<br />
west of Arroyo High School.<br />
The killing is still unsolved. The Black Dahlia case remains a media cause célèbre.<br />
I read about it in 1959. It hit me with unmitigated force. The horror rendered my mother's death both<br />
more outré and more prosaic. I seized on Elizabeth Short and hoarded the details of her life. Every bit of<br />
minutiae was mortar with which to build walls to block out Geneva Hilliker <strong>Ellroy</strong>.<br />
This stratagem ruled my unconscious. The suppression exacted a price: years of nightmares and fear of<br />
the dark. Writing the book was only mildly cathartic; transmogrifying Jean to Betty left one woman still<br />
unrecognized.<br />
And exploited by a master self-promoter with a tight grip on pop-psych show-and-tell. -<br />
I wanted her to fight back. I wanted her to rule my nightmares in plain view.<br />
The Homicide Bureau was temporarily housed in an East L.A. office complex. The squad room was<br />
spanking clean and copantithetical.<br />
Sergeant Stoner met me. He was tall and thin, with big eyes and a walrus mustache. His suit was a notch<br />
more upscale than his colleagues'.<br />
We had a cup of coffee. Stoner discussed his most celebrated assignment, the Cotton Club murder<br />
case.<br />
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The man impressed me. His perceptions were astute and devoid of commonly held police ideology. He<br />
listened, carefully phrased his responses, and drew information out of me with smiles and throwaway<br />
gestures. He made me want to tell him things.<br />
I caught his intelligence full-on. He knew I caught it.<br />
Talk flowed nicely. One cup of coffee became three. The file rested on Stoner's desk--a small accordion<br />
folder secured by rubber bands.<br />
I knew I was stalling. I knew I was postponing my first look at the pictures.<br />
Stoner read my mind. He said he'd pull the worst of the shots if I wanted him to.<br />
I said no.<br />
The file was a mishmash: envelopes, Teletype slips, handwritten notes and two copies of the Detective<br />
Division Blue Book, an accumulation of reports and verbatim interviews. My first impression: This was<br />
the chaos of Jean <strong>Ellroy</strong>'s life.<br />
I put the photograph envelope aside. Penal-code numbers and birth dates jumped off the Teletypes.<br />
The DOBs ran from 1912 to 1919. The codes designated arrests for aggravated assault and rape.<br />
My mother left the bar with a "fortyish" man. The Teletypes deciphered: requests for information on men<br />
with sex-crime priors.<br />
I read some odd notes. Minutiae grabbed me.<br />
The Desert Inn bar: 11721 East Valley Boulevard. My mother's '57 Buick: license KFE 778. Our old<br />
house: 756 Maple Avenue.<br />
I read the names on the front of the Blue Book. The investigating officers: sergeants John Lawton and<br />
Ward Hallinen.<br />
The squad room lapsed into slow motion. I heard Stoner telling people that Bill McComas had aced his<br />
surgery. I spotted two full-size sheets of stationery with memo slips attached.<br />
Early in 1970, two women wrote Homicide and informed "To Whom It May Concern" that they<br />
believed their respective exhusbands murdered Geneva Hilliker <strong>Ellroy</strong>. Woman Number One stated that<br />
her ex worked at Packard Bell and had had affairs with my mother and two other women there. The man<br />
"behaved in a suspicious fashion" in the weeks following the killing and hit her when she pressed him<br />
about his whereabouts on the night of June 2 1. Woman Number Two said that her ex-husband harbored<br />
a "long-standing grudge" against Jean Eliroy. My mother refused to process a workers' compensation<br />
claim that the man had proffered, and his resentment sent him "off the deep end."<br />
Woman Number Two included a postscript: Her ex-husband torched a furniture warehouse in 1968 to<br />
avenge a dinette-set repossession.<br />
Both letters read vindictively sincere. Both were respectful of police authority. Memorandums indicated<br />
that the leads were checked out.<br />
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One detective interviewed both ex-husbands. He concluded that the allegations were groundless and<br />
that the women did not know each other and thus could not have colluded.<br />
A relatively obscure homicide. Two disturbingly similar accusations--unrelated accusations--eleven and<br />
a half years after the crime.<br />
I examined the Blue Book. The reports and interview transcripts lacked a continuous narrative line. I<br />
scanned a few pages and realized that my basic knowledge of the case was sufficient to make odd bits of<br />
data cohere.<br />
The crime-scene report was logged in mid-book. The first El Monte cop to respond reported that "the<br />
victim was lying on her back at the side of the road. There was dry blood on her lips and nose. The<br />
lower part of the victim's body was covered with a woman's coat. The victim was wearing a<br />
multi-colored (blue and black) dress. A brassiere appeared to be around the victim's neck."<br />
Further examination reveals:<br />
The brassiere is really a stocking.<br />
A necklace strand rests under the body.<br />
Forty-seven individual pearls are scattered nearby.<br />
The coroner arrives. He views the body and points out bruises on the neck. He thinks the woman was<br />
strangled with a windowsash cord or clothesline. Drag marks on the woman's hips indicate that she was<br />
killed elsewhere and brought to this location.<br />
The investigation commenced. My memory filled in Blue Book continuity gaps.<br />
No identification was found on the body. The El Monte Police Department called in the Los Angeles<br />
County Sheriff's Detective Bureau.<br />
Radio bulletins went out. The dead woman's description was flashed Valley-wide.<br />
Our neighbor Mrs. Kryzcki responded. She was brought to the county morgue and identified the body.<br />
She said Jean <strong>Ellroy</strong> was a fine lady, who did not drink or date men.<br />
My mother's car was discovered parked behind the Desert Inn. Bar employees were detained at El<br />
Monte police headquarters.<br />
They identified my mother from a snapshot that Mrs. Kryzcki provided. Yes, the woman came in last<br />
night. She arrived alone about eight o'clock and later joined a man and a woman. Said man and woman<br />
were not regular patrons. None of the staff had ever seen them before.<br />
The man was a swarthy Caucasian or a Mexican. He was about 40 years old, thin, between five feet<br />
nine and six feet tall. The woman was white, blonde, and in her late twenties. She wore her hair tied back<br />
in a ponytail.<br />
No one heard them exchange names. A waitress recalled that a regular named Michael Whitaker had<br />
several drinks with the dead woman and two unknowns.<br />
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A waitress supplied more names: every known patron in the bar Saturday night. Sergeants Hallinen and<br />
Lawton checked the El Monte PD arrest docket and learned that Michael Whitaker was picked up for<br />
plain drunk at 4 A.M.<br />
The man, 24, was spotted on foot near Stan's Drive-In. He sobered up in the El Monte drunk tank and<br />
was released at 9 A.M.<br />
The known patrons were brought in and questioned. Several remembered seeing my mother with the<br />
Swarthy Man and the Blonde. None of them had ever seen my mother before. None of them had ever<br />
seen the Swarthy Man or the Blonde.<br />
Michael Whitaker was brought in. Hallinen and Lawton questioned him. A police stenographer recorded<br />
the interrogation.<br />
Whitaker's memory was booze-addled. He couldn't recall the name of the woman he was currently<br />
shacked up with. He said he danced with my mother and hit her up for a Sunday-night date. She<br />
declined, because her son was coming back from a weekend with his father.<br />
Whitaker said the Swarthy Man told him his name. He couldn't remember it.<br />
He said my 43-year-old mother looked "about 22." He said he got "pretty high" and fell off his chair<br />
once.<br />
He said he saw the Swarthy Man and my mother leave together at about 10 P.M.<br />
The Swarthy Man told Whitaker his name. This supported my long-held instinct that the murder was not<br />
premeditated.<br />
A waitress confirmed Whitaker's account. Yes, Michael fell off his chair. Yes, the redhead left with the<br />
Swarthy Man.<br />
Hallinen and Lawton retained a sketch artist. Desert Inn patrons and employees described the Swarthy<br />
Man. The artist drew up a likeness.<br />
The drawing was circulated to newspapers and every police agency in Los Angeles County. The Desert<br />
Inn crew examined thousands of mug shots and failed to identify the Swarthy Man.<br />
Officers canvassed the area around Arroyo High School. No one had noticed suspicious activity late<br />
Saturday night or Sunday morning. Hallinen and Lawton interrogated a score of local cranks, perverts,<br />
and career misogynists.<br />
No leads accumulated. No hard suspects emerged.<br />
On Wednesday, June 25, a witness came forth--a Stan's DriveIn carhop named Lavonne Chambers.<br />
Hallinen and Lawton interviewed her. Her testimony--recorded verbatim--was precise, articulate, and<br />
perceptive. Everything she said was new to me. Her statement radically altered my take on the crime.<br />
She served the Swarthy Man and my mother--on two different occasions--late Saturday night and early<br />
Sunday morning. She described my mother's dress and mock-pearl ring. She described the Swarthy<br />
Man's car: a '55 or '56 dark-green Olds. She said the sketch was accurate and ID'd the man as white,<br />
not Latin.<br />
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They arrived at 10:20, shortly after their Desert Inn departure. They "talked vivaciously" and "seemed to<br />
have been drinking." The man had coffee. My mother had a grilled cheese sandwich. They ate in the car<br />
and left a half hour later.<br />
Miss Chambers worked late that night. My mother and the Swarthy Man returned at 2<br />
He ordered coffee. He seemed "quiet and sullen." My Inother was "quite high and chatting gaily." The<br />
man "acted bored with her."<br />
Miss Chambers said my mother looked "slightly disheveled." The top of her dress was unbuttoned, and<br />
one breast was spilling out.<br />
Sergeant Hallinen: "Do you think they might have had a petting party?"<br />
Miss Chambers: "Maybe."<br />
They left at 2:45. Jean <strong>Ellroy</strong>'s body was discovered eight hours later.<br />
I turned to the autopsy report. The coroner noted signs of recent intercourse. My mother's lungs were<br />
severely congested, presumably from years of heavy smoking.<br />
She died of ligature asphyxiation. She sustained several blows to the head. Her fingernails were caked<br />
with blood, skin, and beard fragments.<br />
She fought back.<br />
I opened the photo envelope. The first stack of pictures: detained and exonerated suspects.<br />
Cruel-looking men. Rough trade. White trash with a vengeance. Hard eyes, tattoos, psychopathic<br />
rectitude.<br />
I recognized Harvey Glatman, a sex killer executed in 1959. A note said he passed a polygraph test.<br />
The second stack: miscellaneous photos and wide-angles of the crime scene.<br />
My father, circa 1946. A notation on the back: "Vict's exhusband." A faded snapshot: my mother in her<br />
teens. The man beside her? Probably my German-immigrant grandfather.<br />
Arroyo High School, 6/22/58. Santa Anita Road and King's Road--a football field with jerry-built<br />
goalposts. Those righthand-corner X marks: the curbside bushes where they found her. The topography<br />
lacked perspective. Every detail hit my eyes as too small, and unequal to the central myth of my life.<br />
I looked at the pictures of my dead mother. I saw the stocking around her neck and the insect bites on<br />
her breasts.<br />
Lividity had thickened her features. She did not look like anyone I had ever known.<br />
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I knew it wasn't over. I knew my hours with the file constituted an ambiguous new start.<br />
I left the squad room and drove to El Monte. The years then to now had been cruel.<br />
I clenched up. It felt like something had to hit me at any second. I kept expecting a migraine or a bad<br />
case of the shakes.<br />
New prefab houses had aged and split at the joints. Smog obscured the San Gabriel peaks.<br />
The Desert Inn was gone. A taco hut replaced it. The El Monte PD building had been razed and rebuilt.<br />
Anne Le Gore School remained intact. Gang graffiti on the walls provided an update.<br />
Stan's Drive-In was gone. My old house had been face-lifted past recognition.<br />
Arroyo High School needed a paint job. The playing field needed a trim. Weeds grew thick all around<br />
the X-marked spot.<br />
The town had compressed. Its old secrets had subsided into the memories of strangers.<br />
Stoner told me Sergeant Lawton was dead. Sergeant Ward Hallinen: 82 years old and living outside San<br />
Diego.<br />
I called him and explained who I was. He apologized for his failing memory and said he couldn't recall<br />
the case. I thanked him for his efforts thirty-six years ago. I remembered a cop who gave me a candy<br />
bar, and wondered if it was him.<br />
It wasn't over. The resolution felt incomplete.<br />
I canceled a dinner date and willed myself to sleep. I woke up at 3 A.M.--unclenched and sick with it.<br />
Conscious thoughts wouldn't process. I went down to the hotel gym and slammed weights until it hurt.<br />
Steam and a shower helped. I went back to my room and let it hammer me.<br />
New facts contradicted old assumptions. I had always thought my mother was killed because she<br />
wouldn't have sex with a man. It was a child's coda to horror: A woman dies fending off violation.<br />
My mother made love with her killer. A witness viewed postcoital moments.<br />
They left the drive-in. He wanted to ditch this desperate woman he fucked and get on with his life. The<br />
combustion occurred because she wanted more.<br />
More liquor. More distance from the Dutch Reformed Church. More self-abasing honky-tonk thrills.<br />
More love i6,ooo times removed in desiccation.<br />
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I inherited those urges from my mother. Gender bias favored me: Men can indiscriminately fuck women<br />
with far greater sanction than women can indiscriminately fuck men. I drank, used drugs, and whored<br />
with the bravado of the winked-at and condoned. Luck and a coward's circumspection kept me short of<br />
the abyss.<br />
Her pain was greater than mine. It defines the gulf between us. Her death taught me to look inward and<br />
hold myself separate. That gift of knowledge saved my life.<br />
It wasn't over. My investigation will continue.<br />
I took a new gift away from El Monte. I feel proud that I carry her features.<br />
Geneva Hilliker <strong>Ellroy</strong>: 1915--1958.<br />
My debt grows. Your final terror is the flame I touch my hand to.<br />
I will not diminish your power by saying I love you.<br />
August 1994<br />
OUT OF THE PAST<br />
Half-buried memories speak to me. Their origin remains fixed: L.A., my hometown, in the 'sos. Most are<br />
just brief synaptic blips, soon mentally discarded. A few transmogrify into fiction: I sense their dramatic<br />
potential and exploit it in my novels, memory to moonshine in a hot second.<br />
Memory: a symbiotic melding of then and now. For me, the spark-point of harrowing curiosities.<br />
A man gyrating with an accordion--pumping his "stomach Steinway" for all it's worth.<br />
My father pointing to the TV. "That guy's no good. He's a draft dodger."<br />
The accordion man in a grade-Z movie, clinching with the blonde from the Mark C. Bloome tire ads.<br />
The accordion man is named Dick Contino.<br />
"Draft dodger" is a bum rap--he served honorably during the Korean War.<br />
The grade-Z flick is Daddy-O--a music/hot-rod/romance stinkeroo.<br />
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Memory: the juxtaposition of large events and snappy minutiae.<br />
In June 1958, my mother was murdered; the killing went unsolved. I saw Dick Contino belt "Bumble<br />
Boogie" on TV noted my father's opinion of him, and caught Daddy-O at the Admiral Theater a year or<br />
so later. Synapses snapped: A memory was formed and placed in context. Its historical perspective<br />
loomed dark: Women were strangled and spent eternity unavenged.<br />
I was 10 and 11 years old then; literary instincts simmered inchoately in me. My curiosities centered on<br />
crime: I wanted to know the WHY? behind hellish events. As time passed, contemporaneous<br />
malfeasance left me bored--the sanguinary '6os and '70s passed in a blur of hectic self-destruction.<br />
I drank, used drugs, and did a slew of ten-, twenty-, and thirtyday county-jail stints for preposterous and<br />
pathetic misdemeanors. I shoplifted, broke into houses, and sniffed women's undergarments. I jimmied<br />
hinges off Laundromat washers and stole the coins inside. I holed up in cheap pads and read hundreds of<br />
crime novels. My life was chaos, but my intellectual focus never wavered: L.A. in the<br />
'50s/corruption/crime. A '50s sound track accompanied my musings: golden oldies, Dick Contino on the<br />
accordion.<br />
In 1977, I got sober and segued into hyper-focus: writing crime novels. Dick Contino back-burner brain<br />
boogied as I attempted to replicate Los Angeles in the 1950s.<br />
In 1980, I wrote Clandestine--a thinly disguised, chronologically altered account of my mother's murder.<br />
The novel is set in 1951; the hero is a draft dodger whose life is derailed by the Red Scare.<br />
In 1987, I wrote The Big Nowhere. Set in 1950, the book details an anticommunist pogrom leveled at<br />
the entertainment biz.<br />
In 1990, I wrote White Jazz. A major subplot features a grade-Z movie being filmed in the same Griffith<br />
Park locales as Daddy-O.<br />
Jung wrote: "What is not brought to consciousness comes to us as fate."<br />
I should have seen Dick Contino coming a long time ago.<br />
I didn't. Fate intervened, via photograph and black-and-white videocassette.<br />
A friend sent me the photo. Dig: It's me, age 10, on June 22, 1958. An L.A. Times photographer<br />
snapped the pic five minutes after a police detective told me my mother had been murdered. I'm in<br />
minor-league shock: My eyes are wide, but my gaze is blank. My fly is at half-mast; my hands look<br />
shaky. The day was hot: The melting Brylcreem in my hair picks up flashbulb light.<br />
The photo held me transfixed; its force transcended my many attempts to exploit my past for book sales.<br />
An underlying truth zapped me: My bereavement, even in that moment, was ambiguous. I'm already<br />
calculating potential advantages, regrouping as the officious men surrounding me defer to the perceived<br />
grief of a little boy.<br />
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I had the photograph framed and spent a good deal of time staring at it. Spark-point: late-'50s memories<br />
reignited. I saw Daddy-O listed in a video catalogue and ordered it. It arrived a week later; I popped it<br />
in the VCR.<br />
Fuel-injected zooom. . .<br />
The story revolves around truckdriver/drag racer/singer Phil "Daddy-O" Sandifer's attempts to solve the<br />
murder of his best friend while laboring under the weight of a suspended driver's license. Phil's pals Peg<br />
and Duke want to help, but they're ineffectual--addled by too many late nights at the Rainbow Gardens,<br />
a post-teenage doo-wop spot where Phil croons gratis on request. No matter: Daddy-O meets slinky<br />
Jana Ryan, a rich girl with a valid driver's license and a '57 T-Bird ragtop. Mutual resentment segues into<br />
a sex vibe; Phil and Jana team up and infiltrate a nightclub owned by sinister fat man Sidney Chillas.<br />
Singer Daddy-O, cigarette girl Jana; a comely and unstoppable duo. They quickly surmise that Chillas is<br />
pushing Big H, entrap him, and nail the endomorph for the murder of Phil's best friend. A hot-rod finale; a<br />
burning question left unanswered: Will Daddy-O's derring-do get him back his driver's license?<br />
Who knows?<br />
Who cares?<br />
It took me three viewings to get the plot down, anyway. Because Dick Contino held me spellbound.<br />
Because I knew-- instinctively--that he held important answers. Because I knew that he hovered<br />
elliptically in my L.A.-in-the-'5os novels, a phantom waiting to speak.<br />
Contino onscreen: a handsome Italian guy, late twenties, big biceps from weights or making love to his<br />
accordion. Dreamboat attributes: shiny teeth; dark, curly hair; engaging smile. He looks good, and he can<br />
sing; he's straining on "Rock Candy Baby"--the lyrics suck, and you can tell this up-tempo rebop isn't his<br />
style-- but he croons the wah-wah ballad "Angel Act" achingly, full of baritone tremolos, quintessentially<br />
the pussy-whipped loser in lust with the "noir" goddess who's out to trash his life.<br />
