Widespread Panic

by James Ellroy

  Jack said, “Old news. You set me up with Babs when you were a cop and I was a congressman.”

  I said, “Katharine Hepburn is really a man. Whisper’s running the story next month. She underwent hormone therapy in the Soviet Union.”

  “I’ll live with it. As long as she’s not a Commie or a Republican.”

  My time was up. Jack’s eyes wiggled and wandered. He’s Two-Minute Jack with his minions. He’s Ten-Minute Jack in the sack.

  “It was good seeing you, Freddy.”

  “Always a pleasure, Jack.”

  * * *

  —

  The sun salved me. The breeze went warm and bid me to bask. I dipped and dozed. The bungalow behind me went muffled and mute. I saw Shirley Tutler’s picture and heard Miss Blind Item’s voice. Soft sounds soothed me. Reverie. I’m rapt and reverential. I’m a kid back in church.

  Wheels popped over pavement. Dishes rattled. Somebody said, “I didn’t know you knew Jack.”

  I opened my eyes. Oh shit—it’s Rodent Robbie Molette. A hairnet hid his fried hair. He’s Busboy Robbie today. He’s rolling a room-service cart.

  “Everybody knows Jack. He exemplifies our new egalitarian society. It’s why he talks to guys like you and me.”

  Robbie scratched his balls. “Be that as it may, I should take advantage of running into you, and tell you the latest scuttlebutt from the shoot.”

  I said, “I’m listening.”

  “You should listen, given the gist of what I’m about to tell you.”

  “Robbie, don’t draw this—”

  “Okay, here’s the latest and greatest, which ain’t so great in my view. A, Nick Ray’s talking ‘escalation.’ He wants ‘the kids’ to ‘plumb their motivation’ and ‘escalate their mischief.’ B, he’s talking hot-prowl 459’s, liquor-store robberies, and making some sort of ‘radical alternative movie,’ that will ‘complement and enlarge the meaning of,’ this lox Rebel Without a Cause, which in my view is headed for the drive-in circuit in Dogdick, Arkansas.”

  I pondered the poop. Robbie futzed with his hairnet.

  “You burned me, fucker. You messed with my good looks, because you’re jealous of me.”

  * * *

  —

  Stood up, stiffed, dropped dry, and jilted. Dumped for some psycho Film Führer. Bereft like some left-behind belle at the ball.

  Jimmy no-showed. I waited at Googie’s. No Jimmy. I called my answering service. No messages. I called Jimmy’s pad. No answer. I went by Jimmy’s pad. No lights lit, no Jimmy. I cruised by the Chateau Marmont and bopped back to bungalow row. I peeped Nick Ray’s bungalow. I saw Nazi Nick pour the pork to Natalie Wood while Sal Mineo snapped snapshots.

  I bolted back to my sled and slipped southbound. I was whip-wigged and wound up waaaaaaay tight. A new notion nudged me. It pertained to Miss Blind Item. I stopped at a pay phone and called crime lab rajah Ray Pinker.

  I outlined my plan. I pledged five yards. Rajah Ray said, “Sure—I’ll do it.” I ran back to my Packard pimpmobile and pointed it southbound. I dove into darktown. Vermont to Slauson, eastbound and doooooooown.

  I passed Mumar’s Mosque, Mama Mattie’s Massage Paradise, and the Mad Monk Klub. I hustled by Happytime Liquor, Happy Hal’s Liquor, Hillhaven Liquor, and liquor lockers lit by signs that said liquor and no more. I saw the signs for Sultan Sam’s Sandbox and Rae’s Rugburn Room. There’s my dizzy destination: KKXZ Radio.

  A wino weaved by. I curb-parked my pimpmobile right by the Rugburn Room door. The wino whistled and gassed on the tritone paint job. I tossed him a ten-spot and told him to watchdog my baby.

  Back stairs ran me past the Rugburn Room and up to Radioland. It was beat-to-shit bohemian and cultivatedly cut-rate.

  A wastified waiting room. Album covers stud-stapled to bare walls. They were all Bird. Bird bought the farm and bid us bye-bye in March. Bird beamed beatific now—I’m muerto, muchachos. A myriad of mourners scrawled up the white walls. It was all adios, Big Daddy and Hail to the King.

  “Write something, Mr. Otash. He won’t mind.”

  I swift-swiveled. Nasty Nat stood there. I recognized his radio voice. He was tall and a fit forty. He dressed cool-cat insurrectionist. I dug his fez/combat fatigues/fruit-boot ensemble.

