Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales

by James Ellroy

  I saw a paved parking patch. I popped by Packards and Pontiacs. I detoured by Daimlers and Dodge coupes. I jumped in the back of Jingo Jack’s Jag.

  I nuzzled under some newspapers. I cringed craven and cried out to Christ. The ignition ignited. The Jag jumped. Jerky Jack ratched rubber and ran a rabid rosary.

  The Jag jammed. Jack razzed us out of Rio Ricondo. I latched onto a lug wrench. I creased Jack’s crewcut crisp. His cranium cracked. I crawled into the front seat. I whipped the wheel and braced the brake and clawed at the clutch. I jerked the Jag into a ditch.

  Jack was wedged into a wind wing. He sniveled. Snot snuck out of his nose. Blood blended in. His scalp was scoured down to his skull.

  I said, “Tell me, Daddy-o. All of it.”

  Jack jabbered. “It’s fucking Parker. He’s had these fucked-up plans since ’54. He thinks this Bum Blockade lox is a winner. It’s his power play. He’s got dirt on Taylor and Scott. They were boning that queer you killed. Parker coerced them into the flick. He wants to shove Bill Knowland and Goody Knight out and run Taylor and Scott for governor and the Senate. He thinks the voters want heroes. He wanted to get Ronnie Reagan, but that geek’s too fucking boring and clean to extort.”

  I jabbed Jack in the genitals. “What’s Parker’s pet vice? That sick hump’s got to have one.”

  Jack laughed licentious. “He doesn’t have one, you fucking parasite, so you’ve got no way to hurt him.”

  4.

  The metaphysic mauled me. No vulgar and vacuous vices.

  The notion noodled my noggin. It nattered and negated and hatched holes in the Hush-Hush aesthetic. Humans humped and howled and hid their most hideous secrets. Men made mince-meat out of moral vows and pronged their pricks primeval. I stood steadfastly strong in my rector’s rectitude. I delivered disillusionment as dystopian dish. I crucified crafty creeps and crowned myself Christlike. My magazine mandate: Track and trumpet the truth triumphant.

  I holed up in the Hawkshaw Hotel in Hawthorne. I hooked down hair tonic and buzzed behind Benzedrine. Jack Webb was chained to a chair. I doped him down and delivered him docile. I hooked him on heroin and closed him up in a closet.

  I was full-sized fucked. I had to frag myself free of the fruit-hustler frame and lunge from the lurch. I had to whip a wedge on William H. Parker.

  My brain broiled down to my brows. My synapses simmered. The voices of various vices violated me.

  Vile vocations. Vigorously venal—

  It Hush-Hush hit me.

  Call Cal Conners—that putzy pedophile at Pacific Bell. Pull Parker’s phone-call file.

  I called Cal. I owned him. I snared him out of a snuff-flick snafu. Cal collared the call sheets and called me back collect.

  He ran down a numbing nab of names and numbers. Cops and coroners. Contractors and congressmen. Conservative columnists and dithering dictators in the D.R. I daydreamed. I dozed. I licked my lips and lopped lice off my balls.

  Cal said, “I saved the best for last. Parker called Minnie Roberts’s Casbah thirty-four times in the past two years.”

  The Casbah—a cool coon cathouse in Compton. A sepia sin spot. Jungle jazz and jive. A race mixer’s rendezvous. Man-o-Manischewitz—a mecca for miscegenation!

  Bim, bam, bingo—it ALL cohered copacetic.

  Pat Brown capered at the Casbah. Call it calm—Confidential caught Pat with two Congo cuties. June ’55—DEMOCRAT DALLIES WITH DUSKY DELIGHTS.

  Ooooooooh, Daddy-o! I was reining it in, repugnant!

  THE CASBAH CAROUSED by night. Ten hot-sheet holes above a sweltering sweatshop.

  I breezed through in broad daylight. Luscious Latinas cut condoms on long latex looms. I undulated upstairs. I moseyed by Minnie’s office. I jacked the janitor up and bought him off with a big bag of boo. He opened the office and bid me bye-bye.

  I dissected the desk. I dragged out the drawers and culled the cubbyholes. No ripe rosters or ledgers and lists.

  I flung up the floor rug. Flies flicked on a flat safe. I ditzed the dial and notched numbers. I caught the combination.

  I hooked up the handle. I dug deep and latched on a ledger. I pawed pages and pounced on Pat B. and Bill Parker.

  Minnie Roberts wrote rancorous notes. She patronized Pat Brown. She parodied Parker.