The man oozes charisma.<br />
He's the flip side, subtext and missing link between my conscious and unconscious fixations.<br />
I decided to find Dick Contino.<br />
I located a half-dozen of his albums and listened to them, reveling in pure Entertainment.<br />
"Live at the Fabulous Flamingo," "Squeeze Me," "Something for the Girls"--standards arranged to<br />
spotlight accordion virtuosity. Main-theme bombardments; sentiment so pure and timeless that it could<br />
sound-track every moment of transcendent schmaltz that Hollywood has ever produced. Dick Contino,<br />
showstopper on wax: tapping two keyboards, improvising cadenzas, shaking thunderstorms from bellows<br />
compression. Going from whisper to sigh to roar and back again in the length of time it takes to think: Tell<br />
me what this man's life means and how it connects to my life. I called my researcher friend Alan Marks.<br />
He caught my pitch on the first bounce. "The accordion guy? I think he used to play Vegas."<br />
"Find out everything you can about him. Find out if he's still alive, and if he is, locate him."<br />
"What's this about?"<br />
"Narrative detail."<br />
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I should have said containable narrative detail--because I wanted Dick Contino to be a<br />
pad-prowling/car-crashing/moonhowling/womanizing quasi-psychopath akin to the heroes of my books. I<br />
should have said, "Bring me information that I can control and exploit." I should have said, "Bring me a<br />
life that can be compartmentalized into the pitch-dark vision of my first ten novels."<br />
"What is not brought to consciousness comes to us as fate."<br />
I should have seen the real Dick Contino coming.<br />
Richard Joseph Contino was born in Fresno, California, on January 17, 1930. His father was a Sicilian<br />
immigrant who owned a successful butcher shop; his mother was first-generation Italian American. Dick<br />
had two younger brothers and a sister; a maternal uncle, Ralph Giordano, a.k.a. Young Corbett, was a<br />
former professional welterweight fighter.<br />
The family was tight-knit, Catholic. Dick grew up shy, beset by wicked bad fears: the kind you<br />
recognize as irrational even as they rip you up.<br />
Athletics and music allowed him to front a fearless persona. High-school fullback, five years of<br />
accordion study--good with the pigskin, superb with the squeeze box. Dick Contino, age i ready for a<br />
hot date with history; a strapping six-foot gavonne with his fears held in check by a smile.<br />
Horace Heidt was passing through Fresno looking for amateur talent. His Youth Opportunity radio<br />
program was about to debut-- yet another studio-audience/applause-meter show, three contestants<br />
competing for weekly prize money and the chance to sing, play, dance, or clown their way through to the<br />
grand finals, a five-thou payoff and a dubious shot at fame. One of Heidt's flunkies had heard about Dick<br />
and had arranged an audition; Dick wowed him with a<br />
keyboard-zipping/bellows-shaking/mikestand--bumping medley. The flunky told Horace Heidt: "You've<br />
got to see this kid. I know the accordion's from Squaresville, but you've got to see this kid."<br />
December 7, 1947: Horace Heidt slotted Dick Contino on his first radio contest. Dick played "Lady of<br />
Spain," "Tico-Tico," and "Bumble Boogie" and burned the house down. He won $250; horny<br />
bobby-soxers swarmed him backstage. Horace Heidt hit first-strike pay dirt.<br />
Dick Contino continued to win: week after week, traveling with the Heidt show, defeating singers,<br />
dancers, trombone players, comics, and a blind vibraphonist. He won straight through to the grand finals<br />
in December '48; he became a national celebrity while still technically an amateur contestant.<br />
He now had 500 fan clubs nationwide--and averaged 5,000 fan letters a week.<br />
Teenage girls thronged his appearances, chanting "Dick-kie Cont-ino, we love you" to the tune of "Lady<br />
of Spain."<br />
Horace Heidt said years later, "You should have seen Dick play. If my show had been on television,<br />
Dick Contino would have been bigger than Elvis Presley."<br />
A Heidt tour followed the grand-finals victory. Other performers appeared with Contino--crypto lounge<br />
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acts backstopping the newly anointed "Mr. Accordion." Heidt had his cash cow yoked to a punk<br />
twenty-five-grand-a-year, seven-year contract; Dick sued him and cut himself loose. Mr. Accordion<br />
flying high: record contracts, screen tests, top-liner status at the BIG ROOMS-- Ciro's and the<br />
Mocambo in L.A.; the El Rancho Vegas; the Chez Paree in Chicago. Dick Contino, age 19, 20, 21:<br />
soaking up the spoils of momentum, making the Squaresville accordion hip, unaware that public love is<br />
ephemeral. Too callow to know that idols who admit their fear will fall.<br />
Nineteen fifty-one: the Korean War heating up. Dick Contino goes from "Valentino of the Accordion" to<br />
draft bait. A selectiveservice notice arrives; he begs off his army induction, citing minor physical maladies.<br />
He's scared, but not of losing his BIG-ROOM status, big paydays, and big poontang potential.<br />
He's scared of all the baaad juju that could happen to you, might happen to you, will happen to you--shit<br />
like blindness, cancer, passing out onstage, your dog getting dognapped by vivisectionists. The army<br />
looms--claustrophobia coming on like a steam-heated shroud. Fear--BIG-ROOM fear--crazy stuff,<br />
bigtime diffuse. Crazy stuff he might have outgrown if he hadn't been too busy on the Heartthrob Tour,<br />
jump-starting adolescent libidos.<br />
Fear owned him now.<br />
Three army psychiatrists examined him at the induction center and declared him psychologically unfit.<br />
The assessment letter was "lost"; Richard Contino was processed in anyway.<br />
April 195 i--Fort Ord, California. Dick's fear becomes panic-- he bolts the reception-station barracks<br />
and catches a bus to San Francisco. Now AWOL and a federal fugitive, he trains down to his parents'<br />
new house outside L.A. He confers with friends and a lawyer, gets up some guts, and turns himself in to<br />
the Feds.<br />
The incident got front-page publicity. The papers harped on the BIG-ROOM pay Dick Contino would<br />
be giving up if forced to serve as an army private. Dick's response: Then take away my accordion for five<br />
years.<br />
The Feds didn't buy it. Dick Contino went to trial for desertion; he fought his case with psychiatric<br />
testimony. Fear on trial, fear convicted--the judge hit Dick Contino with a $10,000 fine and six months in<br />
the federal joint at McNeil Island, Washington.<br />
He did five months of the sentence, shaving four weeks off for good behavior. It could have been worse:<br />
He hauled pipes, did gardening work, and put on a prisoners' Christmas show. Inside, the big fears<br />
seemed to subside: The business of day-to-day survival kiboshed that part of his imagination where terror<br />
flourished. Five months in, out, the ironic kicker: He got drafted and sent to Korea.<br />
Where he served with distinction. Korea proved to be a mixed psychological bag: Dick's draft-trial<br />
notoriety won him friends, enemies, and a shitload of invitations to play the accordion. Duty with a<br />
Seoul-attached outfit, back to the States early in '54. Richard Contino: honorably discharged as a staff<br />
sergeant; while overseas, the recipient of an unsolicited presidential pardon signed by Harry S Truman.<br />
Dick Contino: back in the U.S.A.<br />
Back to derailed career momentum, a long transit of day-to-day survival behind him.<br />
The BIG-ROOM gigs were kaput. Momentum is at least 50 percent hype: It requires nurturing and<br />
frequent infusions of bullshit. Dick Contino couldn't play the game from McNeil Island and Korea. A<br />
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bum-publicity taint stuck to him: "coward" and "draft dodger" throbbing in Red Scare neon.<br />
He worked smaller rooms and ignored catcalls; he cut records and learned to sing. A few journalists<br />
befriended him, but the basic show-biz take on Dick Contino was This guy is poison. Justifying yourself<br />
to the public gets old quick--"coward" may be the toughest American bullet to dodge.<br />
Dick Contino learned to sing, but rock and roll cut him off at the pass. He learned to act, top-lined a few<br />
B-films, and faded in the wake of heartthrobs with underailed momentum. In 1 956, he married actress<br />
Leigh Snowden, had three kids with her, and settled down in Las Vegas--close to his hotel-lounge bread<br />
and butter. He continued to get small-room gigs and played Italian festas in Chicago, Milwaukee, Philly,<br />
and other paisano-packed venues.<br />
Leigh Snowden Contino died of cancer in 1982. The Contino kids would now be 35, 32, and 30.<br />
My researcher's notes tapped out in '89. He said an obituary check turned up negative--he was certain<br />
that Dick Contino was still alive. A week later, I got confirmation. "I found him. He's still living in Las<br />
Vegas, and he says he'll talk to you."<br />
Before making contact, I charted the arc of two lives. A specific design was becoming clear--I wanted<br />
to write a novella featuring Dick Contino and the filming of Daddy-O, but a symbiotic pull was blunting<br />
my urge to get down to, business, extract information, and get out. I felt a recognition of my own fears<br />
binding me to this man: fear of failure, specific in nature and surmountable through hard work, and the<br />
very large fear that induces claustrophobic suffocation and causes golden young men to run from army<br />
barracks--the terror that anything might happen, could happen, will happen.<br />
A merging in fear; a divergence in action.<br />
I joined the army just as the Vietnam War started to percolate. My father was dying; I didn't want to<br />
stick around and watch. The army terrified me--I calculated plausible means of escape. <strong>James</strong> ElIroy,<br />
age i 7, fledgling dramatist: pulling off a frantic stuttering act designed to spotlight his unsuitability for<br />
military service.<br />
It was a bravura performance. It got me a quick discharge and a return trip to L.A. and my passions:<br />
booze, dope, pantie-sniffing.<br />
Nobody ever called me a coward or a draft dodger--the Vietnam War was reviled from close to the<br />
get-go, and extricating yourself from its clutches was held as laudable.<br />
I calculated my way out--and of course my fears remained unacknowledged. And I wasn't a golden<br />
young man sky-high on momentum and ripe for a public hanging.<br />
I've led a colorful and media-exploitable life; my take on it has been picaresque--a stratagem that keeps<br />
my search for deeper meaning channeled solely into my books, which keeps my momentum building,<br />
which keeps my wolves of nothingness locked out of sight. Dick Contino didn't use my methods: He was<br />
a man of music, not of words, and he embraced his fears from the start. And he continued: The<br />
musicianship on his post-army beef albums dwarfs the sides he cut pre-'51. He continued, and so far as I<br />
could tell, the only thing that diminished was his audience.<br />
I called Contino and told him I wanted to write about him. We had an affable conversation; he said,<br />
"Come to Vegas."<br />
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Contino met me at the airport. He looked great: lean and fit at 63. His Daddy-O grin remained intact; he<br />
confirmed that his Daddy-O biceps came from humping his accordion.<br />
We went to a restaurant and shot the shit. Our conversation was full of jump cuts--Las Vegas to the<br />
Mob to serving jail time to L.A. in the '50S, fear and what you do when the audience dwindles.<br />
I told him that the best novels are often not the best-selling novels; that complex styles and ambiguous<br />
stories perplex many readers. I said that while my own books sell quite well, they are considered too<br />
dark, too densely plotted, and too relentlessly violent to be chart-toppers.<br />
Dick asked me if I would change the type of book I write to achieve greater sales--I said no. He asked<br />
me if I'd change the type of book I write if I knew that I'd taken a given style or theme as far as it could<br />
go--I said yes. He asked me if the real-life characters in my books ever surprise me--I said, "No,<br />
because my relationship to them is exploitative."<br />
I asked him if he consciously changed musical directions after his career got diverted, post-Korea. He<br />
said yes and no--he'd kept trying to cash in on trends until he'd realized that, at best, he'd be performing<br />
music he didn't love and at worst he'd be playing to an audience he didn't respect.<br />
I said, "The work is the thing." He said, yes, but you can't cop an attitude behind some self-limiting vision<br />
of your own integrity. You can't cut the audience out of its essential enjoyment--you have to give them<br />
some schmaltz to hold on to.<br />
I asked Dick how he arrived at that. He said his old fears taught him to like people more. He said fear<br />
thrives on isolation, and when you cut down the wall between you and the audience, your whole vision<br />
goes wide.<br />
I checked in at my hotel and shadowboxed with the day's revelations. It felt like my world had tilted<br />
toward a new understanding of my past. I kept picturing myself in front of an expanding audience, armed<br />
with new literary ammunition: the knowledge that Dick Contino would be the hero of the sequel to the<br />
book I'm writing now.<br />
Dick and I met for dinner the next night. It was my forty-fifth birthday; I felt like I was standing at the<br />
bedrock center of my life.<br />
Dick played me a bebop "Happy Birthday" on his accordion. The old chops were still there--he zipped<br />
on and off the main theme rápidamente.<br />
We split for the restaurant. I asked Dick if he would consent to appear as the hero of my next novel.<br />
He said yes and asked what the book would be about. I said, "Fear, courage, and heavily compromised<br />
redemptions."<br />
He said, "Good, I think I've been there."<br />
We hit the Tillerman's--a surf-and-turf palace outside Vegas. The food was good, but my brain was<br />
schizophrenic while I ate. I listened to Dick talk; I plotted my Contino novella full-speed. By the time the<br />
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pecan pie arrived, I had Dick Contino's Blues--a picaresque tale of '58 L.A.--fully mapped out.<br />
Dick said, "Penny for your thoughts?"<br />
I said, "You're my ticket back and my ticket out, but I'm not sure where to."<br />
November 1993<br />
SEX, GLITZ, AND GREED<br />
THE SEDUCTION OF O. J. SIMPSON<br />
[This piece was written before the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial.]<br />
The Simpson-Goldman snuffs are recognizably prosaic. Subtract the accused killer's celebrity and<br />
showbiz milieu and you've got a spur-of-the-moment whack-out equally indigenous to Watts, Pacoima<br />
and Dogdick, Delaware. The intersection' of fame, extreme good looks, and pervasive media coverage<br />
has blasted a common double slash-job to the top of the pantheonic police blotter of our minds. The<br />
Leopold-Loeb, Wylie-Hoffert, and Manson Family cases--replete with complex investigations and<br />
psychological underpinnings emblematic of their time--cannot compete with the Simpson Trinity. A<br />
botched hack-and-run caper has become the <strong>Crim</strong>e of the Century.<br />
On Sunday, June 12, 1994, Oj. Simpson did or did not drive to his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson's<br />
pad and slaughter her and a young man named Ronald Goldman. He did or did not wear gloves and a ski<br />
mask; he did or did not butcher his victims with a bone-handled knife, a bayonet, or an entrenching tool.<br />
He did or did not split the scene and drive to his own home, a few minutes away.<br />
Nicole Brown Simpson was or was not a devoted mother, a cocaine addict, and an airheaded party girl.<br />
She was or was not an anorexic, a bulimic, or a nymphomaniac given to picking up men at a Brentwood<br />
espresso pit. The minutiae of her life can be compiled and collated to conform to almost any sleazy thesis.<br />
She is most unambiguously defined by this heavily documented fact: Oj. Simpson beat the shit out of her<br />
over the last five years of her life.<br />
Ron Goldman was either a waiter who wanted to be an actor or an actor working as a waiter--a very<br />
common L.A. job euphemism. He was or was not Nicole Simpson's lover. He did or did not borrow<br />
Nicole's Ferrari on occasion--which did or did not piss off Oj. no end. Forensic evidence indicates that<br />
Goldman fought very hard for his life.<br />
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Forensic evidence is utilized to supersede interpretation and conjecture through the application of<br />
impartial, empirically valid scientific methods. Forensic evidence is used to place suspected felons at<br />
crime scenes. Forensic evidence is a counterweight to gooey pleas for mitigation.<br />
The gathering of forensic evidence is a conscious search for the truth. So are legitimate attempts to<br />
debunk scientific fallacies and sloppy applications of long-established forensic procedures. The analysis<br />
of forensic evidence may prove to be the adjudicating bottom line in the Oj. Simpson case. The flip side<br />
might be logical chaos--a verdict or the absence of a verdict spawned by the numbingly protracted<br />
cross-media extravaganza that has deluged all would-be jurors and indeed the entire American public<br />
with an accretion of contradictory details both densely pertinent and superfluous--a huge shitstorm of<br />
information, misinformation, innuendo, and disingenuously reported rebop that backs you into a corner<br />
like a date rapist you can never escape until you shut down your electronic and printed-page access to<br />
the world, move to the South Pole, and start flicking penguins.<br />
Oj. did or did not shed his own blood outside Nicole's pad. He returned from an overnight trip to<br />
Chicago sporting a fresh cut-- which might have been caused by his slamming down a glass upon hearing<br />
the news of his ex-wife's death or might have been caused by his slashing at the woman a bit too close to<br />
his free hand. Blood trajectories are primarily matters of forensic and hard legal concern. They lack the<br />
mass-market appeal inherent to hearsay accounts of an attractive woman's sex life and attempts to<br />
portray a career misogynist as a lost brother to the Scottsboro Boys, and until the blood-oozing<br />
interactive Oj. CD-ROM hits stores, we just might have to view where that blood was spilled as a literal<br />
indication of Mr. Simpson's guilt or innocence--a niggling restriction to keep us tenuously open-minded<br />
as data rains down and inundates us.<br />
The Oj. Simpson case is a gigantic Russian novel set in L.A. The extravaganza occurred in L.A. because<br />
the major characters wanted to suck the giant poison cock off the Entertainment Industry. It's a novel of<br />
metamorphoses--because L.A. is where you go when you want to be somebody else. It happened in<br />
L.A. because it's the best place on earth to get breast and penis enlargements. It happened in the<br />
Brentwood part of L.A. because homelessness, crack addiction, and other outward signs of despair<br />
appear at a minimum there.<br />
O.J. Simpson wanted to be White. Ron Goldman wanted to be an actor--an equally ridiculous ambition.<br />
Nicole wanted a groovy fast lane and the secondhand celebrity that comes with flicking famous men.<br />
Her second-tier status extended to her death. She became the blank page that pundits used to explicate<br />
her husband's long journey of suppression.<br />
Nicole bought a ticket to ride. The price was nakedly apparent long before she died. Her face was<br />
pinched and crimped at the edges--too-pert features held too taut and compressed by too many bouts<br />
with cocaine, too many compulsive gym workouts, and too much time given over to maintaining a<br />
cosmetic front. Her beauty was not the beach-bunny perfection revered by stupid young men and the<br />
man who may or may not have murdered her. The physical force of Nicole Brown Simpson is the glaze<br />
of desiccation writ large on her face. The lines starting to form might have been caused by inchoate inner<br />
struggles, or the simple process of aging, or a growingly articulate sense that she had boxed herself into<br />
an inescapable corner of obsessive male desire, random male desire, and a life of indebtedness to things<br />
meretricious and shallow.<br />
Nicole's relationship with Oj. was deceptive and collusive from the start. He bought the hot blonde that<br />
fifty years of pop culture told him he should groove on, and an unformed psyche that adapted to his<br />
policy of one-way monogamy. She bought a rich, handsome, famous man possessed of infantile<br />