  I pulled my pen and scrawled on the wall. Nasty Nat said, “You’re pissed, right? I mean, the magazine’s pissed.”

  “I’m not pissed. I’m intrigued more than anything else. I was thinking you could record a message for me, and make sure that Miss Blind Item hears it the next time she calls in.”

  “How about a message for Bird? ‘Sorry I popped your ass for junk outside the Club Alabam in March of ’49.’ ”

  I said, “How do you know I didn’t write that on the wall just now?”

  Nasty Nat pointed to the sound booth. I followed him over and in. We took the two chairs. The booth boxed us up. We were nudged knee-to-knee.

  The Synagogue Sid Trio trickled and trilled. Nasty Nat killed the sound and moved his microphone my way. I excavated my bold bass-baritone.

  “Miss Item, my name is Fred Otash. I work for Confidential, and I’m a former Los Angeles policeman. I was there at Hollywood Station the night your friend Shirley came in. I agree with your assessment of Caryl Chessman’s guilt, and I’d like to discuss with you a second Chessman piece that might serve to set the record straight.”

  Voilà. That was gooooooood. I was cool-cat commanding and concise. Nasty Nat smiled and hit the kill switch.

  “I’m pretty sure she’ll call in tonight, and I’ll make sure she hears your message. And, before you ask, I don’t know her righteous name, or anything more about her than you do.”

  I scoped the bare-bones booth. It’s got that rat resort/proud poor folks gestalt.

  “You get by on donations, right? Making the rent’s a stretch, and you’re always running on fumes.”

  Nasty Nat said, “That’s right.”

  I said, “Confidential’s a sucker for good jazz, and we’re in business to make friends, regardless of what you might have heard about me, or the magazine itself. I need a favor that only you can perform, and if you do perform it, the magazine will drop five hundred clams a month on KKXZ, indefinitely.”

  Nasty Nat lit a cigarette. “She’s calling from a pay phone. I can hear her feed the coins in. Does this favor pertain to that?”

  I smiled. “That’s right. I need a trace. I need you to call a cop pal of mine within two minutes from the time she gets on the horn with you. It might not work the first time, but it should work sooner or later.”

  “She might leave town. This whole deal could go poof.”

  “You still get the bread.”

  “Well then, okay.”

  I winked. “I’m going home, to sit by my radio.”

  “Tell me something before you go?”

  “Sure.”

  “What did you write on the wall?”

  “I wrote ‘Dear Bird: Thanx for the sounds. Best wishes, Fred Otash.’ ”

  Nasty Nat said, “You’re caustic, but you’ll never be hip.”

  * * *

  —

  Synagogue Sid serenaded me. I ran my radio low and laid low on my couch. Nasty Nat cut to commercials for Sultan Sam’s Sandbox, Kool Kings, and the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. Then dimes dipped and nickels nudged and slid down a slot. I knew that noise now. I knew it was microphone-magnified.

  Silence socked me. I knew why. Nasty Nat put Miss Blind Item on hold and buzzed Ray Pinker.

  It’s Tap Try #1. It’s logged in at 1:16 a.m.

  I heard fuzz, buzz, radio rasp, and dissonant dial tones. I knew why. Nasty Nat’s playing my plea. I held my breath. Now, she’s back in ripping rejoinder.

  “I don’t know, Nat. Is our Mr. Otash looking for a date, or justice for my friend Shirley?”


  “It could be both, you know. One don’t exclude the other.”

  I heard tap-taps. Tension taps. Miss Blind Item’s crammed in a phone booth. She’s drumming the wall. It’s stagecraft. She’s buying time to rig a response. That means she’s tweaked, that means she cares.

  “Mr. Otash has a reputation, Nat. It precedes him, you might say. I read a piece in the L.A. Mirror—last year, I think it was. It described his illegal surveillance methods and alleged that he resorted to physical force in order to quash lawsuits levied against Confidential.”

  “Well, you know that old saw, right? ‘If you want to make an omelet, you’ve got to break a few eggs.’ ”

  Miss Blind Item laffed. “Not that Confidential magazine is much of an omelet, right?”

  “You sure got me there, baby.”

  Silence settled in. Silken, sullen, sickened—who knows? Ardent or artificial—who knows that? She’s amply ambiguous. It’s cold-calculated. She’s leading me, she’s playing me, there’s something she wants.

  “A casting director I know told me he beat up Johnnie Ray. Really, Nat—Johnnie Ray? I met him once, after his gig at the Copa in New York. He was certainly one of the nicest, and certainly the least offensive young man that I’ve ever met. Nothing that I can think of could ever justify that sort of behavior.”