  Pat poked haughty high yellows. Pat politicized as he poked. Pat put out his policies to Polly and Pauline—two quixotic quadroons. Pat talked too much. Parker picked up on his penchant. Parker’s pet pit dogs manhandled Minnie. They enterprisingly entrapped her. Minnie was mush. Parker’s pits bugged Pat’s regular room. Parker policed Pat’s passion and heard him address his agenda. A wicked woman stenographer stood by and notched notes. Name it now—Pat popped off about his private probe of the LAPD. Parker puckered and pocketed the data. He hatched his hokey hero plan. He pollinated politicians. He seeded seedy movie stars and blackmailed them blasphemously. Bum Blockade— priceless propaganda. Starring roles for two steamy stallions stamped for the statehouse and Senate.

  I chewed on a checked entry. Ping—Pat was poking Polly at 8:00 tonight.

  I went to work. I toked some tea with the janitor and assured his assistance. We coursed through the Casbah.

  I tossed tools and tore through termites and whipped wires through walls. I rewired Pat’s room and rigged a reverb route right back to Parker’s. I wire-wiggled whipcords into a messy maintenance room. I hooked up a hi-fi hitch and spindled up my own speakers. I could hear ecstatic exclamations and send sound every which way. I could broadcast with bristling bravado.

  Danny Getchell. The Demon DJ on Radio K-FUCK—about to abort history.

  I HUDDLED BY my hitch. I hid behind hot headphones. I massacred myself with mary jane and perched with my Polaroid.

  7:10, 20, 30, 40—7:59.

  Speaker 2 sputtered. Pat Brown panted: “I hate those goddamn stairs.”

  Polly pooh-poohed Pat: “Don’t complain, baby. Give me a dose of that Democratic love.”

  Pat popped a gut. Whore humor—ha! ha! Speaker 1 spritzed. Boss Bill Parker said, “Unzip me—the son of a bitch is talking already.”

  Holy hard-on! Hear that hate—heavy on the homoerotic!

  Speaker 2 spunked. The stenographer stammered. “You’re all bunched up in your shorts. You should wear boxers. Jockeys are strictly for kids.”

  Speaker 2 sparked. Polly pouted. “Come on, Pat. Pour me the pork.”

  Speaker 1—sticky with static. Pixilated Parker: “Get a grip on that thing and tell me it’s big, or you’ll never make sergeant.”

  The steno stuttered. “It’s soooooo big. It’s got a head like a Nazi helmet.”

  Speaker 2—crackle crisp. Passionate Pat: “Let’s take off our clothes. I want to talk politics.” Poli-sci Polly: “Tell me bad things about Parker. You know, all the colored folk hate him.”

  Speaker 1 spurted. Parker—palpitating with paws on his pud: “Faster, he’s getting to the good part.”

  The steno—starting to steam up my stones: “You’re bigger than Jack Webb. You’re bigger than my husband and all Negro men. Shit, it’s flopping out of my hand.”

  Pat Brown—prophetically precise: “Parker can’t get it up for man, woman, or beast. I heard he’s hung like Napoleon. They won’t be able to find it when they autopsy him.”

  Bill Parker—surfing the semen sea of self-loathing: “Jesus, I’m almost there!”

  I wiggled wires. I circumscribed circuits. I rigged reciprocal reverb and sent sound to both rooms. I picked up my Polaroid and flew off the floor.

  I hammered down the hallway. I banged both doors off their bolts. I found the fetching foursome perched in Pat’s parlor.

  Pat was knock-kneed nude. Parker’s pants pooled at his patellas. Polly was baby-buff and tantalizingly tan. The stacked steno stared at her—savagely sapphic.

  I popped one perfect Polaroid. Insurance for loss of life or limb. I buried it by a burger stand at Beverly and Berendo.

  Parker and Pat patterned a pact and p
ulled back from their sinful symbiosis. The Republicans ran Knowland and Knight. They lost in landslides. Pat Brown gnashed Knowland and got the governor’s gig. Parker bumped Bum Blockade off his demonic dance card. Ribald Randy and Rob rustled rumps and refrained from politics. They weren’t Homeric heroes here at Hush-Hush.

  Ronald Reagan ran for governor. He incinerated incumbent Pat Brown. Reagan reigned as our 40th President and retired to a ranch like Rio Ricondo.

  Draw your own corrosive conclusions.

  Part II

  RICK LOVES DONNA

  Hollywood Fuck Pad

  1.

  I died in a futile gunfight. Others fell before me. This is for them.

  My promotion/transfer slip arrived—Hollywood Patrol to Hollywood Homicide. Hollyweird—rectal-raped runaways, cocaine killeristas, fag-in-the-bag body dumps. I was 31. I had four years in patrol. I was testosterone-torqued and pumped. It was fall ’83. Ray-Gun was Prez. Gates was Chief. Dragnet still reran. O.J. was a Westside splib. Rodney King was a cannibal couched in the Congo. LAPD was King!!!!!

