by James Ellroy
He said, “You ask first.”
I said, “No reprisals on Lois Nettleton.”
He said, “Granted. On my end, I want you to assist in the dope raid on the Rebel gang. We’re going in at eight p.m. tomorrow. We’re hitting the Marmont, instead of the set. The head shitheels are camped out there, and they’re the ones we want to shake.”
I laffed. “Is that it? I’m getting the better end of the deal here.”
“No, not quite. I’ve decided that that Fat Boy Mazmanian is good for the murder of Janey Blaine, and I would like you to assist the Hats in wiping the egg off my face that Miss Nettleton put there.”
Why not? Montego Bay and Manhattan moved into sight. Lois rabbited, ratted me, and ran. To forgive is divine. I had that hot hole card. The Chessman/Dean letters would light Lois up. I’m locking them up as of now.
Stage Door Freddy. He’s back. He’s finessing fuckups and finalizing favors at full speed. Rat, fink, sovereign suck-up. The man who shook down John F. Kennedy. Call me bold, brave, and stupid. Lois Nettleton could do worse.
Parker said, “Fat Boy. Are you in?”
I said, “Yes, sir, I am.”
OUTSIDE THE CHATEAU MARMONT
West Hollyweird
5/22/55
Dope raid. Preselected bungalows. Nick Ray’s hip hutch. The cast and crew crawl pad. The B-level bedrooms of the Nick’s Knights Kar Klub.
It was 7:50 p.m. Rodent Robbie ran the dope by at 7:20. Nazi Nick had assembled the Juvie Jugend at his place. He’ll pitch one more motivation message. The flick wraps three days hence.
We perched on the access road. Four Sheriff’s plainclothes cars, eight Narco cops, plus me. The Hats were off elsewhere. They had Fat Boy Mazmanian 94.6 percent pinned. That quashed our Janey Blaine job. Fat Boy punched the ticket for Rape/Murder One. He’d go down soonsville.
We were looping up loose ends. The shoot would wrap. Ernie Roll would run the evidence and finalize filings. The panty raid. The liquor store 211/Arson. The four burglary counts to keester Nick Adams and Jimmy Dean. The Hats thumped Nick and Jimmy and cut them loose. We were playing and plying a loooooooooong game here. Call it collusive convergence—cops and Fourth Estate.
The Confidential smear job and the issued indictments must hit concurrent. The big bonanza lay there. I ran rapaciously rogue through all this Rebel rigamarole. I would confess all at the Confidential v. State of California trial.
“Two years, Freddy. We’ll be in court then. What you and I hath wrought.”
Parker said it. I believed it. It vouched my visions of Lois and fifty grand. It stamped Caryl Chessman’s insisted innocence Null and Void. I believed it. I had to believe it. So why hasn’t she called?
The radio rumbled. The squawk box squawked. That meant go, goon squad—
We got out and barged up to bungalow row. We’re heat on the hoof—eight cops up against hip hopheads and dizzy dilettantes. We hit the Führer Bungalow at a sprint. We prepeeped the door kick. Here’s the big window view:
Nick Ray in white robe and sandals. He’s serving up the Sermon on the Mount. His addlepated acolytes are attired likewise. That’s Nick Adams, Jimmy, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo.
Reefer smoke smogged the air. The acolytes noshed home fries and Googie’s burger bits. It’s the Last Supper. Jimmy beat his bongo drums. Natalie and Sal made like Muslims and ululated to Allah. Nihilist Nick held up a cheesy chalice of cheap wine. He said, “Art is self-sacrifice in the fight against Squaresville America. Come, drink from my blood.”
He’s serving Commie Communion. T-Bird wine and burger bits for wafers. Natalie whipped off her white muumuu and stood starkers. No shit—she’s the altar!!!
We kicked the door in. I went straight for Nick Ray. I elbow-popped his face and gnashed his nose in. His cheesy chalice flew. I kicked him in the balls and jackknifed him to the floor. I double-cuffed his hands to his ankles. I bow-bent him back ninety degrees. The fucker scree-screeched.
The acolytes made like Mahatma Gandhi. They went supine and sang Sufi songs to unnerve the fuzz. The cops shackle-chained Jimmy, Nick A., and Sal. They fondle–felt up Natalie and let her linger nude. They grabbed pill vials and reefer wrappers off the floor.
I ran down the row. I hit the crawl crib and crashed in the door. Four grimy grips groused and ground themselves deep in their bedrolls. I noticed no dope evidence extant. I ran down the row to the B-level bedrooms. I beat down the door to room #29.
