by James Ellroy
Dick asked me if I would change the type of book I write to achieve greater sales--I said no. He asked 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 go--I said yes. He asked me if the real-life characters in my books ever surprise me--I said, "No, because my relationship to them is exploitative."
I asked him if he consciously changed musical directions after his career got diverted, post-Korea. He said yes and no--he'd kept trying to cash in on trends until he'd realized that, at best, he'd be performing music he didn't love and at worst he'd be playing to an audience he didn't respect.
I said, "The work is the thing." He said, yes, but you can't cop an attitude behind some self-limiting vision of your own integrity. You can't cut the audience out of its essential enjoyment--you have to give them some schmaltz to hold on to.
I asked Dick how he arrived at that. He said his old fears taught him to like people more. He said fear thrives on isolation, and when you cut down the wall between you and the audience, your whole vision goes wide.
I checked in at my hotel and shadowboxed with the day's revelations. It felt like my world had tilted toward a new understanding of my past. I kept picturing myself in front of an expanding audience, armed with new literary ammunition: the knowledge that Dick Contino would be the hero of the sequel to the book I'm writing now.
Dick and I met for dinner the next night. It was my forty-fifth birthday; I felt like I was standing at the bedrock center of my life.
Dick played me a bebop "Happy Birthday" on his accordion. The old chops were still there--he zipped on and off the main theme rápidamente.
We split for the restaurant. I asked Dick if he would consent to appear as the hero of my next novel.
He said yes and asked what the book would be about. I said, "Fear, courage, and heavily compromised redemptions."
He said, "Good, I think I've been there."
We hit the Tillerman's--a surf-and-turf palace outside Vegas. The food was good, but my brain was schizophrenic while I ate. I listened to Dick talk; I plotted my Contino novella full-speed. By the time the pecan pie arrived, I had Dick Contino's Blues--a picaresque tale of '58 L.A.--fully mapped out.
Dick said, "Penny for your thoughts?"
I said, "You're my ticket back and my ticket out, but I'm not sure where to."
November 1993
HOLLYWOOD SHAKEDOWN
Every time and place hides secrets that only one person can spill. History is recorded by hacks who don't know the real secret shit.
L.A. History is subterfuge and lies. Outrageousness is passed off as full disclosure. Nobody has connected all the celebrated players and defined the moment that L.A. was won and lost.
On March 23, 1954, I killed a rogue cop and a stick-up man and sealed the fate of a great city.
I
My flight landed ten minutes early. I bribed a stewardess to let me off first.
I wanted to disembark sloooooow. I wanted the newsmen to dig my stripes and campaign ribbons.
The plane taxied up to the gate. The steps locked into the door. I shoved my way to the front of the aisle. A fat nun ate my elbows.
The door slid open.
I stepped into the sun.
I saw my agent, Howard Wormser. I saw two newsmen and counted five picket signs.
DICK CONTINO, RED PAWN and DICK CONTINO, AMERICAN. TRAITOR, GO HOME and WE LOVE OUR DICK. A poster depicting me in the electric chair. I'm perched between the recently smoked Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
I walked into it.
Howard grabbed me. We skirted some ground-crew guys and found a spot under the right-front propellers. Passengers filed off the plane. The nun shot me the bird. Three picket punks shouted, "Draft dodger!"
Howard hugged me. His hands danced down my back to my ass.
I said, "I need some tail. I need it baaaad."
Howard dropped his hands. I smiled. The stewardess I bribed walked by and blew me a kiss.
Howard's a fag. He got drunk once and made a dive for my dong. Tail talk and pussy patter keep him in line. It's our sex semaphore.
He slipped me a pawnshop tag. "I had to hock your accordion. I needed money to get the booze for the loyalty-oath gig. Dick, Dick, Dick, don't look at me that way."
My heartbeat went atomic. My body heaved. A combat ribbon popped off my pecs.
Ransomed:
My rhinestone-wrapped/pearl-patterned/candy-cane ax!
The picket factions faced off. "Draft dodger!" and "Go, Dick!" nullified each other. Howard cupped his hands around my left ear.
"Dick, you don't serve Ward Bond and Adolphe Menjou anything less than top-shelf liquor. Those guys are prepared to call you ioo percent American, and you can't stiff them with offbrand shit."