characteristics, which led her to believe that she could control him.<br />
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He bought a trip through his unconscious and a preordained mandate for horror. She abdicated to an<br />
inner drama that would ultimately destroy her.<br />
They both bought a trip to Hollywood. O.J.'s athletic career was phasing out at the time they met; he<br />
sensed that he could continue his nice-guy impersonation and ease himself into plum acting roles with his<br />
long-perfected chameleon aplomb. He had made a second career out of disarming people with smiles<br />
and self-effacing gestures, and if he failed to hit the level of transposition that quality acting required, he<br />
could always play his familiar old ingratiating self, lower his cloning-sights from Laurence Olivier to Sly<br />
Stallone, get a mojo going as an action-flick hero, make big bucks, and score beaucoup poontang in the<br />
process. He knew a shitload of wimps and tough-guy wanna-bes in the Biz--geeks who subscribed to<br />
the ruthlessness-as-strength-ofcharacter ethic that pervades Hollywood but had never been in a fistfight<br />
and loved to tell jokes about their wives leaving them for well-endowed shvartzes. He knew these guys;<br />
they knew him; he got a symbiotic groove going with guys like that. Guys like that could make him a<br />
biiiiiig movie star.<br />
Oj. miscalculated. His powers of sociopathic seduction were best exposited in five-second sound bites<br />
and best received by callow young women. It should be noted that Oj. Simpson is not the smartest<br />
motherfucker ever to walk the earth. He is a man of great physical gifts, superficial charm, and limited<br />
cunning, who segued from football to Hollywood with an impressionable girl in tow. He nested in a place<br />
where marriage is a shuck and a smoke screen for hidden sexual agendas; he brought a woman into the<br />
Inside World that the Outside World has been brainwashed into believing is the World Most to Be<br />
Coveted. He got her hooked on celebrity the way pimps get whores hooked on dope.<br />
Oj. brought Nicole into a world where he was a second-class citizen. He got small roles in doofus<br />
comedies--but the toughguy wanna-bes had no serious use for him. He would never be a movie star<br />
because he possessed the expressive range of a turtle. He'd transformed himself into a confirmed<br />
ass-kisser who could never appear truly heroic or dangerous onscreen.<br />
Nicole witnessed O.J.'s long downward slide. She saw the essential bifurcation of his fame: He was a<br />
big cheese to the outside world and small potatoes to the world he sucked up to. She came of age in<br />
lavish surroundings and reveled in insider perks. She had a front-row view of her husband cracking under<br />
the weight of his emptiness.<br />
Oj. got his racial-identity wires crossed up a long time ago. He must have figured his choices narrowed<br />
down to White man's shill or glowering rape-o. He never figured out that the vast majority of Black men<br />
do not fall into either camp. His appeal transcended race because he was an equal-opportunity con artist<br />
capable of snow-jobbing Blacks and Whites alike. He fit into Hollywood because he had looks and<br />
name value, fawned and joked to the correct degree, and zinged some pseudo-egalitarian heartstrings. If<br />
his trial becomes a referendum on African-American rage and its inevitable consequences, a minute<br />
cause-and-effect examination of his life will reveal no overt instances of personalityforming trauma<br />
directly attributable to specific acts of White racism. To offer the historic oppression of Blacks as a<br />
salient factor of mitigation in an adrenaline-fueled double lust homicide is preposterous. Oj. Simpson will<br />
have truly transcended race at that moment when Blacks and Whites get together and recognize him as a<br />
cowardly piece of shit who may or may not have murdered two innocent people and left two Black and<br />
White children devastated for the rest of their lives.<br />
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Of course, it won't go down that simply. This is one gigantic L.A.set Russian novel that exceeds the most<br />
extreme visions of Los Angeles as a bottomless black hole of depravity. This is a bottomless meditation<br />
on celebrity that will not eclipse until someone more famous than Oj. Simpson is accused of murdering<br />
two people sexier than Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a considerably more outré manner.<br />
This is a story told in a thousand voices--one of those microcosmic, kaleidoscopic, multiviewpoint jobs<br />
that sum up a time and place with interlocking subplots that go on forever.<br />
This novel teems with grotesque characters and roils with unhinged incidents. The multimedia creators of<br />
this novel are grateful for the opportunity to regroup in the wake of a major disappointment: The Michael<br />
Jackson scandal diminuendoed before they got the chance to exploit its full sleaze potential and work up<br />
a hypocritical load of bile over the plight of butt-flicked children. They've got their teeth in the Oj. case<br />
now--they're pit bulls with a standing order for more, more, more--and verisimilitude and dramatic<br />
viability outgun outright veracity as the criteria for determining the thrust of their reportage. Thus a<br />
longtime informant who says he heard two White men do the snuffs gets screaming national coverage<br />
before being dismissed with footnotelike shrugs; thus A.C. Cowlings cavorting at a porno-industry<br />
wingding militates against Oj. with an inference of "check this lowlife jungle bunny out"; thus Valley-girl<br />
model Tiffany Starr pitching a boo-hoo number about her two-date relationship with Ron Goldman<br />
implies that any man who'd pour the pork to this bimbo deserved to get whacked.<br />
Thus freedom of speech has given us a hybrid extravaganza that rests somewhere between haphazardly<br />
proffered obfuscation and willfully evolved fiction. The exploitability of the case intersected with the<br />
ascendance of tabloid television and created a phenomenon of great magnitude, and to censor it or<br />
attempt to curtail it in any manner would be unconscionable. The Oj. Simpson case is a collective work<br />
of performance art that has to play itself out before it can be assessed, structured, deconstructed, and<br />
dissected for moral meaning.<br />
It may boil down to issues of public disclosure and legal ethics. It may boil down to an outcry for<br />
journalistic circumspection and objectivity at all costs.<br />
The art of fiction hinges on subjective thinking. Novelists must assume the perspectives of many different<br />
characters. Some months ago, the Simpson defense team assumed Oj.'s perspective and realized that<br />
their client was flubbing his performance as an innocent man unjustly accused. Oj. never screamed, "Let's<br />
nail the shitbird who killed my wife!"<br />
The defense team worked up some belated damage control. They took their strand of this gigantic<br />
Russian novel interactive via a toll-free tip hot line. Oj. offered a fat reward for information leading to the<br />
apprehension of the real snuff artists--cash he might or might not have after his lawyers bleed him dry.<br />
The Los Angeles Police Department canvassed the area surrounding Nicole Simpson's town house in a<br />
search for witnesses to confirm or refute Oj.'s guilt, and got nowhere. The defense team, eager to cast<br />
the LAPD as both incompetent and racist, put out their public appeal--in case potential witnesses missed<br />
the canvassing cops and the media coverage attending the most publicized crime of all time. This was a<br />
move of epic disingenuousness--specious in its logical structuring and wholly cynical in its application.<br />
The post--Rodney King LAPD would prefer not to hassle highprofile Blacks. Popping a low-profile<br />
White killer for the job would vibrate their vindaloos no end. The Simpson defense team understands the<br />
tortured history of the LAPD and Los Angeles Blacks--both its historical validity and the level of justified<br />
and irrational paranoia that it has produced. They put out a magnet to attract misinformation, fear, and<br />
outright madness--and some of the more presentable bits they receive may show up in court as fodder to<br />
further confuse an already informationally swamped jury.<br />
And the LAPD will be exhorted to check out "leads" that they know will lead nowhere, or risk a barrage<br />
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of courtroom recriminations that will further obscure the facts of the case, serve to excite racial tension,<br />
and contribute to the cause of general divisive bad juju.<br />
The defense team's probably thinking they can sell the hot-line tapes for big bucks. The LAPD's<br />
probably wishing they framed some random pervert for the job.<br />
If Oj. is guilty, he should cop a plea behind exhaustion. His 2,033 yards in one season rate bupkis when<br />
compared to his postfootball sprint.<br />
Second-rate acclaim and the pursuit of empty pleasures wear a guy out. Beating up women is a young<br />
man's game. Attrition narrows your choices down to changing your life or ending it.<br />
Change takes time. It's not as instantaneous as a few lines of coke or some fresh pussy.<br />
Suicide takes imagination. You've got to be able to conjure up an afterlife or visions of rest--or be in<br />
such unbreachable pain that anything is preferable to your suffering.<br />
Oj. went out behind a chickenshit end run. He didn't have the soul or the balls to utilize his first two<br />
options.<br />
December 1994<br />
THE TOOTH OF CRIME<br />
Captain Dan Burt looks and talks like an enlightened fast-track Republican. He's midsized, tan, and<br />
groomed. If he wasn't running the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau he'd be saving<br />
America from both Bill Clinton and right-wing yahoos within his own party. He knows how to talk,<br />
inspire loyalty, and wear a dark-blue suit.<br />
Today he's riffing on the Simpson case and its lessons for homicide detectives. Six team heads and two<br />
administrative aides pack his office SRO.<br />
Burt says: "We can cop an attitude behind the Oj. thing or we can learn from it. I'm glad it wasn't our<br />
case, but I want to make damn sure we all go to school on it."<br />
He's got seven lieutenants and one sergeant by the short hairs. He lays out a dizzying spiel on<br />
crime-scene containment, evidence chains, and the need to recognize the media magnitude of celebrity<br />
murders at the outset, think them through from an adversarial attorney's perspective, and evaluate and<br />
define every investigatory aspect as they progress. The pitch is tight and inside, with a slow-breaking<br />
kicker: The LAPD took the grief on this one, and we reaped the benefit.<br />
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A handsomely crafted ceramic bulldog sits on a table beside the captain's desk, replete with a Sheriff's<br />
Homicide baseball cap and a rubber turd behind its ass. Burt pats the beast and wraps up the briefing.<br />
"This unit has flourished because we've made an effort to stay open-minded and learn from our mistakes.<br />
We've never let our reputation turn us arrogant. If we continue to assess the Simpson case and<br />
incorporate what we learn into our procedures, we'll make something good out of one big goddamn<br />
mess."<br />
Murder is a big, continuous twenty-four-hour-a-day mess. Murder spawns a numbingly protracted<br />
investigatory process that is rarely direct and linear--chiefly because it overlaps with more and more<br />
murder, taxing the resources of the investigative agencies involved and inundating detectives with<br />
interviews, courtroom appearances, reports to be written, and next-of-kin to be mollified and cajoled<br />
into intimate revelations. Murder seldom slows down and never stops; murder stays true to its<br />
Motivational Trinity: dope/sex/money.<br />
The L.A. Sheriff's Department investigates all murders, suicides, industrial-accident fatalities, and<br />
miscellaneous sudden deaths within the confines of Los Angeles County--the vast, unincorporated area in<br />
and around the L.A. city limits. The LAPD's jurisdiction snakes inside, outside, and through the LASD's<br />
turf-- city/county borders are sometimes hard to distinguish. The county consists mainly of<br />
lower-middle-class suburbs and rat's ass towns stretching out ninety-odd miles. This is the big bad<br />
sprawl visible from low-flying airplanes: cheap stucco, smog, and freeway grids going on forever.<br />
The LASD Homicide Bureau is housed in a courtyard industrial park in the city of Commerce--six miles<br />
from downtown L.A. Sheriff's Homicide is individually subcontracted by numerous police departments<br />
inside the county--if you get whacked in Norwalk or Rosemead, the LASD will work your case.<br />
Sheriff's Homicide investigates about 500 snuffs a year. The L.A. District Attorney's office has publicly<br />
acknowledged its investigators as the best in southern California. Police departments nationwide send<br />
their prospective homicide dicks to the LASD for two-week training programs. LASD detectives teach<br />
well because theirs is regarded as the pinnacle assignment--one bestowed after a minimum of ten years in<br />
jail work, patrol, and other Detective Division jobs. The mid-forties median age says it all: These people<br />
have put the rowdier aspects of police work behind them and have matured behind the gravity of murder.<br />
Former sheriff Peter Pitchess dubbed his homicide crew "the Bulldogs"--a nod to their tenacity and<br />
salutary solved-case rate. In truth, bulldogs are lazy creatures prone to breathing disorders and hip<br />
dysplasia. The vulture should replace the bulldog as Homicide's mascot.<br />
Vultures wait for people to die. So do homicide cops. Vultures swoop down on the recently dead and<br />
guard the surrounding area with sharp claws and beaks. Homicide cops seal crime scenes and kick off<br />
their investigations with the evidence culled within.<br />
Sheriff's Homicide is a centralized division. Its basic makeup is six teams of fourteen detectives apiece,<br />
bossed by lieutenants Derry Benedict, Don Bear, Joe Brown, Dave Dietrich, Ray Peavy, and Bill Sieber.<br />
Two adjunct units--Unsolved and Missing Persons--work out of the same facility. The teams handle<br />
incoming murders on a rotating, forty-eight-hour on-call basis.<br />
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On-call detectives carry beepers and sleep very poorly, if at all. Beeper chirps signify death and<br />
additions to their already strained caseloads. Late-night beeps are only marginally preferable to what the<br />
old-timers called "trash runs": call-outs for obvious suicides and pro forma viewings of the poor fucker<br />
who got decapitated by an exploding boiler.<br />
The bureau is furnished in the white-walled, metal-desked, policework moderne style. All incoming calls<br />
originate in the "Barrel," a desk counter rigged with telephones, memo baskets, and boards for charting<br />
murders and assigned personnel. The Barrel adjoins the main squad room--ninety desks arranged in<br />
lengthwise rows. The team lieutenants' desks sit crosswise at the far end, next to a shelf jammed with<br />
Sergeant Don Garcia's bulldog trinkets.<br />
You can purchase bulldog watches and T-shirts at Sergeant Garcia's cost. A bulldog wall clock will set<br />
you back $39.95. Dig the bulldog lapel pin--the giant tongue and spiked collar detailing are worthy of<br />
Walt Disney on angel dust. Don's been running the concession for years. He buys the stuff bulk from<br />
various manufacturers. He's just acquired a new item: a bulldog neon sign to light up your wet bar!<br />
The Unsolved and Missing Persons units reside in separate rooms off the squad bay. The sign on<br />
Unsolved's door reads "UNLOVED." Unsolved is charged with periodically reviewing cold cases and<br />
investigating any new leads pertaining to them. The crew--Dale Christiansen, Rey Verdugo, Louie "the<br />
Hat" Danoff, John Yarbrough, and Freddy Castro--is the faculty of the College of Unresolved justice.<br />
Their curriculum is the file library that Louie the Hat has lovingly preserved. Louie says the files talk to<br />
him. He's on a spiritual trip and runs his "no body" cases by psychics once in a while.<br />
A corridor links Unsolved to a room lined with computers. A dozen screens glow green all day every<br />
day--dig the dozen clerks running record checks on permanent overdrive. The clerks-- mostly<br />
women--hog the lunchroom from noon to 2 P.M. daily. They watch soap operas and pine for the<br />
candy-ass male stars-- right down the hall from the ugly bulldog wall plaque.<br />
Note to Sheriff Sherman Block: Vultures are more charismatic than bulldogs.<br />
It's early December. Deputies Gil Carrillo and Frank Gonzales have tickets for the annual<br />
Sheriff's/LAPD fistfest. They're primed for an evening of charity boxing--until Lieutenant Brown tells<br />
them they're the first on-call team up.<br />
It's a given: Some geek will get murdered tonight and fuck up their fun.<br />
Carrillo and Gonzales decide to stay home and rest. Gil lays some comedy on the deskman, Sergeant<br />
Mike Lee: I want a good night's sleep and an indoor crime scene near my pad about io A.M. tomorrow.<br />
Joe Brown says he'll place the order, ha! ha! ha!<br />
Gil and Frank retire to their cribs. Gil's about six foot three and massively broad. The earth shakes<br />
whenever he walks. He cobossed the LASD's end of the Richard Ramirez "Night Stalker" serial killer<br />
task force back in the eighties, ran against Sherman Block in the last sheriff's election, and glommed 17<br />
percent of the vote. Frank's picture should appear in every dictionary on earth, next to the words "Latin<br />
lover." He is one handsome motherfucker. Carrillo and Gonzales bring vulture charisma to every case<br />
they work--but they're pissed that they blew the fights off for nothing.<br />
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Because Gil's wish comes true. His beeper beeps at 10 A.M.--it's an indoor crime scene ten minutes<br />
from his pad.<br />
The victim is Donna Lee Meyers, female Caucasian, age 37. She's dead at her house in Valinda, a<br />
downscale San Gabriel Valley town.<br />
She's facedown on a green shag rug in the bathroom. She's nude. She's been stabbed between twenty<br />
and forty times. Defensive wounds on her hands and arms indicate an extended struggle with her killer.<br />
Patrol deputies responded to the 911 call. The informant was Donna Lee Meyers's father. He came to<br />
pick up his 3-year-old grandson and found the back door unlocked and the house filled with gas fumes.<br />
The boy coughed and led him to the body. Every gas burner in the kitchen had been turned on and left<br />
unignited.<br />
Carrillo and Gonzales arrive at the scene and get a rundown from the deputies. Their first collective<br />
hypothesis: The killer didn't have the stones to ice a little child up front, so he juiced up the gas before he<br />
split. Their first collective instinct: The murder was unpremeditated, with a sharp instrument used as a<br />
weapon of opportunity. Their first collective decision: Stay outside and let the criminalists do their work<br />
first--don't risk contaminating the crime scene.<br />
The serologist takes blood samples off the rug and the surrounding area. The print man dusts and comes<br />
up with smudges and smears. A technician prowls with an Electrostatic Dust Lifter--a vacuum<br />
sealer--like device that transfers the outline of footprints to a cellophane dust-catching sheet. The coroner<br />
remains on hold--to remove the body when Carillo and Gonzales give the word.<br />
Carillo and Gonzales canvass the neighborhood. The word on the street: Donna Lee Meyers did<br />
cocaine--and used to deal small quantities of it. Carillo and Gonzales take notes, write down names for<br />
backup interviews and compile a list of Donna Lee Meyers's known associates. A friend of the victim's<br />
shows up at the house--and appears to be genuinely shocked that Donna Lee is dead. Carillo and<br />
Gonzales take the man to a nearby sheriff's substation and question him.<br />
He tells them that he dropped by to pay Donna Lee back some coin, and cops to being a casual coke<br />
user. The man vibes totally innocent. Carillo and Gonzales let him go and hotfoot it back to the crime<br />
scene.<br />
They view the body. A deputy tells them that the killer left the TV on for the kid. Coroner's assistants<br />
take Donna Lee Meyers to the L.A. County Morgue.<br />
The follow-up begins.<br />
Carillo and Gonzales attend the autopsy and hear the cause of death confirmed. They locate the father of<br />
Donna Lee Meyers's son and dismiss him as a suspect. A psychologist assists them in their dealings with<br />
