by James Ellroy
No dog yipped or barked to affirm my pro-love prologue. The bull terrier cut a fart.
Donna: my man-oh-man metaphysic and priapic précis.
She grew up nonplussed by her beauty. She was jazzed and vexed by boys in pursuit. She got the actor’s gestalt: assume varied identities and cherish your cheap leap at the moon. Learn your core. Hold it close. Don’t buy that courage-as-ruthlessness shit that defines Hollywood. Know this: It’s just yuks and fucks and a dubious place to appease appetites. Levy the love tools the Good Lord gave you. See through Roguish Russ Kuster and Maladroit Miguel. Find THE MAN. He waxed the Garcia Brothers. He capped Huey X. He took bad lives and saved good lives. He wants to know you.
Donna, sleep now.
I WOKE UP at dawn. I changed clothes. I brushed fur off my suit. The ridgeback eyeballed my crotch. I wondered how Donna viewed size. I turned on the radio. Whamm-o, straight off: “And the LAPD’s Hollywood detective squad—not Rampart’s—will investigate last night’s homicide in the shadow of a movie shoot on the grounds of the L.A. Police Academy. Detective Russell Kuster said, “We’re adept at solving faggot snuff—I mean the murders of people of alternative lifestyles. We’re on the job.”
Job me, dickbreath—Donna Donahue is mine!
I WALKED THROUGH the squadroom. I got a catcall cacophony. Fuck—Russ blew the word on our “rivalry.”
I met my partner—“Phone Book” Tom Ludlow. He said, “Let’s roust queers until we get one to confess. All those guys got father and guilt complexes. You sweet-talk them, I’ll do the heavy work.”
I laffed. He picked up his Yellow Pages. Dig the dried bloodstains. Dig the spit stains—Tom probably French-kissed it.
I said, “Later, Tom. I’m driving a witness around today.”
A cop yelled, “Rhino’s in love!” A cop yelled, “Rhino sucks Chihuahua dick!”
Russ called me over. I straddled his spare chair. Russ slipped me his Canoe cologne. Subtle pimps and furloughed Marines preferred it. I splashed it on.
Russ said, “Nobody on my squad smells like a 3-way with Lassie and Rin Tin Tin. Now, moving along, here’s your day. First, you go by the Wilshire Sheraton. Slatkin’s giving a seminar there. You find him and tell him to get the best trusties available and spiff the fuck pad, while he forensics to his heart’s delight— then you reinterview Donna, show her some mug books, and talk her into the pad.”
I said, “I’m on it now.”
“Tell her Huey X was on a rampage. You diverted it. Tell her you subscribe to Ms. magazine. All the liberals and carpet munchers read it.”
THE SHERATON— Dogman Dave blasting full.
A small banquet room. Cops at long tables. Coffee urns/donuts/hard bagels.
Dave hogged the mike and lectern. Dave waved the pointer stick. Dig the cat on the screen: Stephen Nash/’50s lust killer/ fruit-snuff artiste supreme.
Knife murderer Stephen Nash stabbed a boy twenty-eight times and bragged, “I’d never killed a kid before. I wanted to see how it felt.” (Los Angeles Times Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)
Big, burly, curly-haired, gap-toothed. Monstrous shit-eating grin.
Dave soliloquized. “For sheer viciousness and braggadocio, Nash stands alone. He was a proudly affirmed homosexual in the mid-1950s. He killed out of both a psychopathic resentment and for the sheer fact that killing sexually aroused him. His exact death toll remains unknown. There’s the three in the Bay Area, the gay hairdresser in Long Beach, and the 10-year-old boy under the Santa Monica pier. Nash’s killing spree ended in November ’56. He hinted at more killings, but never named names, and five victims since his summer ’54 parole from San Quentin seems like a low number.”
I bit a bagel. A tooth cracked. I tossed it away.