  Baby, I know just how you feel.

  Nasty Nat said, “Yeah, I dig on Johnnie Ray. I spin his discs on the show, every so often.”

  “Handsome is as handsome does, Nat. I saw Mr. Otash on Paul Coates’ show, the last time I passed through L.A. I remember thinking, My, that surely is a most presentable man, which made me doubly sad to have heard the Johnnie Ray story.”

  Miss Blind Item. I’ve got you under my skin.

  SECURITY OFFICE

  The Sleazoid Hollywood Ranch Market

  5/14/55

  A.M. shitwork. Phone work and field reports. Two per Rebel Without a Cause. Mendacious memos to Bondage Bob Harrison and Bill Parker.

  I called Nasty Nat at KKXZ. Pathos pounded me. He lived at the station. His noxious news: last nite’s trace went blooey. Nat said he’d try again tonite. I bid the big bopster bon voyage.

  Miss Blind Item. You’ve got me torched and scorched.

  I wrote my report to Bondage Bob. I delivered the dish on Nick Ray’s Afrika Korps and described the pustulant panty raid in delirious detail. I omitted Jimmy Dean’s presence. I owed Jimmy that. I exorbitantly expanded my memo to Bill Parker. I reported Robbie Molette’s dish per Führer Nick’s “escalation” escapades. Dig, Chief: He’s planning hot-prowl 459’s and liquor-store 211’s. He’s the maladroit mastermind of the “motivation” crime. Addled actors bow to his bidding. Nazi Nick’s applied the Stanislavskiesque stamp.

  I called Confidential’s messenger service. A car schlepped down from Sunset and Vine and picked up the pouches. Chop, chop, fucker—deliver them now.

  My desk phone rang. I picked up. Bondage Bob bored straight in.

  “Lew Wasserman just called me. Rock’s at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station. He was booked under his kosher name of Roy Fitzgerald, and it looks like he was drunk or maybe Mickey Finn’d, he might have been blowing some guy in a parked car, and what’s for sure is he swung on a deputy, so now he’s in custody. All this means I need you and your boys to get him out and clean him up before the press gets wind of it.”

  I said, “Jawohl, boss. I’ll jump on it.”

  Bob bored back in. “We’ve got to safeguard our exclusive on the ‘Rock marries a woman’ front. Lew’s a hundred percent behind us on this. He wants to call the piece ‘Rock’s Rocky Road to Marital Bliss,’ and he’s a hog for the eternal-triangle bit that you and Phyllis have cooked up. That means you’ve got to find us a bait girl to play the other woman. You dig, bubi? I want a fresh face, which means nobody we’ve used before. If Rock falls in the shit on this Sheriff’s deal, we can lay the bait girl off as the ‘sexy succubus who led the righteously religious Rockster to tasty temptation,’ or some such happy horseshit.”

  I said, “I’ll have Rock out inside of an hour.”

  Bob said, “Lay off the kraut jive. I’m one twenty-fourth Jewish, and I’m touchy about it.”

  * * *

  —

  Ward Wardell and Race Rockwell rendezvoused with me. We surged up surreptitious. We slid in slick and parked by the jail-exit door. Bondage Bob called ahead and bought the bail bond. Rock stood ready to roll.

  Race remained with my sled and sluiced the engine. I’d called ahead and pledged the jail deputies a yard per. Ward and I juked through the jail door. We caught a corridor and sidled up to cellblock row. There’s Rock. He’s signing autographs for a filthy phalanx of his fellow jailbirds. Wheww!!!—they’re malodorous Menschen—winos, weedheads, K-Y cowboys caught in the act.

  Race wrangled Rock. I ran interference. Rock hurled hand kisses back to the boys and ran with us. He was sweaty and swack-back on some kind of hop. His feet flip-flopped on the floor.

  We made the door. I barged us out. We ran right into a riotous raft of reporters.

  Banzai!!!! Sneak attack!!!! It’s Pearl Harbor perpetrated by the putzoid Fourth Estate!!!!

  Flashbulb flare. Hurled questions. I heard Rock, Rock, Rock and ARE THOSE RUMORS TR—

  A cordon constricted around us. I pulled my belt sap. Ward pulled his belt sap. We sap-slapped cameras. Flashbulbs shattered and sheared into shards. We sap-bashed heads and scoured scalps and hurled Rock ahead of us. We slid into my sled three across. Race Rockwell goosed the gas. We surfed out to San Vicente and nailed it north to the Strip.

  Dig it. Escape from Stalag 69. Rock could top-line the flick. He yukked, I yukked. Ward and Race yukked. There’s blood in my soul and torn-out teeth stuck to my sap.