Donna Lee's little boy. The boy's memories of that day are hellishly distorted. Gentle questioning elicits<br />
ambiguous responses.<br />
Early December becomes mid-December. Carrillo and Gonzales interview Donna Lee Meyers's known<br />
associates and come up short on hard suspects. It's becoming a long, hard one--the kind you solve or<br />
don't solve while other cases accumulate.<br />
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It's creeping up on Christmastime. The bureau lunchroom is draped with red and green banners and<br />
packed with an assortment of sugar-soaked treats.<br />
Bulldog-vultures swoop by and chow down--pecan pies and toffee clusters hook you on the first bite.<br />
Talk flows. Food disappears. Nineteen ninety-four is winding down in a swirl of rapid-fire conversation.<br />
Bill Sieber's midway through his standard epic pitch: how a friend's daughter was murdered in Olympia,<br />
Washington, and boy did the cops screw up the case! Bill's a primo monologuist. He's got his audience<br />
hooked--even though every detective has heard the story six dozen times. Lieutenant Frank Merriman's<br />
interjecting punch lines, smiling his standard shit-eating grin. Frank grins 96 percent of the time.<br />
Somebody should transpose his brain waves to TV so the whole world could cut in on the laughs.<br />
Cheryl Lyons zips by. She's got electric turquoise eyes--or she's wearing electric turquoise contact<br />
lenses. The late jack Hoffenberg bootjacked Cheryl's persona for the female lead in his novel The<br />
Desperate Adversaries. Cheryl the 1973 narc became Cheryl of the Paperback Pantheon. Cheryl's<br />
pensive today--will the county notch in eight more murders and top its all-time yearly high of 537?<br />
Ike Sabean thinks it's a lock. Ike works juvenile Missing Persons--and must be considered a certified<br />
genius.<br />
You've seen his work on milk cartons--the photos of missing kids and the number to call if you spot<br />
them. Ike developed the idea in cahoots with a Chicago dairyman. He got a total of sixtyseven dairies<br />
and industrial firms to display the pix--and ran up a 70 percent local found rate until the public became<br />
inured to the photos. Ike's also a board-licensed mortician. He explains the allure of his moonlighting job<br />
thusly: "I like to work with people."<br />
Jerome Beck lingers by the chocolate-chip-cookie plate. Beck was the technical adviser on the flick<br />
Dead Bang. He also wrote the story. Guess what? The director of that movie named the Don<br />
Johnson--portrayed lead character "Jerry Beck."<br />
Big Gil Carrillo walks in. The floor shakes; a serving bowl full of Jell-O jiggles. Gil buttonholes Louie the<br />
Hat and runs the Donna Lee Meyers crime-scene pix by him.<br />
They discuss defensive wounds and blood-spatter trajectories. Louie's got a spaced-out woman in<br />
tow--a psychic he consults every so often.<br />
They call him "the Hat" because he always wears a Tyrolean porkpie with a feather in the band. If you<br />
fuck with Louie's hat, Louie will fuck with you. A few years ago, some LAPD clown snatched Louie's<br />
hat and goofed on Louie's shaved head. Louie unhesitatingly popped him in the chops.<br />
Big Gil walks off. Louie hobnobs with his psychic. Don Garcia tacks a notice to the bulletin board:<br />
Bulldog wristwatches make wonderful Christmas gifts!<br />
The computer women look pissed. All this holiday bonhomie is drowning out the volume on their soap<br />
opera.<br />
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The boss is teething on the Guevara case. His ceramic bulldog is teething at the fur ball on the tip of his<br />
Santa Claus cap--Dan Burt likes to dress the beast in seasonal headwear.<br />
Ray Peavy's crew got the job--a double abduction/murder way the hell out in Lancaster. Deputy Liova<br />
Anderson and Sergeant Joe Guzman caught the first squeal--one baffling whodunit.<br />
Peavy's laying out a chronology for Dan Burt. It's an informal captain's office confab--and the open door<br />
encourages kibitzers.<br />
Anderson got the initial call on Wednesday, November 3o: a body dump out in the desert. Liova drives<br />
up to Palmdale/Lancaster and views the stiff: a male Latin with his hands, face, and crotch scorched.<br />
The victim was wrapped in a baby blanket, doused with a flammable agent, and burned. Liova picks up<br />
a strong vibe: The genital scalding indicates some sort of sex murder.<br />
Liova has to work solo for the first seventy-two hours--Joe Guzman, a nationally known expert on gang<br />
violence, is off giving a lecture in Texas. She knuckles down and hauls.<br />
She attends the postmortem on Friday. The doctor pulls a bullet out of the dead man's head and tags the<br />
cause of death as a "gunshot wound." He cuts the dead man's fingers off, rehydrates them, and rolls a<br />
clean set of prints.<br />
On Sunday, Liova hears a radio news broadcast. A Latin couple named Carlos and Delia Guevara have<br />
been reported missing in Lancaster. She gets another strong vibe: Her dead man is Carlos Guevara.<br />
She calls the Antelope Valley Sheriff's Missing Persons unit. An officer tells her that Sergeant jim Sears<br />
and Deputy jerry Burks of Sheriff's Homicide have already been assigned to the case-- because a bullet<br />
hole was found in Carlos and Delia Guevara's living-room wall.<br />
Joe Guzman returns from Texas. Liova drives him up to Lancaster and explains the case en route. The<br />
team meets up with Burks and Sears at the Guevara house. Sears drops a belated bomb: Delia<br />
Guevara's body was discovered in Yermo over the weekend.<br />
The woman had been shot and similarly dumped--in San Bernardino County, sixty miles from the spot<br />
where Guzman and Anderson's body was found.<br />
Liova checks the Guevaras' family records stash and finds a fingerprint ID card on Carlos. She takes itto<br />
the L.A. County crime lab and has a technician compare it to the rehydrated digits cut off her victim.<br />
The prints match.<br />
Burks and Sears work the Delia side of the case. Anderson and Guzman stick with Carlos.<br />
Liova's original vibe simmers: This is a sex or sexual-revenge killing. She begins an extensive background<br />
check on the Guevaras.<br />
She learns that Delia worked at a local Burger King 2nd Carlos worked at a local appliance store. She<br />
learns that the couple had emigrated from Mexico illegally and were living above their means. She learns<br />
that Delia had been receiving menacing phone calls at work and that Carlos loved to talk lewd in mixed<br />
company--even though it made his friends and neighbors uncomfortable. Carlos was also known for<br />
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chasing women outright.<br />
Joe Guzman finds numerous toys in a sealed-off bedroom at the Guevara house. It is a striking anomaly.<br />
The Guevaras were childless and had often told friends they did not intend to have children. The motive<br />
takes circumstantial shape.<br />
Two killings. Vengeance perpetrated by a cuckolded lover or the parents of an abused child.<br />
Ray Peavy wraps his account up. Anderson and Guzman, Burks and Sears are still on the case--which<br />
remains one baffling whodunit.<br />
Sergeant Jacque Franco pokes her head in the door and eavesdrops. Deputy Rick Graves sidles by for<br />
a listen; Dan Burt shoots him an attaboy for his work on that drowning case off Catalina Island.<br />
Ray Peavy says, "It never ends."<br />
Jacque Franco says, "We're still six short of breaking the record."<br />
Dan Burt pats his fat ceramic bulldog.<br />
Sergeant Bob Perry and Deputy Ruben "Bj." Bejarano get called out on Christmas Eve. It's cold, dark,<br />
and rainy--good indoor mayhem conditions.<br />
They roll to a video store near the Century Sheriff's Station. A Taiwanese woman named Li Mei Wu lies<br />
dead on the floor behind the counter.<br />
The weather has kept rubberneckers to a minimum. Patrol deputies have rounded up eyewitnesses and<br />
sequestered them at the station. A sergeant lays things out for Bejarano and Perry.<br />
Three black teenagers entered the store around closing time. They gave the victim some verbal grief,<br />
split, and returned a few minutes later. One of them shot Li Mei Wu with a rifle. They ran outside and<br />
disappeared on foot.<br />
The victim is positioned faceup. There's a live .22-caliber round and a .22 ejected casing behind the<br />
counter. A coroner's assistant lifts the body, notes the exit wound, and points to a projectile tangled up in<br />
Li Mei Wu's clothes. He says the shot probably tore out the woman's aorta.<br />
The assistant finds $300 in Li Mei Wu's pockets. Perry and Bejarano note the untouched money and the<br />
full cash register and tentatively scratch robbery as a motive. The patrol sergeant tells them what eyeball<br />
witnesses told him: The perpetrators bopped to a coin laundry a few doors down before they bopped<br />
back and bopped Li Mei Wu.<br />
The body is hustled off to the county morgue. Bj. diagrams the video store in his notebook, zooms down<br />
to the laundry, and quick-sketches the floor plan. A deputy from the crime lab arrives. He begins<br />
snapping crime-scene shots and dusting both the video store and the coin laundry.<br />
Bob and Bj. secure the location and drive to Century Station. Two witnesses are waiting; three have<br />
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signed preliminary statements, left their phone numbers, and gone home.<br />
Bj. and Bob conduct interviews. They go over minute points of perspective and indoor and outdoor<br />
lighting repeatedly. Questions are phrased and rephrased; answers are cross-checked against the three<br />
preliminary statements. A single short narrative emerges.<br />
At 8:20 P.M., three black teenagers enter the video store. They behave in a raucous fashion; Li Mei Wu<br />
tells them to leave. The kids peruse the skin-flick section and touch numerous fingerp rintsustaining<br />
surfaces. They walk to the laundry, behave in a raucous fashion, return to the video store and approach<br />
Li Mei Wu. One boy says, "Give me your money, bitch!" One boy pulls a rifle from under his clothes and<br />
shoots Li Mei Wu--just like that.<br />
It's Christmas morning now. Yuletide greetings, Bulldogs-- your new case is senseless blasphemy on this<br />
day of peace and joyous celebration.<br />
Days pass. Bejarano and Perry work the Li Mci Wu snuff.<br />
They interview four more witnesses and get their basic scenario confirmed. They run mug shots by the<br />
witnesses and come up empty. They run a previous-incident check on the video store-- and hit just a little<br />
bit lucky.<br />
The place was robbed in November, while Li Mei Wu was working the counter. The perpetrators: three<br />
black teenagers.<br />
The same kids robbed a nearby pizza joint that same November night. Li Mei Wu ID's one boy as the<br />
grandson of one of her customers. Deputies went by the family pad to grab him--butJunior was long<br />
gone.<br />
Bj. and Bob think the December incident report through. One fact stands out: Li Mei Wu hit the silent<br />
alarm when she was robbed in November--but did not rush for it on the night of her death. She obviously<br />
did not recognize the kids as the kids who robbed her the previous month. Bejarano and Perry get their<br />
gut feeling confirmed: The murder was committed by local punks. The killers ran away on a rainy<br />
night--they didn't have a car and got soaked dispersing back to their pads. One robbery threesome; one<br />
trio of killers. Word would be out in the neighborhood--and loose talk would give them a good shot at<br />
solving the case.<br />
While other cases accumulate.<br />
There's a big post-Christmas murder lull. Entire on-call shifts are rotating through sans killings. The<br />
lunchroom tree is wilting under the weight of decomposed fake snow.<br />
Bulldog eyes are bloodshot. Bulldog waistlines have expanded. High-octane coffee can't jolt Bulldog<br />
talk out of a desultory ripple.<br />
Rey Verdugo's recalling other murder lulls. A few years ago the County of Los Angeles went nine days<br />
without a single murder. One of Rey's buddies put a sign reading KILL! in the squad-room window.<br />
Sheriff's Homicide notched twelve righteous whack-outs over the next twenty-four hours.<br />
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Dave Dietrich's showing off some threads he got for Christmas. His wife reads men's fashion mags and<br />
shops for him accordingly. You'd call him "Dave the Dude"--if he didn't look so much like a college<br />
professor.<br />
Bill Sieber's drinking Slim-Fast in anticipation of his New Year's diet. He's monologuing between<br />
sips--in an uncharacteristically subdued fashion. Ray Peavy and Derry Benedict are discussing the<br />
Christmas party at Stevens Steak House. Ray worked the bash as a disc jockey--between his regular<br />
off-duty deejay gigs.<br />
Talk shifts to famous unsolved murders. Derry brings up his favorite: the 1944 Georgette Bauerdorf job.<br />
When he retires he's going to write a novel about the case.<br />
Louie Danoff and Rey Verdugo compare shaved heads. Gary Miller pokes at a cookie like it's a hot<br />
turd.<br />
The killers of Carlos and Delia Guevara, Donna Lee Meyers, and Li Mei Wu are still at large. Soon the<br />
year's murder tally will stop--and a new list will begin.<br />
Nineteen ninety-four winds up three short of the all-time murder high. Gunfire rings in 1995--celebratory<br />
shots all over the county.<br />
Gunshots and firecracker pops start to sound alike. The locals get used to the noise but expect it to<br />
diminish before January 2.<br />
Five shots explode at 6:45 New Year's night. The location is California and Hill, in the city of Huntington<br />
Park.<br />
The shots are very loud. The shots in no way, shape, matter, or form sound like anything short of<br />
heavy-duty gunfire.<br />
The shots have a gang-killing timbre--maybe the H.P. Brats and H.P. Locos are at it again. A dozen<br />
people on Hill Street call the Huntington Park PD.<br />
Huntington Park rolls a unit over. Patrolmen find the body of Joseph Romero, male Latin, DOB 5/1<br />
1/69. He's dead behind the wheel of his car, ripped through the torso by five AK-47 rounds.<br />
Spent shells rest near the curb. One round blew straight through Romero and out the driver's-side door.<br />
Sheriff's Homicide is alerted. Lieutenant Peavy, Deputy Bob Carr, and Sergeant Stu Reed make the<br />
scene.<br />
Carr and Reed are short, heavyset, and fiftyish. They joined the department back in the '6os. Reed's an<br />
expert wood-carver; Carr sports the world's coolest handlebar mustache. Both men talk as slow and flat<br />
as tombstones.<br />
A crowd forms. Huntington Park cops seal the people out with yellow perimeter tape. Coroner's<br />
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assistants remove the body; a sheriff's tow truck hauls Romero's car off to the crime lab.<br />
Reed and Carr eyeball the scene. They hit on a hypothesis fast.<br />
Romero was sitting in the car by himself. He was parked six doors down from his pad. He was waiting<br />
for somebody.<br />
The passenger-side window was down. "Somebody" walked up, stuck the gun in, and vaporized him.<br />
The crime vibes "gang vengeance" or "dope intrigue," or somebody flicking somebody's girlfriend or<br />
sister. The cops have got some wimesses on ice--just dying to offer their interpretations.<br />
Reed and Carr interview them at the H.P. station. Three solidcitizen types tell similar stories: shots fired<br />
and two male Latins running off in divergent directions. One man was short; one man was tall--their<br />
descriptions match straight down the line. Reed and Carr go over their statements from every<br />
conceivable angle.<br />
It's an exercise in spatial logic and a master's course in the plumbing of subjective viewpoints. It's the<br />
culling of minutiae as an art form--and Carr and Reed are brilliant cullers.<br />
It's starting to look like another neighborhood crime. The shooter and his accomplice fled on foot and<br />
were probably safe at home within minutes.<br />
Reed and Carr interview a Mexican kid named Paulino. Paulino denies being a gang member and states<br />
that he hasn't done dope since he got out of rehab. He says he saw the tall male Latin fifteen minutes after<br />
the shooting. The guy was waving to a babe leaning out a window in that beige apartment house on Salt<br />
Lake Avenue.<br />
A fifth witness independently corroborates the story. He saw the tall man running toward that same<br />
building moments after the shooting.<br />
It's coming together. Reed and Carr decide to wait and not hit the building tonight--too many things<br />
could go wrong. They agree: Let's check with the HPPD Gang Squad when they come on duty. We'll<br />
find out who lives in that building and move accordingly.<br />
Three non-eyewitnesses remain: Joseph Romero's uncle, aunt, and brother. Carr and Reed talk to them<br />
gently, and phrase all intimate questions in a deferential tone. The family responds. They say Joe was a<br />
nice kid trying to put dope and gang life behind him. They supply names: Joe was tight with a dozen male<br />
Latins in the neighborhood.<br />
Reed and Carr do not mention the beige apartment house. They do not know who the family knows and<br />
might feel compelled to protect.<br />
The family leaves. Reed and Carr drive home to get a few hours' sleep. They look old and cumulatively<br />
exhausted--like they never had a chance to get caught up while murders accumulate.<br />
The holidays are over. Bob Perry and Jacque Franco are bulishitting at their desks.<br />
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Bob says he just notched a score on the Li Mei Wu case. The kids arrested turn out to be the punks<br />
who robbed the video store a month before the murder. The suspects are 13, 13, and 16.<br />
Stu Reed sidles by. Jacque asks him how the Romero job is going. Stu says they've got one shooter<br />
ID'd but can't find him. J acque says, "Don't worry--he'll come back to the neighborhood to brag."<br />
Gil Carrillo sits down. He straightens a mimeographed sheet of paper he keeps pressed to his desk<br />
blotter.<br />
"The Homicide Investigator" jumps out in bold black print. A single paragraph is inscribed below it:<br />
"No greater honor will ever be bestowed on an officer or a more profound duty imposed on him than<br />
when he is entrusted with the investigation of the death of a human being. It is his duty to find the facts,<br />
regardless of color or creed, without prejudice, and to let no power on earth deter him from presenting<br />
these facts to the court without regard to personality."<br />
Gil blows the motto a kiss. His eyes take on that "Don't mess with me, I'm deep in a reverie" look. You<br />
see why people voted for the man. He cares way past the official boundaries of the job. Jacque says,<br />
"This job is still Disneyland to you, isn't it?"<br />
Gil tilts his chair back. "It's not Disneyland when you get called out at 3 A.M., but when you get to the<br />
murder scene it's like you're coming up on Disneyland and you can see the Matterhorn ride in the<br />
distance. It's not Disneyland when you see all the ugliness, but it's Disneyland at the trial when the jury<br />
foreman says 'Guilty' and you break down crying just like the victim's family."<br />
The holidays are long gone.<br />
Dan Burt's bulldog has gone back to his baseball cap.<br />
Burt tosses a gun catalogue in his wastebasket. He's a lifelong gun fancier pushed to the point of<br />
apostasy.<br />
"My gun collection sickens me now," he says. "It makes me feel like I'm part of some mass illness."<br />
Ray Peavy coughs. "We found Carlos Guevara's car at the Greyhound Terminal downtown. The crime<br />
lab's got it."<br />
Burt points to a sheet of paper on his desk blotter--a mock-up of the condolence letter the bureau sends<br />
to murder victims' families.<br />
"We can't send that to Guevara's wife, because she's dead too. I guess all we can do is pray and work<br />
the case."<br />
While other cases accumulate.<br />
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July 1995<br />
TIJUANA, MON AMOUR<br />
I lashed the live-in lover and left him for dead. A night nurse noted his absence and noticed his knees<br />
nudged under my bed. She hauled him out. She hydrated him. She tricked up a transfusion and blasted<br />
him with black-market blood.<br />
She saved his life. She convinced a kangaroo court to convict me of Assault on an AIDS Ward. She<br />
trumped up a tribunal and jerry-rigged a jury. She found five fags and fed them facts on my fag-fragging<br />
Hush-Hush heyday. They banished me to a basement stuffed with stacks of old newspapers.<br />
Doctors dip by and drizzle my IV drip. Pill pushers pump me with potions. A homophobic herbalist hops<br />
by and hails me as his heterosexual hero. I regale him with riotous riffs on scandal scores and outrageous<br />
outings. We ponder my plight as a fag-fragger plowed with the HIV plague.<br />