It’s a two-bed flop. There’s nobody home. My roust sheet listed the occupants: Chester Alan Voldrich and fotog Arvo Jandine.
I eyeballed the room. A glossy glint gleamed on the dresser. I checked it out.
It was a black-and-white snapshot. Dig the built babe in a bikini. I’d seen her before. I knew where. Robbie Molette’s girl book. This studette starred in his stable.
OUTSIDE FAT BOY MAZMANIAN’S HIDEOUT
2892 South Budlong
5/23/55
He’s back there. It’s a back garage setup. He’s paying furtive fugitive rates for three hots and a cot. The front house is a sweltering sweatshop. A kiddie korps sews Sir Guy shirts and sicknik silks for L.A. gang goofballs. Ten cents an hour, muchachos. You’re overpaid at that.
He’s George “Fat Boy” Mazmanian. He’s survived his pustulant pal, Richie “the Dutchman” Van Deusen. We’ve got him for the steakhouse/211-sex assaults. That mandates death by cop, all in itself. We’ve got him for the Janey Blaine homicide. He didn’t kill Janey Blaine. Nobody’s perfect—least of all him, or US.
We evacuated the sweatshop. The Hats bought los muchachos Eskimo Pies off a Good Humor truck. The kids gassed on the LAPD’s largesse. We weren’t LAPD or the Hat Squad plus Fred Otash today. We were the Men from Mars.
Dig it. We’re spiffily space age. We’re wearing spangle-sparkly bulletproof vests. The PD purchased a big batch of Chicom surplus supplies. They’re hiiiiigh-density and heat-resistant. They’ll deflect H-bombs and silver bullets. They glow candy apple green in the dark.
We reconnoitered behind the sweatshop. We adjusted our vests. We loaded our Ithaca pump shotguns with rat poison–laced buckshot. We slipped on our headgear. Dig: L.A. Rams football helmets rigged with antiradiation rays and Plexiglas face shields. Wobbly whip antennae for that space-monster look.
We were ready. We were armed and attired. Uno, dos, tres—vamanos, muchachos—
We blasted the door off its hinges. Double-aught buck punctured pinewood to pulp. Fat Boy fired. I caught two shots. Max and Red caught two shots. They singed synthetic fabric and fell off our vests. Fat Boy popped four more shots. Harry and Eddie took them. Ricochets riddled my football helmet and zinged off of me.
We advanced. We were the Men from Mars. We feared no man or beast. We stood in point-blank range and let fly. I pumped my five rounds straight at his head. He was my voodoo-doll substitute. I saw Caryl Chessman’s face as I killed him.
GOOGIE’S ALL-NITE COFFEE SHOP
West Hollyweird
5/24/55
I tallied table tips. I autographed a.m. Heralds. Here’s the headline: Men From Mars Battle Call Girl Killer!!!!!
Not quite—but I’ll take it.
I logged lowdown. It was all bullshit. I didn’t care. Let’s celebrate and gloat.
The Rebel wrap party was here tonite. The dope-raid arrestees had bailed out. Parker wanted it that way. Let’s postpone the parade of criminal indictments. We’ll sync them to the film’s release.
I tallied tips. I rippled with resurgence. The money. Fat Boy dead and scapegoated for Janey Blaine. It buttressed Jack the K.’s peace of mind. That was gooooood. That meant it buttressed me.
Yeah—but why hasn’t Lois called? I called her New York service fourteen times and got zilch back. I’d null-and-voided Caryl Chessman. Nobody knew but me. I was resurgent. That meant WE should be.
A tipster bopped up. He tattled the Secret Snatch Hair Auction at the Charlie Chaplin estate. Certified Jean Harlow locks went for thirty grand each. Certified Carole Lombard locks went for twenty grand, plus. L.A. County Morgue doctors certified the snips and attested to their authenticity.
Here, kid. Here’s forty clams. Uncle Freddy can afford to laff. He’s got Lois Nettleton and fifty g’s.
The Rebelites wandered in. Nick Ray, Nick Adams, Natalie Wood, and Jimmy the D. Jimmy had that bruised-and contused, I’ve-been-phone-booked look. His hacked hairline gave it away.
He saw me. He kissed his middle finger and flipped me off. He wheeled and walked back out the door.
You get the picture. I never saw him again.