Howard's tongue shot into my ear. I stepped back and shook it dry.
"They're coming to the gig?"
"That's right. A buddy of mine set it up. We've got the booze and cold cuts from your old man's store, and thirty American Legion guys at five bucks a head."
My blood pressure depressurized. "What do I play with?"
"I got a loaner off a kid at Belmont High. You have to take the bitter with the sweet, Dick. I promised him three personal lessons."
Two newsmen bucked the picket line and waved to me. I knew them: Morty Bendish and Sid Hughes from the Mirror and the Herald-Express.
I joined them. Howard joined the picket clowns. He passed out accordion ashtrays. We bought them bulk at a child sweatshop in Pacoima.
Sid Hughes said, "You're back, Dick. You did your time and did your duty. What's next?"
I laid out my precanned pitch. "I'm going directly to the Lieutenant Colonel Sam DeRienzo American Legion Post in Glendale. I'm going to voluntarily sign a loyalty oath that declares me as i 10% American. I'm back to let the world know that I can bang that stomach Steinway better than ever."
Sid laughed and hummed the "Tico Tico" finale. Morty said, "Harry Truman pardoned you--and that's good. But you've also gotten support from some pretty unsavory quarters."
I said, "Keep going. That last stuff is all fresh to me."
Morty checked his notepad. "Oscar Levant was on Jukebox Jury. He said, 'Dick Contino has more to fear than fear itself. He has the accordion."
Oscar, you hump. Oscar, you rubber-room raconteur.
Oscar's wife signed him into the Mount Sinai nut ward. His agent signed him out for local TV gigs. Michael Curtiz signed him out for cultural kicks and took him down to watch wetbacks fuck in a skid-row hotel.
I said, "If that's 'support,' put me back on that airplane. I'd rather fight the Red Army than go up against Oscar's mouth."
Sid laughed. Morty checked his notebook. "There's a pinko lawyer named L. Trent Woodard. He's said some pretty raw things about the LAPD, and he's gone on to call you a 'gallant young man who had the courage to acknowledge his rational and understandable fear and implicitly address the absurdity of the war in Korea."
My blood pressure went presto-prestissimo. "I'm ioo% American. And Ward Bond and Adolphe Menjou will verify that."
Howard walked up. He grabbed me and lip-locked my ear.
"Dick, we've got to go. I've got you a quick gig on the way out to Glendale."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're going to serenade a young lady. She's in an iron lung at Queen of Angels."
Howard drove me downtown. I stretched out in the backseat and skimmed my recent clips.
CONTINO BACK IN SOUTHLAND was good. The guy stressed my presidential pardon and soft-pedaled all the fear stuff that deepsixed me. ACCORDION KING RETURNS took a tragic tack. The guy ran down my run on The Horace Heidt Show and said I "hipsterized" the squeeze box. I "beat out vocal groups, a Negro trombone, and a blind vibraphone virtuoso" and "sent applause meters haywire for fifty-two weeks straight." I had "4,000 fan clubs nationwide" and "almost got signed to play Rudolph Valentino" in a "big bio-epic at Fox." The guy implied that I had the world by th
e ass and that I got more ass than a toilet seat. Too bad I "cravenly exposed a fearful nature," "crybabyingly tried to avoid Korean service," and "cringingly ran from basic training at Ford Ord, California." Too bad I "shakily served six months at the McNeil Island pen" and "shadily segued back to the army as a hardened con."
Hush-Hush magazine called me "CONtino." They said my "destiny was deliriously and dolorously determined by deepseated demons dramatically and detrimentally defined as debilitating FEAR." They ran a sidebar with Oscar Levant and some dope-clinic quack. The quack said I was badly breast-fed and temperamentally toilet trained. Oscar said I should dump my box and exploit my weak pipes like a dozen famous guinea crooners.
A picture ran next to the sidebar. There's Oscar and me at the Shrine. We're flying on some high-end shit that I copped from Bob Mitchum. Oscar's banging out Prokofiev. I'm winging a ditty that's half Brahms and half "Lady of Spain."
I skimmed the rest of the rag. I caught some sin-sational bits that played like prime Oscar.