  Race wound west on Sunset and dipsy-doodled south and north on Crescent Heights. Rock and I hopped out at Googie’s. The coffee cave was midmorning lulled. We took my table. Debrief me, Daddy. Escape from Stalag 69. What’s the priapic prelude here?

  I fed Rock my flask and two dexies. I fed myself, likewise. Rock said, “Don’t tell me. You want me to lay out the whole sordid tale.”

  I said, “That’s right.”

  Rock lit a cigarette. “Here’s what I recall. I was visiting this kid actor, Nick Adams. Why? Because I sensed susceptibility. He’s got a little rental house, up north of the Marmont. Okay, I’m there. Nothing much is happening, except I go to the bathroom, and I notice this spare bedroom piled up with hi-fis, TV sets, movie cameras, and all kinds of radio consoles and electrical gear. It’s like Nick’s running a Sears, Roebuck out of this one room. Then Nick makes me a drink, and there had to be something in it, because I go gaga. And…well…there might have been another guy there, but I’m not sure…and…well…the next thing I remember is waking up in jail.”

  Nick Adams. “Motivation, escalation.” Robbie Molette’s 459 dish. Rock’s Sears, Roebuck shit. It radiated Burglary Swag.

  “I’ll take you home. We’ve got that fake-wife caper coming up, you’ll have two good-looking women fighting over you, and you should get some rest.”

  Rock went Why me, Lord?

  * * *

  —

  I pulled into Stan’s Drive-In. Babs Payton knew from bait girls. She had a history with Nick Ray. She cadged courses at the Actors Studio West. She knew all within her limited pervview. She tattled all for cash and cocaine.

  I’d dropped off Rock and rolled by the Ranch Market. I read my two message slips. Bondage Bob and Bill Parker called. I returned the calls. I bagged big bravos for my Rebel Without a Cause report. Bob said the Escape from Stalag 69 cost him six g’s. It covered cameras smashed and busted bones set at Central Receiving. He laffed it off.

  The Rebel report and Rock’s tricky triangle made the money minuscule. Parker parsed attaboys. He told me Ernie Roll rhapsodize
d per the Rebel revelations. Meet us at Ernie’s office, 4:00 tomorrow.

  Babs skated up. She did her signature sideways dip and passed me a pineapple malt. The malt metastasized. A mushroom cloud toxified me. Babs laced my malts. Bonded bourbon and Benzedrine bits brought the brew to a head.

  I slid our seats back. We got cozy. Babs tucked her legs up and skimmed her skate wheels on the dashboard.

  “I need a hundred, Freddy. Regardless of how many topics we cover.”

  “Okay. Let’s start with the Actors Studio. I’m looking for something very specific here. Do they keep a radio and TV tape library on the premises? I’m looking to identify a specific actress by her voice.”

  Babs lit a cigarette. “Yeah, they do. Their members put on these earmuff thingamajigs and watch the TV and movie stuff on some monitor-type gizmos.”

  I sipped my malt. The depth charge detonated. Oooooohhh, Daddy—

  “Second topic. I’m looking for a bait girl. It’s a long-range deal, and I’m looking for a new-kid-in-town, who-are-you? type.”

  Babs blew smoke rings. “Let’s come back to that one. I’ve got to put my thinking cap on.”

  “Okay, here’s topic three. Nick Ray. I know you worked as an extra on They Live by Night, so that’s got to ring some bells.”

  Babs whooped. “That’s the three-cherry jackpot and two chapters in my book, Hollywood Creeps I Have Known. To begin with, he’s a perv of the fake-daddy ilk. He likes it young, and he likes sending young actors out on ‘motivational missions,’ which he films, and I assume that that would be for kicks in the moment and blackmail purposes somewhere down the line. Do you like it so far?”

  I said, “Tell me something I don’t know. This juvenile delinquency turkey interests me.”

  Babs tossed her cigarette. “Nick’s got his head goon on all his pictures. On this one, it’s this mean little shit, Nick Adams. He’s also got his ‘Love Boy’ and ‘Love Girl’ on all his pictures, and this time it’s your chum Jimmy Dean and Natalie Wood. He’s always trying to push these kids into all kinds of scary stuff, and he’s got it all justified and sugarcoated to the nth degree. There’s an actor on the shoot named Dennis Hopper. He’s a customer here, and he’s got common sense enough to give Nick a wide berth. Now, Dennis told me that Nick’s got Jimmy all hopped-up to play Caryl Chessman, and Jimmy’s drooling for the part.”