I mope most mornings and meander most afternoons. I drag my IV drip and stumble. I study the stacks<br />
of old newspapers and notice my name now and then. I bop back to better times. I relive my reign as a<br />
nihilist knight and dream draconian.<br />
LOS ANGELES HERALD-EXPRESS, JUNE 3, 1955:<br />
MONAHAN KILLERS EXECUTED AT SAN QUENTIN<br />
At 10:00 this morning, Barbara Graham, John "Jack" Santo, and Emmett Perkins, the convicted slayers<br />
of Burbank widow Mabel Monahan, went to their deaths in the gas chamber at San Quentin State<br />
Prison.<br />
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The executions capped a frantic series of appeals and phone calls to Governor Goodwin J. Knight.<br />
Governor Knight rejected last-minute pleas to save the lives of the convicted killers and sent them to their<br />
deaths for the 1953 murder. Santo wept and squealed as he was dragged to the gas chamber. Perkins<br />
and Miss Graham submitted to their punishment stoically. Miss Graham asserted her innocence a few<br />
moments before she was put to death. Los Angeles County ProsecutorJ. Miller Leavy, who successfully<br />
tried the case, called her statement "poppy-cock. Barbara Graham was just as guilty as her murderous<br />
cohorts, and she was justly punished for her grievous transgression."<br />
On the evening of March 9, 1953, Santo, Perkins, Miss Graham, and two men named John True and<br />
Baxter Shorter broke into Mabel Monahan's house, convinced that she was harboring $100,000<br />
belonging to a gambler nephew. True and Shorter looked on in horror as Perkins, Santo, and Miss<br />
Graham pistol-whipped Mrs. Monahan in an effort to get her to reveal the location of the money. Mrs.<br />
Monahan told them that there was no cache of money, a statement which was proven to be true.<br />
Enraged, Santo, Perkins, and Miss Graham beat Mrs. Monahan to death.<br />
John True voluntarily surrendered and turned state's evidence. Baxter Shorter disappeared before<br />
Santo, Perkins, and Miss Graham were apprehended. It is assumed that Santo and Perkins killed him to<br />
ensure his silence.<br />
Santo and Perkins were suspected of having committed several other robbery-murders in northern<br />
California, dating back tO 1951. Miss Graham was a narcotics addict and former prostitute. Her good<br />
looks and steadfast protestations of her innocence gained her a sympathetic audience among the general<br />
public and a small sector of the press. Before Miss Graham, Santo and Perkins's trial, rumors of<br />
police-DA's Office "dirty tricks" aimed at finagling a confession from Miss Graham surfaced. Deputy DA<br />
Leavy called the rumors "Poppy-cock. Every attempt that the DA's Office and members of the Los<br />
Angeles and Beverly Hills Police Departments made in order to get Miss Graham to recant her<br />
preposterous allegations of innocence were entirely legal and aboveboard."<br />
The bodies of the three convicted killers will be shipped to undisclosed locations for burial.<br />
LOS ANGELES MIRROR, DECEMBER 17, 1955:<br />
PAYOLA PROBE IN WORKS<br />
HEADED FOR GRAND JURY?<br />
A confidential source within the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office told Mirror reporters that<br />
members of the Beverly Hills and Los Angeles Police Departments, along with the Los Angeles County<br />
Sheriff's Office, are conducting a probe into "Payola": The practice of bribing radio announcers, or "disc<br />
jockeys," into giving certain recordings preferential amounts of playing time on their programs.<br />
The probe will allegedly focus on KMPC disc jockey Flash Flood and his treatment of Linda Lansing's<br />
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current 45-RPM single, "Baby, It's Cold Inside." Flood (the former Arthur John Beauchamp) has been<br />
playing the novelty song at least sixteen times a day since the record was released on October 1 i. When<br />
asked to comment on this, Flood told a Mirror reporter: "What can I say? I dig the side, and I dig Linda<br />
Lansing, and nobody's paid me to dig either one. And I dig all the publicity I've been getting, because it's<br />
boosted my ratings way up, but I don't dig all the heavy treatment I've been getting from the fuzz,<br />
although I do dig all the heavy names that are getting caught up in this thing."<br />
Linda Lansing (the former Hilda Claire Wassmansdorff) is the look-alike younger sister of actress Joi<br />
Lansing (the former Joyce Wassmansdorff), costar of The French Line and Son of Sinbad. "Baby, It's<br />
Cold Inside" was Miss Lansing's debut recording, and it was written for her by acclaimed songsmith<br />
Sammy Cahn. Miss Lansing is chiefly known as the model and pitchwoman for Teitelbaum Furs in<br />
Beverly Hills, and her "gimmick" is performing advertisement jingles, fur-clad, on Tom Duggan's weekly<br />
gabfest on Channel 13. She recently appeared as a singer at the Igloo Club in Long Beach and the<br />
Trianon Bowling Alley lounge in South Gate, but both engagements were considered unsuccessful. Flash<br />
Flood told the Mirror: "I dug Linda's act at both venues. I dig the way she sells a song, and I dig it that<br />
she wears short fur coats and nothing else as her trademark. Frankly, I dig Linda the most, but that<br />
doesn't mean I took payola to spin her side."<br />
The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office does think that someone has paid Flood to promote "Baby,<br />
It's Cold Inside." Prosecutor J. Miller Leavy told the Mirror, "We think we're dealing with payola, pure<br />
and simple, and several police agencies are looking into it for us." Sergeant Robert Duhamel of the<br />
Beverly Hills Police Department confirmed Deputy DA Leavy's statement.<br />
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Duhamel told the Mirror. "And our investigation is turning up some<br />
prominent people."<br />
Duhamel refused to comment on which "prominent people." The Mirror went to Danny Getchell, editor<br />
in chief and head writer for the notorious scandal magazine Hush-Hush. Getchell claimed that his piece in<br />
the December issue, "Payola Pantheon! Sex-Sational Sinatra and Luscious Linda Lansing Linked!"<br />
sparked Deputy DA Leavy's probe. Getchell told the Mirror: "I got a tip that Frank Sinatra was paying<br />
Flash Flood to promote Linda Lansing's song, and I confirmed that tip to my satisfaction and wrote it up<br />
in the December issue. That's all I'll say. I'll never feed your newspaper any hot leads that I could publish<br />
in my magazine. You can't blame me for that, can you?"<br />
Deputy DA Leavy and Sergeant Duhamel would not comment on Mr. Getchell's assertions. Frank<br />
Sinatra and Linda Lansing could not be reached for comment. Flash Flood told the Mirror: "I don't dig<br />
Danny Getchell. He's a parasite passing himself off as a journalist. I dig Sinatra and I dig Linda Lansing.<br />
And dig this: I think Skip Towne (a rival disc jockey and the former Sol Irving Moskowitz) tipped off<br />
Getchell to louse up my career. Payola, schmayola. What we've got here is freedom of speech run amok.<br />
You can dig that, can't you?"<br />
Skip Towne could not be reached for comment. Danny Getchell told the Mirror: "I stand by my piece in<br />
Hush-Hush, and I condemn Flash Flood's accusations as libelous and communistic. Freedom of speech<br />
should always serve as a search for the truth, and the truth is my moral mandate."<br />
I.<br />
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Sin-sational Sinatra:<br />
A macho-maimed mama's boy and pussy-whipped putz. A punk with a pack of pit dogs to rough up<br />
recidivistic reporters.<br />
Skip Towne skimmed me the skinny: Frank flipped Flash Flood five grand to flip that song and hitch it<br />
up the Hit Parade. Impishly implied: Linda Lansing lanced Frank's libido and pulled him around by the<br />
pud. Payola payoffs and poontang--perennia] poop for Hush-Hush.<br />
Sinatra sent me a nice note:<br />
"Danny, how could you? The Pacific Dining Car parking lot, Io:oo A.M. Thursday. You know it will go<br />
worse if I have to send the boys out to find you."<br />
The Boys:<br />
Freelance freaks out of Frisco. Greaseballs who grovel and suck up to Sinatra. Discipline dispensers hot<br />
to hurl some hurt and rack up ringside seats for Frank's next stand at the Statler.<br />
Frank hates Hush-Hush. Hush-Hush hates him. I published a piece on his private doc and his<br />
prick-enlargement procedure. His pit dogs pounced on my Packard and blew it up on publication day.<br />
"10:00 A.M., Thursday."<br />
I deconstructed my dilemma. I contemplated compliance and concocted countermeasures. I strategized.<br />
I stripped the strait I was in down to strict essentials. I decided to frame Frank in the name of free<br />
speech.<br />
8:30A.M., Thursday, 12/21/55.<br />
I bopped by Ben Hong's herb hut in Chinatown. I bought a bushel of Belladona Bulbs and a mound of<br />
man-eating Ma Huang. Hush-Hush pushes panaceas and hopped-up health highballs to hipsters and<br />
high-school kids. We pitch potency pills and cancer cures on our back pages and ship the shit out of a<br />
shack behind the Shangri-Lodge Motel. It's legal and lethal in the long run. A loyal league of losers laps it<br />
up. Belmont High hopheads buy our Bitter Burdock Buds in bulk and bounce off to Cloud 9 in class.<br />
I needed to nail a big bag of boo. Ben Hong heard me out. He said Bob Mitchum was moving Maryjane<br />
to move out of debt with the Mob. I buzzed Bob and blitzed him with a bit of blackmail bait: that<br />
bleached blonde who blew you in the Hialeah bleachers was really a high-class drag queen. Bob<br />
stuttered, sputtered, and spat out, "What do you want?" I said, "Drop some stuff on me."<br />
Bob kowtowed and consented. I popped out to his pad in Pacific Palisades and glommed a<br />
glassine-wrapped glob of righteously resinous reefer. I stoked up a stick in my Studebaker and stood on<br />
the gas. I mainlined my way downtown.<br />
I flew like a flipped-out flamingo. I flapped my wings and wafted back to earth on West 6th. I popped<br />
by the Pacific Dining Car parking lot.<br />
I slipped by in slow motion. I slid my eyes into slits. I reconnoitered--reefer wracked and wrapped in a<br />
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marijuana mushroom cloud.<br />
I saw sin-sational Sinatra sipping a midmorning martini. He was lounging by a lilac Lincoln. Two<br />
lethal-looking lapdogs were perched on a Pontiac Coupe. They laughed and lapped up every line Sinatra<br />
launched their way. They were maladroit mastiffs on a mission to maul for their master. Their snouts were<br />
snagged and snared cloyingly close to his ass.<br />
The parking lot was packed. The Pontiac was penned between a Buick and a boss Bonneville. I could<br />
undulate in and out unseen.<br />
I bipped down the block. I stashed my Studebaker off the street and bebopped back on foot. Sinatra<br />
had his goons in stammering stitches. Stale stuff: the story of Come-San-Chin, the Chinese cocksucker.<br />
They didn't see me. I dipped down and duck-walked into the lot. I popped up to the Pontiac and<br />
whipped my bag of boo in a wind-wing.<br />
I whizzed out of the lot. I winged down the street and wiggled into a phone booth. I dipped a dime in the<br />
slot and slid a call to Sergeant John O'Grady.<br />
O'Grady:<br />
Grandstanding and greedy. A gratuitous need to grab grasshoppers and hurl himself into the headlines.<br />
He popped Art Pepper for pot and bagged Bob Mitchum on a boo bounce back in '48. He hauled in<br />
Hedda Hopper's hophead son just last week.<br />
He picked up. "Narcotics, O'Grady."<br />
I said, "Getchell, bearing gifts."<br />
"I'm listening. You've got three seconds to catch my attention."<br />
I said, "The Pacific Dining Car parking lot. Frank Sinatra's goons and an ounce of shit on the floorboard<br />
of a green Pontiac."<br />
"When?"<br />
"Now."<br />
"Is Sinatra there?"<br />
"You can't miss him. He's the skinny guy with the voice."<br />
I loped back to the lot and breezed up brazen. Sinatra saw me. The lapdogs licked their lips. I saw a big<br />
guy in the backseat of the lilac Lincoln.<br />
Sinatra slid on slick black sap gloves. They were wickedly weighted with dollops of double-ought buck.<br />
They packed a wellknown wallop.<br />
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The lapdogs leered at me. A mean-looking Mexican busboy sidled out a side door. He balanced a<br />
monster martini on a monogrammed tray.<br />
The lapdogs laughed at me. The Mex marched up and made mealy-mouthed "Si, Señor" sounds. Sinatra<br />
popped his patentleather fingers. The Mex made a suck-ass sound and sunk down submissive. Sinatra<br />
snapped his fingers and snared the martini.<br />
He said, "You're prompt." He looked at his lapdogs. He said, "He's prompt, Boys." The lapdogs<br />
laughed. The Mex sneered and snickered. I snuck a look at the Lincoln. The big guy in the backseat kept<br />
his back to me.<br />
I popped up to the Pontiac coupe. I said, "How's tricks, Frank? Your mother still doing her act with the<br />
mule?"<br />
Sinatra sizzled and simmered. Steam stormed out his ears and stung me. He made mincy fists. His<br />
martini glass shot into shrapnel shards.<br />
The lapdogs got lanced. The Mex got minor-league mangled. They shook shards off their shirts and<br />
popped puzzled eyes at Il Padrone. The punk patriarch palpitated and pissed in his pants. Dig the dip on<br />
those gorgeous gabardines!<br />
I said, "I talked to Ava, Frank. She said you were hung like a cashew. I'm running it on the March<br />
cover. 'Sexy Songster Packs Pint-Sized Pecker, Gorgeous Gardner Sez."<br />
Sinatra fumed and fueled himself into a fugue state. He stuttered, stammered, slobbered, slathered, and<br />
came off catatonic. His heart hammered. Buttons shot off his shirt and sheared me in the shins.<br />
The lapdogs lurched at me. The Mex made machismo-like motions. An LAPD narc ark arced into the<br />
lot.<br />
Everybody froze--frustrated and fright-fraught.<br />
John O'Grady jumped out. His paunchy parmer piled out and paused by the passenger door. The<br />
lapdogs listed and almost landed in my lap. Glare glowed and shimmered off their shoulder-holster<br />
straps.<br />
Badges--a shiny Sheriff's shield and a BHPD button. O'Grady said, "LAPD. Nobody move. Nobody<br />
say a fucking word."<br />
I looked at the lilac Lincoln. I made the big boy in the back.<br />
Sergeant Bob Duhamel--Beverly Hills PD.<br />
A payola prober propped up in a prime suspect's sled.<br />
?????<br />
The paunchy parmer popped over to the Pontiac. He popped the passenger door and picked up the bag<br />
of boo. O'Grady said, "W/ho's this belong to?"<br />
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Sinatra went knock-kneed and passed another passel of piss.<br />
The Mex moaned mumbo jumbo and muttered, "Mierda, mierda."<br />
The lapdogs whipped their coats wide. Sun shafts shot off their shields.<br />
O'Grady ogled them. His eyes shot shield to shield. He said, "Tell me what we've got here, and make it<br />
convincing. And tell me why Frank Sinatra just wet his pants."<br />
The lapdogs lowered their eyes. I felt their brainwaves broiling. They brought their eyes up bright and<br />
brutally bristling. They slung them slow at the Mex.<br />
Lapdog #1 said, "We're working an inter-agency gig. Mr. Sinatra's gotten some death threats because<br />
of that payola thing, and we're bodyguarding him."<br />
Lapdog #2 said, "Uh. . . yeah, and Pancho there tried to sell Mr. Sinatra some weed, but Mr. Sinatra<br />
said no, so Pancho planted the shit in my car, 'cause. . . uh. . . he thought it was Mr. Sinatra's car."<br />
Pancho popped puddles of sweat. It poured off his pompadour. He stood there stunned and stamped<br />
himself with the Stations of the Cross. He dribbled and drizzled sweat. He dropped his tray. It popped to<br />
the pavement pulse-poundingly LOUD. Instantaneous instinct: four cops reached for their revolvers and<br />
ripped off short-range shots.<br />
They pincushioned Pancho and poured through him. They powderburned him and poleaxed him and<br />
parted his pompadour down to his palate. Bullets bounced off his bones and belt buckle and shot back at<br />
the shooters. Richochets ripped the paunchy partner and notched his nose off his face. I cringed,<br />
crawled, crapped my pants, and ran--<br />
2<br />
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I stashed my Studebaker at a storage garage. I walked to Wilshire and Western and hot-wired a<br />
Hudson Hornet straight off the street. I had to hide out. I watched the cops whack that wetback and<br />
wipe out one of their own. I spawned a spectacular fuckup and got a cop killed. I mandated my own<br />
murder--and maybe much more.<br />
The fuzz would flick me to cover up their snuff snafu. Sinatra would seek to silence me and humble<br />
Hush-Hush. Payola played in and percolated at the periphery.<br />
I humped my Hudson Hornet to Hollywood. I hauled by Hal's Auto Dump and traded plates with a<br />
Triumph TR2. I tripped through Trancas Canyon and tricked a path through the trouble I was in.<br />
Skip Towne shot me the shit on Flash Flood. I flaunted it in Hush-Hush. My prize prose prompted the<br />
payola probe and pissed off priapic Sinatra.<br />
Sinful Sinatra sought the scent of sex citywide. His loyal lapdogs doubled as blasphemous bloodhounds.<br />
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They sniffed for snatch and snagged willing wenches out of waitress gigs and whathave-you. They latched<br />
onto Linda Lansing at a lezbo cathouse.<br />
Luscious Linda--Joi Lansing's curvy kid sister. Lounge Lizard Linda--a low-rent lollapalooza living off<br />
lesbian love. A mercenary mama now in moonlight mode in mink-coat TV ads.<br />
Linda switch-hit and once swung with lip-smacking lez Lizabeth Scott. Late-breaking lowdown: Liz still<br />
torched for their torrid love. Linda's pay-for-play delight: delirious and delectable 3-ways. The latest<br />
late-breaking lowdown:<br />
Sex-sational Sinatra--the thrill-seeking Three-Way King. He finds Linda Lansing and lures her to his lair.<br />
She throws him into the throes of three-way ecstasy. Mama mia--one man and two women waxing way<br />
out and wicked! Linda lassos Frank's libido and lays down the law: no more triad tricks until you make<br />
me a star! The King cons Sammy Cahn and has him hatch "Baby, It's Cold Inside." The tune tantalizes<br />
and titillates and ties in to Teitelbaum Furs. The King corners Flash Flood and flimfiams him and flips him<br />
a flotilla of cash. Flash is floored. He flips a tepid tune and leads Linda Lansing into the Payola Pantheon.<br />
Skip Towne skimmed me that scandal skank. It buttressed a boss back story--but left me with big<br />
questions:<br />
Bob Duhamel--BHPD. A cop co-opted to the payola probe. His BHPD buddy and some Sheriff's shill.<br />
Three cops caught up in shady and shameful shit with shaky Frank Sinatra.<br />
?????<br />
I flew by Flash Flood's flat in Flintridge. Fuck--Flood's Fleetwood sedan and a fleet of cop cars framed<br />
out front.<br />
Look--the lapdogs last seen popping shots at Pancho the Piñata. Beside them--Bob Duhamel, BHPD.<br />
Call it a Cop Conspiracy. Cop to the cost of the contretemps you created. Crawl out of the crap<br />
crashing down on you and live to launch libel again.<br />
I chanted that malevolent mantra. I charted a course to charm, cheat, chisel, and THRIVE.<br />
Laura's Little Log Cabin:<br />
A Mecca for mannish muff-munchers and fawnlike femmes as fair game. A rustic rendezvous for<br />
rapacious diesel dykes.<br />
Loin-lapping Liz Scott's happy hunting grounds.<br />
I walked in wary. She-wolves shot me shitty looks. My rabid rep preceded me and pried a pack of<br />
boss babes off of bar stools. I devastated and decimated the room.<br />
I located Liz. She was waxing weepy into a whiskey sour. I nudged into her naugahyde booth and<br />
nabbed some cocktail nuts.<br />
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Liz said, "Help yourself. They're free."<br />
I lit a Lucky out of Liz's pack. Liz laughed low and languid.<br />
"You're scum, Danny. You're a tidal wave of karmic filth and dissension. I wouldn't fuck you if I was<br />
desperate and you were a beautiful woman."<br />
Liz looked luscious on her last cover shot: LEZBOS LOLL AT LOG CABIN, LAPD TELLS<br />
HUSH-HUSH.<br />
I popped a pineapple piece out of her drink and poured it down my parched throat. Liz lit a Lucky and<br />
laid a lungful of smoke in my face. I coughed up cocktail nuts and pineapple pulp.<br />
"You're a disease that they haven't invented a name for, Danny. You're lower than cancer."<br />
I tingled. Titillation tickled me. I groaned and grew a hard-on.<br />
I said, "I always thought we might have clicked and had a swinging thing, if you had different<br />
predilections."<br />
Liz laughed light and lilting. "On the planet Pluto, baby. Sometime around the twelfth of never, but only if<br />
you dressed in drag."<br />