INFERNAL INTERMEZZO:
My Furtively Fucked-up Life
5/25/55–10/14/57
Confidential fell. The mistrial mandated a move to excessive expurgation and bum bowdlerization. Jimmy Dean went tits-up in a car wreck. Tuff shit. His mopey martyrdom moves millions and redefines Confidential’s concept of epic boo-hoo. I felt next to nothing. Nada, nix, nein, nullification. Jimmy betrayed me. Jimmy dumped me. Jimmy left me for Demon Daddy Nick Ray.
Bondage Bob killed the Rebel Without a Cause smear job. Bill Parker dumped his derogatory profile on the teen turkey turned big hit. Ernie Roll rolled over and declined to file criminal charges on Nick’s Knights et al. Parker and Roll succumbed to sentiment and success. Canonized kid actor, boffo box-office take. They capitulated to cultural consensus. Movie money made them meek. That big boo-hoo made them back off, bitch-like. That’s the bilious bi-fecta. They’re satedly satisfied. I’m not.
’55 to ’57. It was all one speciously spectacular sprint. I served my two mad masters. I vetted vile stories for Bondage Bob as I bamboozled him. I tanked the verification process and trafficked the truth to Bill Parker. We built a defamous dossier. It topped two thousand pages. It was mucho more than any prize-prick prosecutor could ask for. It comprised one wicked workload. It detailed my libelous life as a smear merchant and thug and made for a massive missive of my misconduct. Why mince words? I’m a rat, a fink, a snarky snitch, and an insidious informant. And I revere Bill Parker for giving me the chance to become one.
’55 faded out. Rock Hudson married Phyllis Gates in November. Best of luck, kids. I give it two years. I’ll work Mrs. Hudson’s divorce gig then. Phyllis is a fine filly. We collapse in the kip once in a while. Phyllis pretends that I’m Rock. I pretend that she’s Lois.
Barbara Bel Geddes never caught cold or laid up with laryngitis. Lois never netted the ripe role of Maggie the Cat. The show shut down in November ’56. I remain Stage Door Freddy. I tune in my TV and watch the only woman I’ve ever loved. There’s Lois on Decoy. She’s dizzy and dykey in two prison-drama shows. Lois stuns on Studio One and mangles the motions on Captain Video and His Video Rangers. She’s bravura on The Brighter Day. She called out to me on Camera Three, and told me we’re still on.
Lois played Emily Dickinson. She was all Art and Loneliness. Her poet’s passion pounded me. I know why. Lois lives longing the same way I do. She said, “What will you do about it?” I haven’t told her I’ve done one big thing already. I haven’t said, “I’ll tell you all in time.” I want to rig our reunion in Shirley Tutler’s name and the name of Vindictive Justice. We’ve got time here. Three jolting jurists have told me that.
J. Miller Leavy prosecuted Chessman. He told me the hump should burn some time in ’59. Ernie Roll’s best guess is early ’60. Judge Charles Fricke calls it ’60–’61.
We’ve got time. Hotshot men owe me favors. We’ll get our jailhouse visit. I promise you that. In the meantime, I’ve done this:
I stored the pix from Jimmy D.’s crawl crib in a bank vault. I B and E’d the crib the day Jimmy died. I stole his Chessman letters and stored them in Vault #2. I ripped his Chessman wallpaper to shreds and burned it. I contacted two high-ups at Quentin and begged for all the names of Chessman’s approved correspondents. They’ve refused me so far.
We’ll reunite. I know it. We won’t ride as rich as I’d hoped. Jack the K.’s fifty grand sallied south.
The cocksucker stiffed me. A minion called and made the meet. The parcel weighed in weighty. I took it home and counted the cash. The bills boded wrong. I showed some to a Treasury man. He said the cash was counterfeit. Freddy, you’re fucked.
I hexed Jack the K. It worked at first. He lost the veep bid in ’56. ’56 is not presumptive ’60. Jack was right. My shakedown was short-range thinking and a small-time move. That made me a small-time man.
Yeah—but I took down Confidential.
Es not la verdad. I just helped. The gig was Bill Parker’s bristling brainstorm from the get. We compiled the damaging data. Parker fed it to AG Pat Brown. He launched the official investigation and empaneled the grand jury then. The grand jury issued indictments on 5/15/57. Conspiracy to Publish Criminal Libel. Conspiracy to Publish Obscene Material. Conspiracy to Disseminate Information in Violation of the California Business Code.
Call it a clamorous cluster fuck. Bondage Bob hired Arthur Crowley to defend the magazine. Art was a divorce lawyer. He was not a libel-defense lawyer. Assistant AG Clarence Linn repped California State. I owed Bob a big beau geste. I was not indicted. Parker and Roll kept their word. I made a ham-handed play to pollute the jury pool. It cost Bondage Bob forty g’s. I flew the fuckers to Acapulco. They lived large for one week. So what? Nobody noticed or seemed to care.