  Russ Kuster ran Hollywood Homicide. He took no shit, he brooked no shit, he brooded over bonded bourbon nitely. He favored Reuben’s, the Firefly, and the Hilltop Hungarian. Hollywood hemmed him in. He shit where he ate. He kept a condo on Cahuenga. He warred with his wife there. They battled over his bitches and his Walpurgisnachtian workload.

  I grabbed Russ in the squadroom. He checked out my rhino regalia. I love rhinos. I’ve got a faux-rhino gunbelt and faux-rhino boots. My faux-rhino bedspread captivates cooze. I fucked a rhino once. A street creep slipped me a hash brownie. I flew Trans-Zulu Airways to Zimbabwe. It was so goooood.

  Russ Kuster ran Hollywood Homicide until he was killed in the line of duty on October 9, 1990. (Photo courtesy of the LAPD)

  Russ said, “You look like a fucking pimp. You may be useful here.”

  “I welcome the opportunity, boss. And I figure a flamboyant appearance will help me on the bricks.”

  Russ nodded. His teeth were nicotine-napalmed and notched down to nubs. He was stripped and striated by stress.

  He lit a cigarette. “Your partner’s Tom Ludlow. You know, ‘Phone Book’ Tom. He’s got 22 notches on an old Yellow Pages. It’s against the regs, but it gets confessions. I’m not saying do it or don’t do it. I’m just saying it works, and I demand results, and if you don’t produce, you’ll be working the AIDS car and wearing triple-strength rubber gloves like a fucking proctologist. You ever pick up an AIDS vic?”

  “No, boss.”

  “Their limbs tend to drop off. Do a good job here and don’t subject yourself to the experience.”

  I clicked my heels. Russ loved Wehrmacht protocol. My faux-rhino gun buckle rattled.

  Russ said, “We need a fuck pad. We’ve got 14 married cops who need a crib for parties and nooners. We need five bedrooms for a hundred a month tops.”

  I laffed. “Slum pads go for twice that.”

  Russ smiled. “Imagination or coercion always works for me. No killing, though. We’re still taking heat for that old granny those guys waxed in Newton.”

  HOLLYWOOD. Home of hipsters, hugger-muggers, and hermaphrodites. My hutch since ’78. I knew every crack-pipe crevice. I worked Harbor for a year and humped home. I knew the hookers, the homos, the heist men. Methheads met my eyes and meandered. K-Y kowboys kringed. My F-car featured a faux-rhino horn. Illegal, but effective. It glowed like a priapic prism.

  I cruised the hot-sheet huts on Sunset. No five-bedroom pads, rats like Rodan, staphylococci-stiff sheets. I cut south on Highland. Dave Slatkin ran the LAPD Animal Shelter. It was an ex–head shop. Some diesel dykes ran it. We popped them for paraphernalia and pried up the property.

  I pulled up and walked in. Dogs drooped on confiscated couches. A malcontent mastiff growled. A baleful bull terrier snarled. The shelter was Dave’s passion and an LAPD ploy. We raid meth labs and rescue guard dogs. Dave goo-goo-talks them and ladles on the love. We train them to kill burglars and find them good homes. They wear breastplates with “Trained to Kill” logos.

  Dave smooched a brindle pit. I said, “Jane mind you bringing fleas home?”

  “She wears a black-studded flea collar. It’s kinky shit.”

  I yawned. A Dogo Argentino pissed on my shoes.

  “Russ Kuster’s got a job for you. He’s got me searching for a fuck pad. He wants you to bring some station trusties in and GI the place.”

  Dave yukked. “Don’t tell me. Five bedrooms for a C-note a month.”

  “That covers it. Any—”

  “There’s some SRO cribs on Tamarind north of Franklin. Junkie squatters, the shits. You know Harry Pennell?”

  “No.”

  “He works Wilshire Patrol. He’s black, and he’s got a scam going. He tries to rent pads in Brentwood. They say there’s no vacancy, and he sends a clean-cut white cop in two hours later. It’s a moneymaker. They rent to the white cop, and Harry pops up with his hands out.”

  “Can he meet me—”

  “I’ll tell him Tamarind and Franklin in an hour.”

  The Dogo sniffed my crotch. He grew a wicked woody. I shooed him off.

  “Russ said you can forensic the place. He thinks it’s useless, but he’s willing to indulge you.”

  Dave sighed. “I know Hollywood history. Russ doesn’t. Those places were abortion mills back in the ’50s. I’ll bring in some luminol and turn up some blood.”

  “Have fun. I’m working a movie gig at the Academy tonite.”