Ooooh, Daddy-o! She was turning me on, tumescent!<br />
I sucked my cigarette down to a cinder. Liz laughed licentious. A jukebox jerked on. Linda Lansing<br />
lilted out: "Baby, It's Cold Inside."<br />
Liz lowered her head and laid out a lake of tears. I said, "Linda's headed for shitsville, Sweetie. You<br />
know the drill on payola. Sinatra's too big to prosecute, and Flash Flood will turn State's. They'll make it<br />
look like Linda paid him to play her song, and she'll take the fall."<br />
Lonely Liz looked at me. Bar light lit up her tear tracks and tributaries. I knew she had a handle on some<br />
hot stuff to help me--very Hush-Hush.<br />
She winced and wiped her face. She whipped down the rest of her drink and chewed the cherry. She<br />
sucked the stem and stared at me. Her orbs sent me into orgasmic orbit.<br />
She said, "You want information on Linda. You'll pay for it if you have to, and you're going to try to<br />
convince me that anything I tell you won't hurt her. You know that I'll give it to you if you're convincing,<br />
so be convincing and get out, or I'll send a 300 pound butch with brass knuckles over to kick your ass<br />
out of my life."<br />
Astoundingly astute. Breathtaking brevity and bravado.<br />
I said, "I'll plant a piece that you're straight in Hush-Hush. I'll leave you alone forever. I'm in trouble with<br />
the payola thing myself, and I won't write a fucking word about Linda."<br />
Liz looked me over looooooooong. She lit another Lucky and licked a loose leaf off her lip.<br />
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Oooooh, Daddy-o! Save me from this sapphic siren!<br />
"All right, Danny. One time and one time only. Linda told me she'd put in some innings with Frank, going<br />
back to '52. She said she had some dirt on him, and she used it to get him to bribe Flash Flood into<br />
playing her song."<br />
The '52 bit bit a big hole in Skip Towne's skinny. He laid Linda and Frank out as a fresh item.<br />
I said, "Where's Linda now?"<br />
Liz said, "I don't know. I saw her a week ago, right after they announced the probe, and she said<br />
something about making a run to Tijuana for Al Teitelbaum."<br />
I liberated a Lucky and lit it. Liz lifted a leather key fob and let it list on one long finger.<br />
"2104 Berendo, off of Los Feliz. She was renting the place, and I made duplicates on the sly."<br />
I snared the keys and snapped my fingers. I winked and whistled a whiff of "One for My Baby." Liz<br />
laughed loud and let me know I was a loser.<br />
"You're not Frank, Danny, so don't even try. And I wouldn't flick you if you had a sex change and came<br />
out Rita Hayworth."<br />
I looped back to Los Feliz and ran my radio dial en route. Ring-ading--a ripe news report.<br />
". . . and here's more on the shootout at the Pacific Dining Car parking lot, which left a<br />
marijuana-peddling Mexican busboy and one LAPD officer dead."<br />
Static stung my ears. I ditzed the dial and diminished it. The newsman said, "The busboy was identified<br />
as Juan Ramon Pimentel, age 24, an illegal alien. He was the number one supplier of marijuana in the Los<br />
Angeles area and was the focus of an interagency investigation involving the LAPD, the Beverly Hills PD,<br />
and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Pimentel was cornered in the parking lot, pulled a gun,<br />
and fired at four officers. He killed LAPD Sergeant Richard D. Jackson, was fatally wounded by the<br />
officer's return fire, and. .<br />
Static browned out the broadcast. I breezed by Brewster's Newsstand on Bronson and bought a<br />
Herald-Express. Huge headlines: HEROIC COPS IN GUN BATTLE! TWO DEAD!<br />
I pored over the piece. It was officious obfuscation--doggedly dissembled with a profoundly<br />
pronounced pro-cop prejudice. Page 2 pix: John O'Grady posed with BHPD bimbo Bob Duhamel and<br />
the two police pitdogs.<br />
Jive on the "Joint Police Venture." Delirious demonization: "Dope Kingpin Pimentel." Obviously and<br />
ominously omitted in his omnipresence: wicked witness Frank Sinatra.<br />
Two cloyingly close and collusive columns down:<br />
Page 188
DA TO DROP PAYOLA PROBE.<br />
A dozen desultory lines. A perfunctory paragraph. "Lack of Evidence" and "Deemed<br />
Insufficient"--insinuating innuendo in my book. Unconscionably unmentioned: Lewd Linda Lansing and<br />
triad trick Sinatra. One paltry pic: Demon DA J. Miller Leavy--leaning into Bad Bob Duhamel. A<br />
captivating caption: "Deputy DA Leavy and Sgt. Duhamel also worked together on the celebrated<br />
Barbara Graham case."<br />
No mention of ME.<br />
My payola piece prompted the probe. My marijuana machinations mandated a massacre. I was<br />
undeniably uniquitous and ignominiously ignored.<br />
I shivered, shook, and almost shit my pants. My pulse pounded paranoically hard. I'd crusaded for truth<br />
in a Christlike fashion and crossed some invisible line. Call me crucifiable. The newspaper neglected to<br />
name my name and thus nailed me now for negation. The world wanted me dead. I violated the venal and<br />
vindicated their victims. I sodomized silly celebrities and fragged and framed them as frail. I vandalized<br />
their vulturelike souls and sold them as soulless on newsstands nationwide. I modeled myself on<br />
Mahatma Gandhi and moved beyond that motherfucker in my quixotic quest for the truth. I triumphed<br />
over trials that would mash most men to mush. I delivered disillusionment as dystopian dish and<br />
entertained, edified, and enlightened. I was a spiritual spearhead--like that spook who sparked the<br />
Montgomery Bus Boycott. Hush-Hush outhustles the Bible--at least in L.A.<br />
I was the journalistic Jesus about to get justifiably Judas'd.<br />
3<br />
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I bought a bottle of bonded bourbon. I bombed myself out of my martyrdom mode and looped by Linda<br />
Lansing's lair lickety-split.<br />
I rapidly reconnoitered. I bipped around Berendo and cruised cross streets. I noted no cop cars. I hid<br />
my Hudson Hornet behind a hydrangea hedge and popped up to the pad.<br />
It was a mock Moorish mosque in miniature. Minarets, mauve awnings, and mesquite fronds out front. I<br />
let myself in. I slipped a light switch, slammed the door, and slid into a slaughterhouse.<br />
The stomach-stinging stench of flayed flesh. Matted hair and maggot mounds on a mauve rug. Blood<br />
blips on white walls and windowpanes.<br />
Linda Lansing laid out flat on the floor. Slashed and sliced in a slit-leg gown. Sharp shiv marks and<br />
sheared tissue torn out in striated strips. Blonde hair blossomed into a blood slick.<br />
Ten fingertips torn to the tendons and burned to the bone. A hot plate hooked into a wall switch.<br />
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Scorched skin caught in the coils.<br />
I rocked, rolled, reeled, and retched on the rug. I made myself memorize the murder scene.<br />
Overturned ottomans and sofas stabbed into stuffing. Paintings pulled off walls and cut to confetti.<br />
Bookcases bumped to the floor and stomped to a stack of stale sticks.<br />
Bad burns on the body. Scorch-scarred skin. Cigarette circles. A batch of butts blended into a blood<br />
pool.<br />
Torment-inducing torture. Infernally inflicted. My inference: the inflictors intended to induce Linda<br />
Lansing into laying out something of interest. She rigorously resisted and refused to give IT up. IT was<br />
not information. Call IT concealable. The inflictors invaded the house with the intent to find where IT<br />
was. They went at it impulsively and impetuously. The implosive implication: IT was still here.<br />
I looked at Linda Lansing. I blew the corpse a kiss. My memory snapped me snapshots of Linda alive<br />
and alluring and announced an anomaly. The live Linda ran lithe. The corpse ran reduced Rabelaisian.<br />
I nudged my noggin out of necrophile notions. I bopped to a back bathroom and made for the medicine<br />
chest. I pillaged pills and concocted a chemical cocktail.<br />
Sexy Secobarbital and devilish Dexedrine. Miltown to mellow them out. A bracing Bromo-Seltzer to<br />
bring the brew to a boil.<br />
I licked up my elixir and chased it with a Chesterfield King. It chugged into me and detonated a depth<br />
charge. I deliberately and determinedly deep-sixed the house.<br />
I tore up ten rooms. I upended umpteen underwear drawers. I whipped up wall-to-wall carpets and<br />
filleted fine furniture down to fabric debris. I deconstructed daybeds, divans, and doilydraped dressers. I<br />
drained drainpipes and cleaned out clothes closets and shivved behind shelves. I beat the basement walls<br />
with a baseball bat and bored into a hot little hidey-hole.<br />
Inserted inside:<br />
A packet of pix. Glorious glossies surreptitiously shot in Sinemascope.<br />
Linda Lansing boffing boss butch Barbara Stanwyck. Steamy Stanny--still hot stuff.<br />
Linda loin-locked with Lana Turner. Woo! Woo! Salivatingly sapphic!<br />
Linda tasting tough Tallulah Bankhead. Tallulah--too much!<br />
Linda limb-linked on a lavender bedspread. Buck naked beside Barbara Graham and Al Teitelbaum.<br />
Sinful synergy. Pervasive perversion. A tricky trio trapped on filthy film.<br />
A confounding connection.<br />
A furtive fur merchant. A murder victim and a murderess who graced the green room at San Quentin. A<br />
connection to confront: Bob Duhamel did duty on the Barbara Graham case.<br />
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I pored over the pix. I stared at them and steamed them up. I dripped drool on Linda Lansing--lezzed<br />
out and lithe. A dykechotomy: her corpse ran corpulent.<br />
?????<br />
Perched by the pix:<br />
A loose-leaf ledger. Latin names listed in left-hand columns. Five-figure moneymakings mapped to the<br />
right.<br />
Martinez, Madragon, Marquez--Mex monickers. Tostado, Trejo, Tarquez--taco-heads all. Pellicar,<br />
Peja, P. Pimentel--<br />
Whoa now, wait--<br />
Juan Pimentel--the pincushion/piñata at the parking lot. The make-believe marijuana maven. The<br />
bad-luck busboy and scandal scapegoat.<br />
?????<br />
I packed the pix behind some pipes and laid the ledgers under a layer of loose linoleum. I beat feet to<br />
the back bedroom and bored through a bunch of books I'd flung to the floor. Va-va-voom--the Variety<br />
Directory for 1954.<br />
I leafed to the Ls and found "Lansing, Joi."<br />
"Actress. B. 416/2 8, Salt Lake City."<br />
I leafed to "Lansing, Linda."<br />
"Singer. B. 5/2 1/30, Salt Lake City."<br />
I looked at the Lansing listings. I perused two publicity pix. They blended blonde. They blurred and<br />
blossomed blissfully as near-identical twins.<br />
"Nice stuff. I had the better one, so I should know."<br />
A vivid voice--low and lezlike.<br />
My hackles hopped. I hurled myself around and hoped for the best. I hitched eyes with Deputy Dot<br />
Rothstein.<br />
Dildo dyke. Sheba the Sheriff's She-Dog at the Women's Jail downtown. A yenta with a yen for young<br />
cooze. A Large Marge in a man's suit.<br />
I came on cooooool. "You look good, Dot. You make me wish I was a woman."<br />
Dot shot me a boot to the balls. I belched bile and bounced to my knees. Pain pounded me.<br />
Dot said, "Stay there. I like my women in that position."<br />
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I stood up straight and strong. I flipped Dot the finger. She bent it back and bit itto the bone.<br />
Pain:<br />
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Lavishly localized. Bopping off my bit bone to my balls. Pillaging my pill-headed haze.<br />
Dot said, "Did you kill her?"<br />
I blotted blood on my blue blazer. "No, did you?"<br />
Dot handed me a hankie. "I loved her, sweet cakes. We had an occasional thing going, and we were<br />
making money together."<br />
I hankied up my hurt hand. "How?"<br />
"I was pimping her to some politicians who could do the Sheriff's Department some good."<br />
My pain pianissimoed. The Miltown mix was melting it mellifluously.<br />
Dot said, "She was shaking down Frank Sinatra. She shot him some sex, then threatened to turn him off<br />
if he didn't get her song some big play."<br />
Nix, nyet, and no way. Liz Scott shared some shakedown shit with me and laid it out large on Linda.<br />
Viably verbatim:<br />
"She'd put in some innings with Frank, going back to '52."/"She had some dirt on him, and she used it."<br />
Dot stared at me--stock still and stoic. "Care to tell me what you were thinking? And what you know<br />
about all this?"<br />
I shrugged like I didn't know shit from Shinola. Dot said, "They killed the wrong woman. That's Joi in the<br />
living room. I know Linda's body on an intimate level, and that isn't her. Joi always ran chubbier than<br />
Linda, and she had a key to the place. And if Linda's smart, which she is, she'll gorge herself on hot fudge<br />
sundaes and impersonate her sister until all this blows over."<br />
My synapses snapped to attentive attention. A theory threaded through my head.<br />
Juan Pimentel--the parking lot pincushion/piñata. P. Pimentel--the piñata's padre or partner or hellacious<br />
hermano? Liz Scott, volubly verbatim: "Linda was making a run to Tijuana for Al Teitelbaum."<br />
Teitelbaum: pornographically portrayed in Linda Lansing's love pix. Tijuana: sinfully situated a beat<br />
below the border. Joi Lansing: luridly lashed to linguine by Mexican marauders--bad-boy bandidos who<br />
botched their job and bagged the wrong bitch-- because they only spoke Spanish.<br />
Dot said, "Your wheels are turning. You're thinking up some kind of angle, and you're wondering where<br />
I fit in."<br />
I shot her a shit-eating grin. "I'm wondering what you know about a cop named Bob Duhamel, and a run<br />
to T.J. that Linda might be making for Al Teitelbaum."<br />
"Duhamel," ditzed Dot--she dipped her shoulders disingenuously.<br />
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"I don't know that cop you mentioned, but I do know that you were there when they took out that spic<br />
this morning, and I know that Al T.'s broke, and he's staging a fake fur heist to get some insurance<br />
money, and Linda was going to run the furs down to TJ. for him."<br />
My wheels whizzed, shirled, whipped, and--<br />
"Look, Danny. We're both in this, but you're in it bad. That said, I have to say that fifty Gs to the right<br />
people and some smear jobs in Hush-Hush could set you right."<br />
--wiggled like a whacked-out whirlybird.<br />
I said, "Give it to me. Straight, no chaser."<br />
Dot delivered. "Teitelbaum doesn't know who the fake heist guys will be. Linda set the scam up, and all<br />
Al knows is the time and date--6:oo P.M. on the twenty-seventh. All you have to do is beat the heist<br />
guys to the punch, move the furs to Tj., and bring me the money. Linda will be too busy playing her big<br />
sister to flick with you."<br />
SCANDAL SCRIBE SCRAPS CAREER AND CAREENS INTO CRIME! BOFFO BURGLAR<br />
SAYS, "MAKE MINE MINK!" AND MOVES TO MEXICO!<br />
I said, "Who do I dump the furs on?"<br />
Dot said, "The Chief of Police in Tj. His name's Pedro Pimentel."<br />
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I hid out at a hip hutch in Santa Monica Canyon. I crawled to Crazy Chris Isherwood and begged for a<br />
bed.<br />
Christlike Chris shot me shelter at his shitty little Shinto shrine. Crafty Chris issued the invite and<br />
predicated it on a promise:<br />
Don't hump me in Hush-Hush. Don't spin your spotlight on my homo hijinx. Don't condemn my<br />
combination kick-pad/ashram and ridicule the residents. Don't publish that picture of me with a lip lock<br />
on Liberace.<br />
I smiled smug. I crossed my heart to Chris and Christ Himself and issued an insincere promise. I hauled<br />
in my Hudson Hornet and my hop from Ben Hong's herb hut.<br />
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The ashram was a dope den and a lavender lovenest. My rambunctious roommates:<br />
Aldous Huxley--addled on absinthe, pickled on peyote, and looped on a loony Lysol called lysergic acid<br />
diethylamide.<br />
Bogie Bogart--battling the Big C with voodoo vows and peach-pit potions.<br />
Oscar Levant--levitatingly lost in laudanum and Lowenbrau lager.<br />
Sammy Davis Jr.--jigaboo-juked for pouring the pork to a white wench who went out with Walter<br />
Winchell. Winsomely COONfidential: Winchell sent some wops out to whack Sammy.<br />
Last--but not loin-longingly least:<br />
Three masochism-mauled marines marked for molestation. Deserters seeking shelter from the Shore<br />
Patrol. Prime prey for Creepy Chris.<br />
I moved in and made time to map out my mink misadventure. I lounged around in limbo.<br />
I lapped up laud anum with Levant and got high on hashish with Huxley. Chris crystallized Ben Hong's<br />
herbs and cooked up anticancer cocktails for Bogie. I watched nightly newscasts and notched<br />
nerve-wracking news.<br />
Skip Towne and Flash Flood--flattened by a fly-by-night who flipped a two-ton truck. Flash Flood's<br />
Fleetwood: torched to toast in Topanga Canyon. Rival DJs riding together? Make that murder in my<br />
magazine.<br />
No news on lush Linda Lansing and the Moorish Mosque Massacre. No poop on the payola probe and<br />
priapic Sinatra. Call that collective collusion.<br />
I called my cop contacts. I picked up poop on Pedro Pimentel.<br />
One baaaad beaner. The taco-phile Tojo of Tj.<br />
He controlled the corrupt cop corps. His cops copped coin off incarcerated inmates run in on random<br />
charges. Pedro pried their property loose. He violated their virgin daughters and made them vice vixens<br />
at the Va-Va-Voom Club. He kicked their less comely kids into cardboard casas and coerced them to<br />
work in his sweatshops. They moonlighted as wistful waifs and charmed chump change out of cheerful<br />
gringos.<br />
Pedro Pimentel owned a clap clinic and the Club Diablo--an adoringly adorned adobe hut that housed<br />
hermaphrodites and the best burro act in Baja. Pedro Pimentel smuggled smut. Pedro Pimentel<br />
pummeled pinkos and castrated Castroites out of Cuba. Pedro Pimental made nice to Nazis named at<br />
Nuremburg and assured them asylum.<br />
Pedro Pimentel fenced furs.<br />
My cop contacts dispensed more dish.<br />
Juan Pimentel was Pedro's pedophile brother. Juan bopped out of Baja behind some child-snuff snafu.<br />
Pedro put him in touch with Bad Bob Duhamel--BHPD. Bad Bob made Wicked Juan his sneaky snitch.<br />
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Wicked Juan worked at the Pacific Dining Car--a front to frame his sniveling snitchwork. Bad Bob went<br />
way back with delightful dyke Dot Rothstein. They engaged in an entrapment scheme to screw Barbara<br />
Graham--wigged out in the women's jail.<br />
Barbarous Barb was gorgeous gash and one good actress. She maintained that she didn't murder Mabel<br />
Monahan. Demon DA Miller Leavy found her fetching. He feared that she'd move the men on the jury to<br />
mush. Leavy dished up a plan to discredit her and divvied it out to Dot and Bad Bob.<br />
They went underground. They unearthed some underworld untermenschen and unleashed them on<br />
Barbarous Barb. They handed her handy alibis for 3/9/53. She bit and said she'd buy them if they bought<br />
her out of the shit. The untermenschen shot her the shaft and strode straight to Miller Leavy. Leavy levied<br />
the alibi bit against Barb. It chewed her up and helped him chalk up a convincing conviction.<br />
My cop contacts contradicted Diabolical Dot. She'd dissembled and said she didn't know Duhamel. The<br />
Barbarous Barb bit bit my brain and ditzed me to distraction. Did it play in to payola and sin-tillating<br />
Sinatra?<br />
The riddle wracked my dope-diddled head. It lanced me as I laid iow and lived it up in limbo.<br />
I ran reefer-ripped ripostes with Sammy Davis. Sammy was one sick Sambo. Maryjane made him<br />
mean-minded. He ran race riffs like a mau-mau motherfucker. He teed off on ofay oppression and<br />
segued to sepia self-hate and slick slavemaster Sinatra.<br />
Annihilating anecdotes:<br />
Frank frags Sammy at a Mob meet in Miami. Sammy sings for made Mafia men. They make him step<br />
like Stepin Fetchit and feed him fettuccine with the Cuban kitchen crew. Frank frees Sammy and eggs<br />
him into an encore: "No-Count Nigger Me."<br />
Sammy slips the schnitzel to Miss Schlitz Beer at a backstage bash for Sinatra. Sissified Sinatra sincerely<br />
thinks that he had first dibs. His chauffeur shanghais Sammy. He shunts him to Sheboygan, Wisconsin,<br />
and snouts him into a snowstorm in his snapbrim hat and skintight skivvies.<br />
Sinatra stomps onstage as Sammy creams the crowd at the Crescendo. Sammy blows a bluesy ballad<br />
and lights an L&M to look cool. The crowd cracks up. Sinatra signals a waiter. The waiter wings a<br />
watermelon up onstage. The crowd craps its pants. Sammy laughs to look like he's loving it. Frank<br />
freezes him out and wilts the room with "Willow Weep for Me."<br />
I spritzed my spin on Sinatra. Sammy succumbed to its succulence and sucked up to me. We sulked<br />