A load of lawsuits surfaced, postindictments. Maureen O’Hara sued. Confidential cornholed her in the March ’57 issue. It alleged that she made out with a Mexican at Grauman’s Chinese. Oops. Somebody futzed the fact check. It had to be me.
Robert Mitchum sued. Errol Flynn sued. Dorothy Dandridge sued. We miscegenation-mauled her on no evidence. The trial opened on 8/7/57. Prosecutor Linn called Bondage Bob “Mr. Big.” He said Mr. Big had prosties lure celebs into compromising contexts. No shit. He said we paid known homosexuals to rat out those of their ilk. No shit. He said we employed strongarm methods routinely. No shit. Art Crowley preached the letter of the libel laws and freewheeling freedom of speech. It bopped back and forth. The courtroom socked in summer heat. Maureen O’Hara testified. She said she never made out with that Mex. The trial traipsed and trucked along until late September. The jury was deep-six deadlocked. They stood at seven to five for conviction on two counts. The judge closed the cluster fuck off and declared a mistrial.
Doofus Double Agent Freddy. He’s the dippy deus ex machina of the whole mess. His secret depositions shaped the prosecutor’s trial brief. He gave up his guilt. It cost him big gelt. It freed him to dream and scheme anew.
Confidential survived. It cooled down its content. It now publishes pap for a reduced readership. Our circulation circled downward. Bondage Bob pledged to publish “only wholesome stories.” He went on a cost-cutting binge. Listening posts were abandoned. I’m on my way out. My goon squad squared up tall and went back in the Marine Corps. I’m a full-time private eye now. I work divorce gigs out of the wheelman lot and snitch to Bill Parker. A snitch fund pays me five yards per month. I make out okay. Robbie Molette and Nasty Nat Denkins work the wheelman lot with me. I’m their faux daddy who used to be hot shit.
I’m alone most nights. I talk to women who aren’t in the room with me. I think about Janey Blaine and Shirley Tutler. Rumination to revelation. A click clicked in my broiled-to-burnout brain, much belatedly.
January ’48. Shirley Tutler is abducted and assaulted. Near Mulholland and Beverly Glen. May ’55. Janey Blaine is raped and murdered. Near Mulholland and Beverly Glen.
Rumination to revelation. I now see replication at work here. Movie madness. The Rebel shoot. Craaaazy crisscrosses at play. Robbie Molette and Janey. Robbie and the Rebel crew.
The Rebel remnants remain in L.A. Nick Ray’s prepping a preachy lox at Fox. Nick Adams shows
up on TV. The Nick’s Knights Kar Klub is surely making mischief. It poses a What-Will-You-Do-About-It? dilemma.
I’m bored. I’m underemployed. I may be ramping up to do something bold, brave, and stupid.
BONDAGE BOB HARRISON’S SUITE
The Downtown Statler
10/14/57
The useless eulogy. The dippy de-brief. The rip-snorting ride is over, Sahib.
We took chairs. Bondage Bob poured mid-morning martinis. He wore a pink-puce toga. Note the lash marks on his legs.
“It’s the end of an era, Freddy. And you’re savvy enough to know why I’ve called you in.”
I lit a cigarette. “You’re ‘Mr. Wholesome’ now. I’m redundant. You’ve got no need for a strongarm corps, so you’re cutting me loose.”
Bob sipped bum Beefeaters. The suite was bargain basement. The booze was bottom shelf. His toga resembled a reclaimed Klan sheet.
“That’s the long and short of it, son. There’s a few clean-up jobs you can take care of—but that’s it, over and out.”
I went nix. “You’ve got qualms about the trial. The prosecutors came in, armed to the teeth. Somebody fed them a shitload of inside dirt. It was either me, or one of my guys. You’re getting up the juice to ask me. You’re sitting there in your toga, and you look like Julius Caesar at a drag ball. You’re getting ready to lay some sort of ‘et tu, Freddy’ number on me.”
Bob went te salud. I went so ask. Bob scratched the whip scars on his ankles.
“I see Bill Parker behind the whole magillah. He ran the show and fed the dope to the AG’s boys. He recruited informants, took depositions, the whole schmear.”
I said, “Ask me, Bob. Accuse me and ask me, and I’ll say yes or no.”
Bob shook his head. “This is not the Freddy Otash of yore I’m seeing here today. This is some new kamikaze version, that I find disconcerting.”