Johnnie Ray honked a vice cop at the Vine Street Derby. The pull-quote was pure Levant: "He took the law into his own hands." LEZabeth Scott frequented a sapphic whorehouse. Matchheadhot James Dean was a mumble-mouthed masochist known as the "Human Ashtray." George Burns liked it dark and dusky. He was spotted at a browntown motel with two large congo cuties.
People told Oscar things. They overestimated his dope habit and dumped their shameful shit wholesale. They underestimated his memory.
Oscar heard all, remembered all, and told all. People looked at Oscar and saw all their sinful stuff personified and multiplied. They overestimated his empathy. They underestimated his guile. They flocked to the nut ward. They sought Oscar out. Oscar fed their secret shit to an L.A. cop named Freddy Otash. Otash paid him off in dope and shot the shit straight to Hush-Hush.
I skimmed the rest of my clips. L. Trent Woodard sunk his hooks under my skin.
The L.A. Herald, 12/19/53:
Woodard calls Chief William H. Parker "the führer of the LAPD." He calls me a "sacrificial lamb" two columns down.
The L.A. Times, 1/8/54:
Woodard calls the LAPD "an occupation force." He calls me a "Police-State Victim" three columns down.
The L.A. Mirror, 2/20/54:
Woodard boohoos "the forces that condemned Dick Contino." He rags the LAPD and the L.A. County Sheriff's for a botched robbery job.
The city cops and the county cops were working a joint gig. They had the Scrivner's Drive-In at Ivar and Sunset nailed down tight. They got the drop on four bad Negroes.
A cop popped his piece premature. Six cops and four stick-up men threw fire. Three Negroes and two carhops went down dead.
The LAPD blamed the Sheriff's. The Sheriff's blamed the LAPD. Chief Parker blamed Sheriff Biscailuz. Sheriff Biscailuz blamed Chief Parker. A heist guy named Rudy "Playboy" Wells escaped. A city cop named Cal Dinkins caught the blame.
Three pix ran with the piece. Dinkins wore a lot of fat and a tall flattop. Wells wore dark skin and a big boogie conk.
They ran a Fed mug shot of me. I wore tear tracks and a grimace.
I dumped the clips in the front seat. Howard turned around. His hands flew off the wheel. A truck almost blitzed us.
"Dick, Jesus Christ. I had them in chronological order. You can't just--"
"That Woodard guy is putting me in shit up to my ears. He's making me look like a fellow traveler."
We slid into oncoming traffic. Howard grabbed the wheel and slid us out. "We'll work around it. We'll get you to snitch off some left-wing types and boost your credentials that way."
"I don't know any left-wing types."
Howard smiled. "We'll work around it. There's a guy at Metro I'd love to put the screws to."
The iron lung was 6' by 8' and weighed two tons. The lung girl was pale and skinny.
She was propped up inside the thing lengthwise. Her head poked out the top. She saw me and got choked up. Her tears hit the lung ledge and sizzled. The thing ran twice as hot as a clothes dryer.
A kid brought my loaner.
The keys jammed. The buttons stuck. The bellows creaked bad. The strap gouged a zit on my back.
The kid brought half the Belmont High wind section. A boss blonde blew lead tenor. She buzzed around me. I told Howard to check her ID and note the date she turned legal.
Howard promised me reporters. He delivered. The kiddie press showed up en masse. Six high school papers sent scribes. The lung ward ran SRO.
I strapped in and played to the lung girl. I pounded my pelvis and humped my hips and socked my sockets out at right angles. I played "Sabre Dance," "The Beer Barrel Polka," and "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White."
I strutted. I writhed. I sprayed sweat laced with Old Spice cologne. My Tiger Wax melted. My pompadour dropped into my eyes. I bent back and resurrected it. I pressed my eighty-pound ax out to arm's length and played from a full-arch position. My spine shook, shuddered, and held. Applause eclipsed my crescendo.
I bent back to a normal stance. I bowed to the lung girl. Her tears spattered off the lung ledge.
Howard shot me a look:
Quit while they love you/Fuck these kids/No encores and no good-byes.
I dumped the ax and pulled a fast exit. A big ovation blew me out the door. The sax slipped me an envelope. I stepped into the hallway and opened it.
Her note:
Dear Dick,
I will reach the age-of-consent at 10:49 P.M. on Thursday,
March 29, 1954, which is only 6 days from now. Please call
me at 10:50 P.M. (Dunkirk 4-5882) to arrange a rendezvous. I
know that we will make beautiful music together.
xxxxxxxxx!!!!!!