ourselves silly and sunk into a Sinatra-phobe Abyss.<br />
We hexed him with hellish hate. We shivved him with a Shinto curse that Crazy Chris cooked up. We<br />
defaced and dart-boarded all his album covers and ratched the records inside. We worked ourselves<br />
into a frenzy--frankly frantic and Francophiliacal. The fragrance of Frankincense froze us--and freed me<br />
to act.<br />
I said, "Help me steal some furs and run them down to Tj."<br />
Sammy said, "Yes, Big White Bwana."<br />
I said, "Call Frank. Make like you don't hate him, and put out some peace feelers for me."<br />
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Sammy said, "Yes, Sahib."<br />
We surreptitiously surveilled Teitelbaum Furs. We sat in Chris's Chrysler and sunk down to the dash.<br />
We wore distinct disguises.<br />
I played a Shinto shaman. Dig it: a multicolored monk's robe and sharp shades to shield my eyes.<br />
Sammy posed as a pachuco in peg pants and a cheap cholo chirt.<br />
We restlessly reconnoitered Rodeo Drive. We learned the layout. We laid lazy eyes on the fur shop and<br />
watched two lowlifes in a late-model Lincoln loop around it themselves.<br />
They looked larcenous. They looked lizardlike. They loop-thelooped and licked their lips and surveilled<br />
every surface in sight.<br />
They surveilled serpentlike. We surveilled them serviceably. They lizard-lunched at Lmnny's<br />
Delicatessen. We noshed knockwurst at the next table and tallied their talk for two days.<br />
The lizards loved liver and onions. They ordered it and ooh-lala'd and went over their plans plenty loud.<br />
They conclusively confirmed Demon Dot: the heist would hatch at 6:oo P.M. -- 12/27.<br />
We suspended our surveillance on Christmas Eve. Christlike Chris threw a party to praise the Prince of<br />
Peace.<br />
Bogie got bombed on his peach-pit potion and peppermint schnapps. He chugalugged it and chanted<br />
Chinese chants to beat the Big C. Huxley hooked down hallucinogens. He held forth and heaped<br />
judgment on Jesus. He praised that prize prick Pontius Pilate and his "Paranoid Paradigm." It pissed off<br />
Oscar Levant. Oscar opted to ossify some "Existential Eggnog." He tossed in herbs, hash hunks, and<br />
Hungarian wine. The shit sheared Crazy Chris. He spouted aphorisms and spun around aphrodisiacal.<br />
The marines lurched from his libidinous assaults and went AWOL.<br />
Sammy stayed stone sober and steamed over satanic Sinatra. He reissued his old indignities in insistently<br />
intimate detail and insisted that I listen. He flogged and flayed his own flesh bare. He catalogued<br />
catastrophic cruelties and cringed at his own compliance. He christened his crucifier the "Christmas<br />
Anti-Christ" and called him on Chris's phone.<br />
Sammy crawled to the creep. He cradled the phone and crossed himself. He would have waved<br />
wolfsbane if he'd had it.<br />
He said, "Frank says he'll meet you. You pick the time and place."<br />
I said, "The motel by the Club Diablo. Midnight on the twentyseventh."<br />
Sammy mumbled into the mouthpiece. I mused on my moment to meet Satan on his own torrid turf.<br />
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We went in well armed. We masqueraded as marines and made it a military maneuver.<br />
The marines marked for molestation left some shit at the shrine. We draped ourselves in their dress blues<br />
and packed their PX-pilfered pistols. I hid my Hudson Hornet and hot-wired a Vauxhall van. Monster<br />
masks made us menacing and marked us as men not to mess with.<br />
I went in as the Wolfman. Sammy crept in as the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We moved our<br />
minkmobile into the back lot and barged in the back door.<br />
5:46 P.M.<br />
Fourteen minutes to filch furs and fill up the van. Fourteen minutes to fuck the fur-filchers already<br />
assigned to the job.<br />
We monster-minced down a mink-lined hallway. We froze by the freezer vault. Al Teitelbaum latched<br />
eyes on us and laughed long and loud.<br />
He howled and heaved for breath. He broke a sweat and swatted his legs. He swayed and pointed to a<br />
pile of pelts on the freezer floor.<br />
He hocked into a hanky. He said, "Go, you fershtunkener furmeisters. Go, before I die of a fucking<br />
coronary."<br />
Sammy popped the pelts into a large laundry bag. I shot my eyes into the showroom. I scanned scads of<br />
sensational sables and choice chinchillas and magnificent minks. Our paltry pile of pelts paled in<br />
considered contrast.<br />
Teitelbaum said, "Hit me once, tie me up, and get out of here. Your theatrics are wearing me thin."<br />
I pulled my piece and pistol-whipped him to pulp. I decimated his dentures. Blood dripped on my dress<br />
blues.<br />
Teitelbaum tipped into dreamland. I dropped him in the freezer and gagged him with a gorgeous gaggle<br />
of furs. Sammy gloated and glared at the ofay oppressor. He muttered mau-mau musings and<br />
metamorphosed into the Creature from the Coon Lagoon.<br />
5:51 P.M.<br />
Sammy lugged the laundry bag back to the Vauxhall van. I shifted into overdrive and shot through the<br />
shop.<br />
I manhandled minks and moved them out fast. I stole stellar stacks of stoles. I glommed glorious globs of<br />
glistening fur and furnished the van tip to tailpipes. I made myself a millionaire in one machination and<br />
emancipated Sambofied Sammy.<br />
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5:57 P.M.<br />
I lashed up a last stack of stoles. The real robbers ripped through the front door--rápidamente.<br />
I froze. Sammy froze by the freezer. The real robbers shared a "Shit" look. They shook their eyes<br />
around the showroom--shabbily shorn and sacked.<br />
They whipped out Walter PPK's and popped me point-blank. My stack of stoles absorbed their ammo.<br />
The Creature from the Coon Lagoon crouched and pulled his piece. Six rounds ripped the real robbers<br />
and ratched them into a raccoon-coat rack.<br />
We wrapped the bodies in raccoon and rolled them under a rug. Sammy dug the scene and dubbed it a<br />
"Massacre in Mink."<br />
We moved our minkmobile to Mexico--mucho fast. Sammy negrofied Sinatra songs and arced them out<br />
a cappella.<br />
He verse-vilified Sinatra and lynched him with licentious lyrics. He sang scatological scat and scoffed at<br />
Frank the freewheeling freak. He excoriated and exorcised his ex-slavemaster extemporaneously.<br />
"Fly me to the moon, with my guinea goons, I ejaculate a little quick, some say I come too soon! In<br />
other words, hold my gland!"<br />
"It's a quarter to three, all I feel is hate and bad self-pity. So set 'em up, Joe, 'cause Ava left me for a<br />
well-hung Negro."<br />
"Come fly with me, come fly, come fly away! We'll abuse some squares in our Vegas lairs and pretend<br />
that we're not gay!"<br />
Sammy ripped, rocked, roiled, rolled, and resurrected his nappy-headed niggerhood. We sidled south<br />
as psychopathic sidekicks.<br />
We rolled into a rest stop and stripped to our Street clothes. We cruised south, crossed the border, and<br />
tipped into Tijuana.<br />
Dig:<br />
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Sweaty swarms of tattered toddlers tackling tourists and latching onto them leechlike. Syphilitic sailors<br />
cliqued up outside clap clinics. Punks peddling pot and peyote plants in plain sight. Vandals vending<br />
vibrating dildos and donkey show tix. Starving peons stretched out on the Street from stark starvation.<br />
Punks picking their pockets and plucking their teeth out with penknives. Hermaphroditic he-shes huddled<br />
in haphazard hordes. A chain of chancre-sored chiquitas chipping by a chop suey joint. Spiffy spic cops<br />
in natty Nazi jackboots and jet-black outfits on every corner.<br />
Oooooh, Daddy-o! I was digging it all, desensitized!<br />
We dipped by the Club Diablo. Dig the nifty neon sign: a little Lucifer with high horns and a<br />
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trident-trimmed dick.<br />
11:37 P.M.<br />
We checked into the cheesy Chinchinagua Motel and chatted up the manager. He was one choice<br />
cholo. I fed him some chump change and scammed some scalding skinny.<br />
A "Mr. Duhamel" called and confirmed his room reservation. He and his "friend Frank" would be by and<br />
bop to their back bungalow by midnight.<br />
I laid a mink coat on the Mex motherfucker. He muttered "Madre mIa" and groveled ground-low.<br />
Sammy grabbed him and laid down the law: pass us your passkey to the back bungalow and let the<br />
chumps check in. Don't mention the boss banditos who just bought you off.<br />
The Mex murmured, "Si, sí" and passed us a passkey. We bipped to the back bungalow and bopped in<br />
unbidden. I wiggled a wall switch. Light leaped on and launched cockroach convoys out of control.<br />
They bug-scuttled, buzzed, and bounced off the bed. They flipflopped and flew off the floor. They<br />
crawled and crunched like ripe Rice Krispies under our feet.<br />
11:48 P.M.<br />
We reloaded our revolvers. Sammy syphoned a syringe full of Lysol-like lysergic acid. I juked out to the<br />
van and juked back with jumper cables.<br />
We clipped the lights off and climbed into a closet. Cockroaches flipped off the floor and flew into our<br />
mouths. We gagged and hacked ourselves hoarse. We reflex-retched and bit the bastards into puslike<br />
pulp. We spat out roach residue and heard a rumble--right by the bungalow door.<br />
A V-8 voom. Tire treads grinding gravel. Vigorous voices. A key-in-door cacophony. THE Voice:<br />
"Some fucking dump. And check those bugs on the dresser."<br />
A barrel-chesty baritone: "I'll check the closet. Maybe there's some spray."<br />
I scooped up a scad of roaches and got ready to rock. Sammy popped into a pile-driver pose. The<br />
closet door swung and swept outward.<br />
I bug-bombed Bob Duhamel. Bugs buzzed into his mouth and dive-bombed down his throat and<br />
crawled all over his crew cut. Sammy slammed him in the slats and slipped his gun from his hip holster.<br />
Bad Bob flailed and flapped his hands. He belched bug bile and gurgled goo. He hit the floor hard.<br />
Sammy slipped a beavertail sap off his belt and bopped him in the balls. I unhooked his handcuffs and<br />
hitched his hands behind his back.<br />
Sinatra watched it all wicked wise. He swirled a martini and swayed sweet to some bedazzled beat. He<br />
blew smug smoke rings coooooolly concurrent. Frigidaire Frank--the hip hero and ad for greasy grace<br />
under pressure.<br />
He said, "What have we got here, the Lone Ranger and Tonto? What's shakin', kemo sabe?"<br />
Bugs bopped out of Bad Bob's mouth. Sammy slapped slivers of tape across it and muffled him mute. I<br />
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slipped the syringe out of Sammy's shirt pocket and watched shimmering shit shoot up the shaft.<br />
Sinatra said, "Are you clowns on the junk? Sambo, I'm shocked, and I may just have to snitch you off to<br />
the NAACP."<br />
I laughed and lunged at him. We collided. I got martinimottled and smoke-smacked. I grabbed a grip of<br />
greasy hair and tore off Frank's toupee. Frank squealed. I squeezed his neck and nailed my needle into a<br />
vibrating vein. I pushed the plunger and jacked jungle juice in his jugular.<br />
Sammy said, "You're in for a wild ride, Paisan."<br />
I tossed Freon Frank on the frayed bedspread. Bugs sidled on his Sy Devore suit. Frank was<br />
fricasseed, french-fried, and fresh out of cool. I froze the moment in my mind.<br />
Sammy juked the jumper cable cords out to Frank's Lincoln and whipped the hood wide. He leaned on<br />
the gas. He bolted the blue hooks to the battery box. Sparks spit out. I slid the cords under the door slit<br />
and shut us in torture-tight. Sammy tore the tape off Bad Bob's mouth. I ran the red hooks right under his<br />
eyes.<br />
Sparks spun out and spanked him. They sizzled and singed and browned his brows.<br />
Frank said, "I am personal friends with many well-placed men in La Cosa Nostra."<br />
Bad Bob said, "You wouldn't dare."<br />
I hitched the hooks to his hands and hurled him some horsepower. He vibrated to V-8 volts and flapped<br />
on the floor.<br />
I unhitched the hooks and watched him undulate. I said, "All of it. No lies and no omissions."<br />
Bad Bob shook with the shimmy-shimmy shock-induced shakes--and flew with a flinty, "Fuck you."<br />
I anchored the hooks to his ankles. Bad Bob buckled and bent back and did a spectacular spine-spin.<br />
I unhooked the hooks. I heard him ululate. His pelvis popped. His legs lashed. He spasm-spun and spit<br />
sparks.<br />
Sammy said, "Dig it!" He was hopped up on honky hate. He looked like that jigabooJomo Kenyatta.<br />
Freon Frank was frazzled in fright. The acid was assimilating assiduously.<br />
Bad Bob yipped and yelled, "All right!"<br />
I bent low. Bad Bob blurted and blubbered at me. His tongue and teeth palpitated off his palate and<br />
pried out words prestissimo:<br />
"Linda blew everything when she shook down Frank to get her song some play--then Skip Towne got<br />
hip to it and tipped you off--and you wrote your piece in Hush-Hush--and Miller Leavy read it and<br />
figured that Frank's name would give him some flicking marquee value--and he could get a probe<br />
going--but then he learned what Linda really had on Frank and got fucking scared-- and I don't know<br />
what that was, but. . ."<br />
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Leavy and Bad Bob bopped back to the Barbara Graham case. Dot Rothstein ran with them. Liz Scott<br />
scoffed at the skinny that Linda and Frank were fresh stuff. She tattled the truth to me. She said, "Linda<br />
and Frank had innings going back to '52"/"Linda had some dirt on him, and she used it."<br />
Barbaric Barb murdered Mabel Monahan. The date of doom: 3/9/53.<br />
?????<br />
I bent down to Bad Bob's level. I waved my cable hooks. I caught a wiff of scorched skin.<br />
"Does the dirt that Linda has on Frank pertain to the Barbara Graham case?"<br />
Bad Bob nodded No and went knock-kneed. My internal lie detector measured him as mendacious. I<br />
hitched my hooks to his nose.<br />
He danced. He did the Voltage Voom and the Convoluted Convulsion. He did the Stultified Stomp and<br />
the Sinful Sizzle and the Gyroscope Gyration. He did the Tijuana Termination Tango--<br />
I unhitched the hooks.<br />
Bad Bob blubbered, blathered, and bled. I renamed him Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.<br />
Sammy said, "Dig it!"<br />
Frank squirmed and squealed, "Mommy!"<br />
Bad Bob almost bought it. I couldn't kill him yet. He played into my Pedro Pimentel plan.<br />
I said, "Lay out the rest of it."<br />
Bad Bob noodled his nose on the floor and fluffed out a follical flame. He ffipped away from me and laid<br />
it out largo:<br />
"Linda Lansing runs shakedowns on politicians in L.A. with Dot Rothstein. Pedro Pimentel--the Police<br />
Chief down here-- he bankrolls them. The spic we shot in the parking lot was Pedro's kid brother--he<br />
was a plant at the Dining Car--but I didn't know that. Lots of lawyers and politicians eat at the Car and<br />
talked around him because they thought he didn't speak English--and Miller Leavy picked up lots of tips<br />
that way. Getchell you fuck-- you pulled that fucking reefer number and flicked things up--and Frank<br />
fucked things up by insisting that we kick your ass at the Car--and I don't know where Linda is--and her<br />
and Dot are into all kinds of shady shit--and all this started because we didn't want Linda to spill what<br />
she had on Frank--and I came down here to frost you out and frost things out with Pedro 'cause we<br />
killed his fucking brother by accident and. . . and. . . we.. . tr-tr-tr . . ."<br />
His traumatized transmission trailed off into trills. He passed out from aftershock affliction.<br />
He didn't know that Linda Lansing slid off to Slice City. He didn't label Linda as an heistress hot to<br />
move millions in mink. He refused to reveal the ripe revelation now ripping me:<br />
Frantic Frank and Barbaric Barb.<br />
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?????<br />
Frantic Frank squirmed and squealed, "Mommy!" His eyes: blurred blue and dialated from diethylamide.<br />
Sammy said, "Dig it!"<br />
Frank Sinatra:<br />
Uncontrollably uncool. Umbilically unattached and hopelessly unhip from here to Hoboken.<br />
He moaned for his mama. He mewed for his Mafia mentor "Momo" Giancana. He pounded his pillows<br />
and petitioned Raymond L. S. Patriarca--the prize prick with the Providence Mob.<br />
Sammy tortured and tormented him. Sammy shanked him for the shit he shot his way. Sammy shucked<br />
him on his wives and the way they wanted it wild and blasphemously black. Frank moaned for mama and<br />
made mea culpa motions and put out papist pleas to Pope Pius.<br />
I dipped over to the Diablo Club. I downed some Dos Equis and bought some boss burro act artifacts.<br />
A cook cooked me up some cat-meat carnitas to go. A burro handler hipped me to Pedro Pimentel's<br />
private number.<br />
I called the taco-phile Tojo of T.J. and told him I had Teitelbaum's furs. I tantalized him and told him I<br />
took down ten times Linda Lansing's take. Tojo told me to meet him tomorrow. I said I'd slide by his<br />
slave camp and move in my mountain of mink. Tojo told me he'd measure the mound and meet me with<br />
mucho money.<br />
I moseyed back to the motel. Frank was moaning for mama. Sammy was making like the Marquis De<br />
Mau-Mau. I booted Bad Bob into the bathroom and fed him the cat-meat carnitas. He went at it<br />
carnivorously. I didn't want him to die. I had to toss him to Tojo before he purchased a pass on Pancho<br />
the Pedophile.<br />
I loped out to the lilac Lincoln and ran the radio. I latched onto an L.A. station and lucked out on a<br />
late-nite newscast. No news: nothing on the massacre in mink or lashed Linda Lansing. My bet: Bad<br />
Bob's boys in the BHPD buried it all. I could buy out of my bind and wave bye-bye with a big bundle of<br />
cash.<br />
Noxious night air noodled my noggin. Some thread in my theories thrashed and threatened to lash my<br />
logic on the Linda Lansing end. My brain broiled. My mind misfired. I couldn't cook a contradiction up in<br />
context.<br />
I noxiously night-dreamed. I ran the radio dial and got reverential with Rachmaninoff. I pictured a perfect<br />
world.<br />
I deliver the dough to Dot Rothstein and pay off my perfidies. I pop down to Paraguay and purchase a<br />
palace and some peons. I instigate indentured servitude. I install myself as El Jefe. I spawn the spic<br />
Hush-Hush--Husho-Husho en Espaflol. El Presidente Strongman Stroessner stridently defends me. I<br />
defame the democratic-minded devils out to oust him. I slather slander in a land with no libel laws. I lance<br />
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libidinous Latins and lynch leftist losers in print. I pride myself as a prime anticommie. I hobnob with<br />
nervous Nazis assimilated in Asunción. I hump their halfspic/half-nordic, radically race-mixed and<br />
ravishing daughters. I spot a special Hush-Hush Hilda. She hatches a hole in my heart. I build the<br />
Berchtesgaden West as our love lair. We breed a brood of bright little Getchellites. I give them thick<br />
thesauruses on their first birthdays.<br />
Oooooh, Daddy-o! I was digging it all, dystopian!<br />
I bopped back to the bungalow. I freeze-framed Frigidaire Frank--<br />
He was beaming bemused and be-bop beatific. His blue eyes blazed and blended with fabric flecks on<br />
his shiny sharkskin suit. He bowed and bestowed a benediction.<br />
"I forgive you your transgressions, for I have been to the high mountaintop. I am the way and the truth<br />
and the life. Walk with me and you shall not walk alone."<br />
Sammy said, "That acid shit misfired. The motherfucker thinks he's Jesus."<br />
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Tojo's burritofied Buchenwald:<br />
Five football fields under a tortilla-tamped tin roof. A sunken sun magnet in the middle of a massive<br />
mesa. Nine hundred niflos broiled brown. Bright-eyed brats brought in to sew serapes and loom<br />
lacework and shear sheet metal into shiny souvenirs for burro show sharpies. Labor by lathe, loom, and<br />
laundry press. Stoop work at standing stations. Slaves slotted down fifty rows roamed by rough boys<br />
with bullwhips and Bulgarian machine guns.<br />
Kiddie casas off cattycorner. Corrugated cardboard--courtesy of Carl's TV in Carlsbad, California.<br />
Facing Maladroit Mesa:<br />
A barbed-wire bordered baby White House built to 1/10 scale.<br />
Righteous replication. Exquisite external detail. A lush lawn that led down to Slave City.<br />
The lawn did double duty as an unpaved parking lot. I pulled up behind a beanerized Buick and a<br />
frijolified Ford., I felt felicitously fit and joyfully jingoistic. Tojo was flying a flag. His lusty little Lucifer<br />
was trimmed in tricolored lace. I flipped him a salacious salute.<br />
The joint was jumping jackrabbit high.<br />