  “Feature?”

  “TV job. Rookie partners develop a jones for each other. They’re both married to ranking brass. The male’s CO tries to rape the female. She wastes his horny old ass.”

  Dave picked his nose. The Dogo snagged the nugget. I said, “What do you feed these fuckers?”

  Dave said, “Trusty chow. We’ve got stuffed bell peppers and kielbasa today.”

  The bull terrier laid a fart. I splitsvilled quick.

  HARRY PENNELL WAS fat. He wore a green leisure suit and a purple newsboy cap pinned to a wide-wing Afro. He wore a “Kill the Pigs” button. He tucked his piece and badge in his pimp boots.

  Harry bragged bravissimo. He owned a car wash, an AIDS test clinic, and a dyke bar called the Munch Box. He owned two wetback garment mills, three roach coaches, and six he-she outcall whores. He got away with “boocoo shit.” He possessed a “notable” fuck flick. Dig: a deputy chief’s wife’s going down on a meter maid at Claire’s Clam Club.

  Harry laid the scam out: 1. He hits the pad. 2. He flashes a roll. 3. He lays out his “bitches” and his late-nite parties. 4. The Vacancy sign disappears.

  I walk up. I rap my Klan konnections and ties to the fuzz. I stress black rape-os, black slashers, black hot-prowl artistes. I stress the good news: cops around the clock. I stress the bad: five bedrooms/a yard per month tops.

  It took eight hits. Eight peepholes slid back. Harry smiled. Eight peepholes shut. Peephole 8 paused. A brazen biddy wedged the door. Harry got “stable” and “fine hos” out. The door slammed. I rhino-rocked up. I badged the biddy. I riffed on the “Negro crime wave.” She said, “Prove yourself. I’ve got four lowlifes behind in their rent. If you evict them without all that paperwork, I’d be obliged to say yes.”

  I followed the smell. Burnt matches/crack-pipe ether/unwashed flesh. I tracked two hallways upstairs. A pit bull lounged on a landing. He growled gravel-gruff. I chucked him my lunch: Fritos and two candy bars. He snarfed down. I hurdled him and followed the stink.

  There’s a door. Let’s kick it in.

  I did it. Dig the three spiked-hair neo-Nazis. Net weight: 160. Gender: a tough call. Dig the crack pipes. Dig the crackheads entrenched on Cloud 9.

  Dig the open window. Dig the rosebushes below.

  I chucked them out. They weighed bupkes. They hit the bushes soft. Bush thorns slashed them new tattoos. Bush billows muffled their falls.

  WE GOT THE PAD. My race jive helped. I concocted “the Negro Nabob,” �
��the Negro Nookie Nabber,” “the Black Blasphemer,” and “the Sepia Succubus.” Granny agreed: five bedrooms/one C per month. Numerous cops/round-the-clock access/ raucous behavior—boys will be boys.

  Granny showed me the crib. 3-story, warped wood and beamed ceilings, bedrooms off central hallways. A downstairs hi-fi rigged with Lawrence Welk and Mantovani.

  It all worked. Thick walls, privacy between rooms. Dave warned me: Harry installed wall peeks and shot infrared footage for Bushman magazine. I told Dave I’d mock-bust him as “the Negro Nookie Nabber.”

  I checked the walls and wainscoting. Dave might be right—the dark flecks might be old blood. Dave knew Hollywood crime. Dave insisted: mayhem metastasized south of Sunset and nudged its way north of Franklin. He loved to test old houses. He got visions sometimes. Not psychedelic shit. More like wisps, whines, whispers, and whimpers. I’ll say it, rhino-reluctant: Dave’s a hopped-up hip hybrid. He’s a demon dog worshiper. He’s a vibrant visionary. He cleans pads for Russ Kuster. It’s a ploy. He’s got five years on. He wants Hollywood Homicide. Two master’s degrees, visions, a psychosexual seismographic history of L.A.— he might make it faaaaast.

  I grabbed the pit bull and took him to lunch. We shared three oki pastrami burritos. I dropped him off with Dave. It was love at first bite. He chomped Dave’s billy club. Dave let him have it as a chew toy. He put him on an IV drip. The tube fed him beef broth and K-9 meds. I mentioned the blood flecks. Dave said he’d glom some trusties and forensic the pad.

  “I’m having visions, Rick. I’m seeing a tall, gap-toothed guy from the ’50s. I get the feeling he’s pretty obscure. He won’t be on computer programs. I might have to go to the Times morgue.”

  I yawned. “I’ve got that gig tonight?”

  “I heard the female lead’s a fox.”

  “You got visions I’m about to get lucky?”

  Dave said, “Frankly, no.”