Linda Jane Sidwell (Contino?)
I felt a little heft in the envelope. I looked in and saw a fat reefer.
We drove out to Glendale. Howard wanted to toke the reefer en route. I said no. Maryjane always flipped his switch. I didn't want him hopped-up and horny.
I shut my eyes and daydreamed. Linda Jane Sidwell--six days to love.
I'd form a combo and take it to Vegas. Linda would quit school and blow sax for me. We'd work up a patriotic shtick. We'd suck up to professional patriots. We'd play lounges and move to main rooms. Linda's parents would hate me. I'd buy their love with Cadillacs and introductions to Sinatra.
Howard nudged me. "Wake up. We're here."
I opened my eyes. We pulled up in front of the Legion Hall. Howard said, "Shit."
No banners. No reporters. No Ward Bond, no Adolphe Menjou, no Legionnaires. A table full of cold cuts rotting in the sun.
I jumped out of the car. An old guy walked out of the hall and snagged some cheese puffs.
He saw me. He drooped. He said, "Dick, I'm sorry."
I kicked the table over. Delicatessen delights hit the sidewalk. Two dogs caught the scent and leaped from a moving car.
The Legion guy said, "Dick, I'm sorry." The dogs snouted up salami and sun-ripe cheese.
I said, "What happened?"
The guy took off his Legion cap and wiped his face with it. "Duke Wayne called the post commander. He said, 'Lou, I hate to ask you for this, but you see how it looks. Contino paid his dues, but that Red cocksucker Woodard's screwing up his public perception. I hate to exert pressure, but you know I always buy three pages in your book every Christmas."
I shut my eyes. I tried to blot it out. I saw the Duke in my revised Fort Apache. A redskin keestered him and snatched his wig for a scalp.
I opened my eyes. The dogs attacked a three-pound capo-collo. I said, "Where's the liquor? I want to take it back and get a refund."
The guy pointed to the door. "Your buddy took most of it, and he said he'd be back for the rest."
"What buddy?"
"I don't know. He said he was your buddy, and he said you went way back."
Iran inside. I saw the stuff that Wayne and Woodard fucked me out of.
The lectern draped in red, white, and blue.
The prepaid seats and party hats. A wall-mounted flag and a cue-card gizmo to feed me the words to my oath.
I ran back to the storeroom. I saw a pile of flattened cartons five feet high.
Johnnie Black and Hennessy XO. Bonded bourbon, Ballantine's and Bacardi.
Stacked on a shelf.
A box of rubbers and a six-pack of Brew 102.
The back door opened. Danny Getchell walked in.
The Hush-Hush guy.
Who:
Called me a "pretty-boy pantywaist" and a "pusillanimous punk."
Who:
Called my mom a "maladroit madonna" and my pop the "punk's paterfamilias."
I saw Danny. Danny saw me. He grabbed the rubbers and ran. He cut through the parking lot and jumped into a blue Merc coupe. I chased him. He gunned the engine. He yelled, "Commie castrato Contino can't run for shit!"
I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny put the car in gear and goosed it out of reach.
He yelled, "Lefty loser less than lethal at Legion loyaltyfest!"
I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny goosed the car out of reach.
He yelled, "Ballsy bandit burgles boffo batch of brand-name booze! Less-than-lethal loser left in lurch!"
I ran harder. I gained ground. I hooked around to the front of the hall and hauled ass.
Danny goosed the car out of reach. I slipped on a pile of my dad's cold cuts. I hit the street ass-over-elbows and ate hot exhaust fumes.
2
Howard refused to front me the coin for a room. I moved into my dad's bomb shelter.
I treated my elbows and knees. I climbed into a bongo shirt and peggers. I called Linda Sidwell's house and left a message with her mom.
Tell Linda to pack for ground zero. Make an atom-bomb sound. Tell her we'll head for Hiroshima and level the town with our love.
I was desperate. I was walking the lonely streets of Shit City. The bad guys dug me. The good guys feared me. The lung gig was my welcome-home highlight. Howard said we could sell the lung-ward kids accordion lessons and spring my ax from the hock shop. My comeback would boom from there.