A bonaroo buffet boded by the barbed-wire boundary. Bullwhips bit bullet-loud. Mangled muchachos<br />
moaned and mewed, "Mamacita!" Blackshirted blowhards lounged on the lawn and swicked<br />
switchblades into the grass.<br />
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I vipped out of the van. I hauled Bad Bob out by the hair. Sammy made a mountain of mink and moved<br />
it onto the lawn. The Juke Box Jesus was rope-wrapped and mouth-muted and mummified in mink. He<br />
could suffer and suffocate. He could vegetate in the van. He didn't play in my plan.<br />
Sammy sealed him in safe and soundless. A blackshirt blizzard hit the Mink Matterhorn.<br />
They reveled and rolled like dogs in the dirt. They mauled mink and salivated on sable. They grabbed<br />
and grass-stained and chewed up choice chinchilla.<br />
A shadow shot over Mink Mountain and shaded in shiveringly. Pedro Pimentel--the tostadofied Tojo<br />
and menudoized Mussolini.<br />
A spiffy spic. A blackshirted blackguard with blackhead pits and bad teeth. A jackbooted jackal not to<br />
jive with.<br />
He said, "Stop."<br />
The blowsy blackshirts stopped and stood at attention.<br />
He turned to me. "Mr. Getchell?"<br />
I said, "In the flesh." I hair-hauled Bad Bob over to him.<br />
"He killed your kid brother. I'm giving him to you as a getacquainted bonus."<br />
Bad Bob boohooed and begged for his life. Pimentel pulled a pistol and popped him in the pineal gland.<br />
He sheared off six more shots and shaved his crew cut down to a crease.<br />
Sammy said, "Dig it!"<br />
Pimentel reholstered his heater. "You look like the American entertainer, Sammy Davis, Jr."<br />
I said, "That's 'El Negrito.' He's a torpedo for a nigger mob in South L.A."<br />
Sammy said, "What's shakin',Jefe?"<br />
Pimentel patted his paunch. "Quite a remarkable resemblance. Come, I will give you a tour before we<br />
eat."<br />
We whipped through the White House. The façade was fetching and faithful to our founding fathers'<br />
design. The inside was lusciously Latinate and refreshingly revisionistic.<br />
The rooms resembled rat-traps on Route 66. Jefe housed his hermanos herd-style. They bunked in<br />
six-bed bunkers hung with burro act artwork. Dingo dogs and Dobermans dashed down the halls and<br />
defecated dolorously.<br />
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They lived in the Lincoln Bedroom. The Lincoln portraits were painted by Pedro Pimentel. El Jefe<br />
altered Abe and changed him to a cholo in a '52 Chevy.<br />
The dog den opened into the Oval Office. The lewd little Lucifer leered on a lusciously loomed lavender<br />
rug. A heavy-hung hound was humping a chewed-up Chihuahua. A Pekingese was pissing on Pedro<br />
Pimentel's papers.<br />
The Rose Room stood in as a stall for the stars at the classy Club Diablo. Dig the hip heaps of hay! Dig<br />
the trough tricked up with the devil dick design! Dig the donkeys dozing in postcoital peace!<br />
The Roosevelt Room was a gun range. The John Adams Room adjoined it at a rigid right angle. It was<br />
Pedro Pimentel's private party pad.<br />
A faux fur--flocked floor. Sheet-shrouded walls to smother with smut films projected prick-primingly.<br />
Presidential artwork by El Jefe:<br />
Abigail Adams on dowager dyke Eleanor Roosevelt. Pat Nixon knob-noshing FDR--wigged out in his<br />
wheelchair.<br />
Oooooh, Daddy-o! Save me from this pixilated Picasso!<br />
We bopped out to the buffet behind the barb-wire fence. We feasted in full view of the slave kids. El<br />
Negrito and I flanked El Jefe. Bloated blackshirts blipped down and joined us.<br />
Mink Mountain moldered in the sun. Flies flitted on the fur and flew off. A blowsy blackshirt brought me<br />
500 Gs in a mink moneybag. I pitched Pimentel my plan to pop down to Paraguay and seek Paradise.<br />
He said he'd set me up with Strongman Stroessner.<br />
We ate with unique utensils. We stabbed our meat with stilettos and tore our tortillas with Texas<br />
toad-stickers. We shivved shiny apples and swacked at our sweetbreads with switchblades. We slung<br />
slivers of food over the fence at the slaves. They slathered and scrapped over scraps. Blackshirts blasted<br />
them with their bullwhips and bullied them back to work.<br />
El Jefe held forth--on himself. He ran down his rackets like a rabid raconteur. He shared shit on his<br />
shakedown scam and said he stored his blackmail bait in the basement of the Club Diablo. He raved<br />
about Dot Rothstein and lavished praise on Linda Lansing. He said he'd loooove to chuck his chorizo on<br />
Linda the next time he laid up in L.A. He'd looooove to jabJoi Lansing, too.<br />
My brainwaves broiled, bristled, and brought forth that contradictory connection.<br />
Joi Lansing--lashed to lo mein in Linda Lansing's L.A. lair. My take: Tojo sent two taco heads up to lash<br />
Linda and pry a priceless SOMETHING off the premises. The spics spoke no English. They butchered<br />
the wrong bimbo.<br />
But--<br />
Tojo talked like he loooooved Linda. Like he'd love to loooove her AGAIN. Like he didn't think she<br />
got shanked to Shiv City. He said he'd love to jab Joi Lansing--like he didn't know she got mashed to<br />
mulch by mistake.<br />
Which proved the priceless SOMETHING had to be SOMEWHERE.<br />
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?????<br />
We stabbed steaks with our stilettos. We shucked oysters with our shivs. We toasted Tojo. We drank<br />
to a dreary drumroll of dictators and despots. Tojo twirled a little Lucifer key ring--and clipped a clear<br />
chord in my head.<br />
We toasted Bad Boy Batista. We toasted Patriarch Perón. A blackshirt blasted to his feet and blanched<br />
brown to bright white.<br />
He said, "Hay-soos Christo." Elegant echoes eddied behind the barbed wire. Wasted waifs whispered:<br />
"Hay-soos Christo."<br />
"Hay-soos Christo."<br />
"Hay-soos Christo."<br />
The whispers whipped into worshipful wails. Blasphemous blackshirts blew the blessing out in synergistic<br />
sync. I stood up stunned and stung by the fragrance of Frankincense.<br />
The Juke Box Jesus. Re-resurrected in Rayban shades and a wild white sheet. Re-toupeed and regal in<br />
lizard loafers and a crazy crown of thorns whipped up from wires and widgets and White House<br />
whatnots.<br />
He walked our way. He waved a transistor radio vandalized from the van. "Ave Maria" ate up the<br />
air--off the album "AllTime Hits" by Craig Crawford's Christian Chorale.<br />
He walked our way. He oozed optimum oomph. Juke Box Jesus outworks God at the Galilee Lounge in<br />
Las Vegas. He slid on his slick lizard loafers and lurched levitatingly.<br />
He sliced and sluiced our way. He wiggled on wet grass. He warbled, "I grant you your freedom!"<br />
Nine hundred niños went nuts. They stampeded--stigmata stained and hurled by the Holy Spirit.<br />
They gored the guards. They tore at them with the tools they toiled with. They beat them with ball-peen<br />
hammers and hacked them with sheet-metal shears. They bullwhipped them and machetified them with<br />
machine-gun fire. They barged into the barbed-wire barrier barbarically strong. They ran though it<br />
razor-wracked and idolatrously indifferent.<br />
Sammy said, "Dig it!"<br />
The fence flew up and flattened the buffet table. Two dozen blackshirts went down wire whipped and<br />
barbed in the balls. Tojo took it all in. He stood trenchantly transfixed. He put his pistol to his teeth and<br />
tripped the trigger. I dodged whizzing wires and picked his pockets. I lifted the little Lucifer key ring.<br />
Machine-gun fire torqued the table and tore it to tidbits. My mink moneybag was flayed to fur flecks.<br />
My half-million got bullet-burned and scrip-scrapped and devalued to a micro-dime on the dollar.<br />
I vaulted up to the van. Sammy ran up rápido. Stigmata-stung muchachos stuck machine guns in the air<br />
and mowed down malevolent spirits. A group gravitated up to Mink Mountain. My stole stash was<br />
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stripped to strings by stray bullets.<br />
Sammy said, "Dig it!"<br />
I sought out Savior Sinatra. I saw him swaying sweet in his sharp shades and sheet. He was smiling smug<br />
and smoking a cigarette. He was righteously and re-resurrectedly cooooooooool.<br />
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I lost my mink and my money. My psycho sidekick succumbed to the Savior and re-Sambofied himself<br />
resurrectionally.<br />
I remained a Hush-Hush heretic and hauled to T.J. I left Juke Box Jesus and his jig John the Baptist at<br />
their cut-rate Calvary. Frank was serving up the Sermon on Mex Mountain. Ring-ading--nine hundred<br />
niflos noncomprehending. No way for them to grok and groove "Clip Me, Clyde" and "Baby, You're<br />
Knocking Me Numbsville."<br />
Dig it, distinct:<br />
It didn't matter. The motherfucker made magic and charmed children into mass murder.<br />
I dipped up to Club Diablo. I stashed my van by some burro stalls and stood by the basement door. I<br />
tried Tojo's keys. Number two tickled the lock and let me in.<br />
I latched it behind me. I swicked on a wall switch and laid some light in. A long corridor led to a<br />
crud-crusted crawl space.<br />
The corridor reeked of cordite and caustic chemicals. I coughed and caught sight of hipbones and<br />
hair-hanks in a hardened heap. Blood blips and flesh flaps flared out flat on the walls.<br />
Tojo's torture chamber.<br />
Quivering quiet upstairs. No delighted donkeyphile dementia. The club might be closed. Tojo's minions<br />
might have caught word on the coup at Calvary.<br />
I walked wary. I crept into the crawl space. I skivved my way through skeletons and scooted through<br />
scorched scalps. I squealed and squirmed into another hipbone-heaped hallway.<br />
I saw a dust-covered door. I ratched keys into a rusty lock. Key number three tumbled the tumblers. I<br />
tumbled into a tunnel-like enclosure.<br />
Shelves shot floor to flat ceiling. Film cans filled them up. Tape strips were stuck to the edges. Date<br />
designations blipped out in black block print.<br />
Bolted to the back wall: a rust-ratched movie magnification machine.<br />
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The cans were crammed in chronologically. The dates dipped back to 1936. I started there and shot my<br />
eyes shelf to shelf.<br />
I hit 3/9/53. The date distracted me. I got dizzy. My memory mailed me a message: the Mabel Monahan<br />
murder.<br />
I pulled out the film. I slid a slice under the slide on the movie magnifier. I looked in the lens. I thrilled to<br />
the throes of the Three-Way Supreme.<br />
Freon Frank Sinatra.<br />
Avid Ava Gardner.<br />
Barbaric Barbara Graham.<br />
Surreptitiously shot shakedown shit. An extortion extravaganza. The blackmail blight of all time.<br />
I fed film and sliced it under the slide. I shared the sheets with a shimmering cast and spun under their<br />
spell. I popped a posthumous pardon on Barbaric Barb.<br />
She didn't murder Mabel Monahan. She had an all-star alibi for 3/9/5 3. Linda Lansing learned about it.<br />
She shook down Freon Frank and had him pay her off with payola. Bad Bob and Demon Dot--in league<br />
with Devil DA Leavy on the Graham case. His conviction: contaminated by the contents of the film can.<br />
Call it a cause célèbre--the can could lay L.A. law enforcement laughingstock low--Leavy pulled the plug<br />
on the payola probe for that reputation-ruining reason.<br />
It ALL congealed and constellated. A special spark spoke to my spirit. Call it the Sermon on Mount<br />
Monahan.<br />
Barbaric Barb the martyred madonna.<br />
Who refused to rat off Frigid Frank and Avid Ava as her alibi. Who died in deference to the deification<br />
confirmed at the cutrate Calvary.<br />
Who jumped off the jury and did not Judas the Juke Box Jesus.<br />
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The kiddie coup went commie. The cops quelled it quicksville.<br />
I filched five film cans and trawled TJ. for Jesus and Jungle John. I hit some hot spots and ran up against<br />
the Red Revolt in retreat.<br />
Malnutrition-mauled muchachos moped down the main drag. They lurched and lisped leftist slogans.<br />
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They slung empty machine guns and stumbled with the weight--withered waifs who wasted their wad at<br />
the White House.<br />
They staggered and stumped for pickled plantains on every plate. They lashed out at laissez-faire labor<br />
laws and slandered slavery. They sideswiped soldiers and sailors. They agitated against Uncle Sam. They<br />
propagandized prostitutes. They chanted and chastised the cholos who made Mexico great. They beat<br />
their balls into an uproar and ran out of Red rancor. They hit the street from heat stroke one by one.<br />
The local cops let them run raucous and run out of steam. They didn't muscle them or mow them down<br />
and martyr them. They made like that Martin Luther King motherfucker. They put out passive resistance<br />
and popped the little putzes into paddy wagons. Pedro Pimentel's successor would subsidize their<br />
rigorous reeducation.<br />
They succumbed to Sinatra in one magic moment of misplaced identity. They couldn't sustain their<br />
subversion without him.<br />
I said vaya con dios to the Vauxhall van and freed Frank's lilac Lincoln. I hit the hip whorehouses and<br />
the jai alai games and buzzed by the bullfight ring. I saw Sambo and the Savior at the Salamander Club<br />
and dipped by on disingenuous instinct.<br />
Frank looked freon-fresh and crisply non-Christlike. His gracious greeting: "Getchell, you cocksucker,<br />
what are you doing here?"<br />
Sammy marched me into the men's room and revealed the reverse metamorphosis.<br />
Frank collapsed cold on Mink Mountain. He woke up wigged out and wondered where he was. His lost<br />
days lapped back to L.A. and the snuff snafu. He did not recall his re-resurrection and his acid-induced<br />
atavism. He was pissed at my piece on the payola probe--properly so. Sammy said he propagandized<br />
the prick. Bygones as bygones--let's bop back to L.A.<br />
Sammy's pulverizing punch line:<br />
"He is the Christ, Danny. I know you think it's all some kind dope fluke, but it's not. I'm back with him<br />
now, and I'll always be with him, and thank God he doesn't know that I betrayed him."<br />
We buzzed up to the border. We quaffed Cuervo from the bottle and bit bitter limes. Re-Sambofied<br />
Sammy chauffeured and shucked and jived. I daydreamed and disdained his Christ crap.<br />
Fuck Frank the Freewheeling Freak. I had the 3/9/5 3 fuck film and four more. I had Governor<br />
GoodwinJ. Knight and his nigger nurse. I had Diana Dors and a dipshit who delivered her pizza. I had<br />
Dan Dailey in a daisy chain and Mickey Mantle and Marilyn Monroe in the men's room at the Mocambo.<br />
That meant MONEY in my tote tucked in the trunk.<br />
Frank tippled tequila and licked lime and blue-eye blitzed me. It rankled and roughed up my ego. I<br />
bored back with my beady browns. Our brainwaves bristled and telescoped telepathically.<br />
Frank hopped in my head. He crept around my cranial crevices and crisscrossed my crazily wired wig.<br />
He verbally vandalized me. He thumped me with a thick thesaurus and alliterated with alacrity. Literal<br />
lightning flares flew between our foreheads and threw out huge thuds of thunder. Synaptic syncopation<br />
singed the seats we sat on. We communicated in capsulized containment. Samboized Sammy sat there<br />
and didn't see or hear shit.<br />
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Frank Freud-frappéed me and undid my unconscious. I shared my chickenshit childhood in Chillicothe,<br />
Ohio. We commiserated. He communicated his kid conundrums contrapuntally. I sunk down<br />
syncophantic. We negotiated a nonaggression pact. I said I'd never hurl him hurt in Hush-Hush. Frank<br />
Freud-frappéed and freed himself. He conflagratingly confessed his love for nonbarbaric Barbara<br />
Graham.<br />
He was addlepatedly and adoringly in love with awful Ava Gardner. Ava liked to lez once in a soft<br />
sapphic moon. Hubert Humphrey hipped them to thrilling three-way thrush Barb. The triad trick went<br />
down Ofl 3/9/53. The soft siren syphoned his soul off Ava as they all linked limbs on luscious lilac sheets.<br />
He capitulated. He commandeered himself into captivity. La Graham graced him with three grateful<br />
months. He left avid Ava in the lilac lurch. The scandal rags read it wrong and said she spun out for<br />
Splitsville. The cops mistakenly made Boss Barb for the Mabel Monahan murder. Sinatra stormed out to<br />
straighten her strait. Boss Barb interceded and interdicted him. She said his alibi would annihilate him and<br />
annex him from the world he wowed and rang ring-a-ding. Her death would not diminish them. She<br />
possessed preternatural powers. She could dip into them dispensationally and deify him beyond his<br />
catastrophically cool charisma.<br />
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She died and did it.<br />
Doubt ditzed me. Scandal-scribe skepticism scrawled itself out in telltale telepathy. Frank scrolled a<br />
resounding response: "Don't you dig me, Dad?" I screwed up and scrawled back: "Jesus, I'm not sure."<br />
Frank snapped his fingers. The trunk door trembled and leaped off the lilac Lincoln. My tote bag tipped<br />
out and popped to the pavement. Two mangy muchachos materialized and moseyed up to it.<br />
Frank said, "It's my world. Even God knows that."<br />
L.A. paled pallid next to torrid Tj. I loped by Linda Lansing's lair and let myself in with Liz Scott's key.<br />
No blood. No maggot mounds. No cool corpus delicti. No living room ratched and wrecked past<br />
recognition.<br />
Dot Rothstein wrapped in a man-sized muumuu. The NEW Joi Lansing lez-locked on her lap.<br />
A headline hopping off a heap of Heralds chucked by their chair:<br />
SINGER LANSING FOUND IN HOLLYWOOD HILLS. CORONER CITES DECOMPOSITION<br />
AND RULES CAUSE OF DEATH UNKNOWN.<br />
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The girls giggled. They looked me over looooooong. The live Lansing licked crumbs off her lips.<br />
I said, "I don't have the fifty Gs. Things went bad down in Mexico."<br />
Dot dipped into an ice-cream dish and chomped some chocolate chips.<br />
"Frank squared it for you. He called Miller Leavy and told him you were kosher. Miller called off the<br />
BHPD and told them to hang the fur job on Al Teitelbaum. And as far as they're concerned, those heist<br />
guys you killed didn't exist."<br />
The REAL Linda Lansing toyed with a toll-house cookie. She'd popped on some porky pounds to<br />
portray her pudgy sister. The coffee table was covered with candy cartons and cruller crusts and<br />
doughnut debris.<br />
I said, "You killed Joi. You were in way too deep with way too many people, and you needed a way<br />
out. You rented this place to set up your murder scene. You trashed it to make it look like the killers<br />
were looking for something. Then I came along and saw the body, so you decided to dump it in the hills<br />
to queer the cause of death."<br />
Dot dive-bombed a devil's-food doughnut. "Mention money, Danny. We've been expecting you, and we<br />
know you didn't come up here to moralize."<br />
I said, "Money."<br />
Dot drowned her doughnut in Drambuie-drenched coffee. "He said 'money."<br />
Lansing lanced a ladyfinger and sunk it into Sambuca. "He certainly did."<br />
I said, "Cut the comedy, cuties." I framed the line a la Frigidaire Frank at his frostbitten best.<br />
Dot pulled a packet of pix from her purse and popped them my way. I snared the snapshots out of the<br />
air and snagged myself in a snafu.<br />
Danny Getchell--film-fucked forever.<br />
I'm humping the Hush-Hush--hated Helen Gahagan Douglas-- the Lewd Lady of the L.A. Left. I'm<br />
jabbing some jailbait in the gym at Hollywood High. I'm ecstatically entwined with Ethel<br />
Rosenberg--somewhere in Sedition City. I'm holed up with Hattie McDaniel at the height of my fatty<br />
phase. I'm liquored up and looking longingly at Lassie and her luscious littermate. I'm skunk drunk in a<br />
skid-row dive. I'm passed out on a putrid pallet. A filthy filly is fellating me. FUCK--it's a dreg-like drag<br />
queen draped dramatically!<br />
Dot dunked her doughnut and doused me with John Donne:<br />
"Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."<br />
I hit my knees hard. I concentrated on a karmic counterattack. I couldn't cough one up.<br />
I whimpered. I wailed. I keened and keeled over. I cried and cringed, and crawled into an abyss of<br />
abasement.<br />
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White light wafted in. I shot to my feet on a shimmering shaft. His voice vibrated off an old Victrola<br />
vaulted in my head. It yipped through me victoriously.<br />
I vowed to roll with the punch and reign on ring-a-ding.<br />
February, March 1999<br />
About this Title<br />
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