Dave said, “There’s a rumor that’s floated around for years, that during a portion of his free time in ’54 and ’55, he was befriended by an actor who took amateur movies of ‘colorful’ L.A. characters, along with tape recordings of some of their ramblings. Don’t laugh—I know some of you scoff at my psychic shit—but I’ve seen a big, white Spanish house in conjunction with all this.”
A cop yelled, “It’s Reggie the Ridgeback’s house.”
A cop yelled, “No, it’s that Airedale’s pad.”
Dave grinned. Dave said, “Reggie’s your collective daddy.” Dave flipped the whole room off.
I walked up to the stage. A woman cop yelled, “Stephen Nash is my type! I could turn him straight!”
Dave said, “Gas chamber. August 19th, ’59.”
I flipped the mike off. Dave and I huddled.
I said, “Russ wants the clean-up today. If you really want to score some points with him, scrounge some water beds and a sound system.”
Dave snapped his fingers. “Roger that. That clown at Appliance King’s dealing Quaaludes. I’ll talk to the D.A.”
I yawned—fucking Reggie slept on me. A sleep deficit loomed.
Dave said, “That cologne stinks. Russ is trying to fuck you up with Donna.”
“Does the whole world know?”
“Yeah. It’ll probably be in Variety tomorrow.”
DONNA SAID, “It’s a shuck.”
I said, “Nix. You’re a material witness. The killer saw you. You need round-the-clock protection.”
We stood outside the Academy. The crew set up shots. Donna wore faded jeans and a beige turtleneck. She looked like Exeter or Andover or some swank school with no jigs.
I said, “Miss Donahue, this is no shit. These fruit-snuff geeks get off on icing women, too. I read it in Ms. magazine. And, I have it on good authority that before I dropped Huey Muhammad, he was on his way to kill a woman.”
Donna smiled. “I’d prefer the Beverly Wilshire, but I’ll settle for the Biltmore or New Otani downtown.”
I rhino-revamped my pitch. “Miss Donahue, the LAPD is undergoing severe budget cuts, but we do have at our disposal a five-bedroom house in Hollywood, inhabited by hardened detectives 24 hours a day, and you are graciously invited to stay there under our protection.”
Donna laughed. Rhino-revise that—Donna roared.
“I’ve got two cop cousins. I’m conversant with the term ‘fuck pad.’ A policeman named Kuster was here an hour ago. He leered at me sidelong while he lured Miguel into the so-called safe house with the promise of God knows what kind of goodies, most likely female.”
I crashed. I crumpled. I withered and whimpered and went rhino-recumbent.
“Shit, you’re my damsel in jeopardy.”
Donna smiled—incipient/preemptive/almost.
“It’s ‘damsel in distress.’ ”
“O.K.”
Hazel eyes hammered me. “Did I catch a Freudian slip there?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said ‘my,’ not ‘our,’ meaning the rest of the horndogs.”
I rhino-revived. “Shit, I just want to be around you while I’ve got the chance.”
Donna smiled—regal/resplendent/real.
“O.K., I’ll stay.”
Don’t sweat now/don’t sway now/don’t swoon now—
A grip yelled, “Hey, Jenson. Some guy named Ludlow called. You’re supposed to meet him at the impound ASAP.”
THE IMPOUND IMPOSED IMPERIOUS—six long Japtown blocks. The poof Pontiac posed by the fence. Tom Ludlow leaned against it. He hugged his phone book/teddy bear.
I pulled in and parked. Tom pulled his hip flask. Aaaaaah— Old Crow and Sprite—Breakfast of Psycho Vietnam Vets!
I said, “Did it ever occur to you that you’re a remorseless alcoholic psychopath?”
Tom belched. “Yeah, it did. I got that way ’cause my new partner sleeps with grungy-ass dogs.”
Touché.
“Do you always carry that phone book?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever read it?”
Tom picked his nose. “I read the names of the women, then I call them up, say nasty things, and
try to make dates with them.”
I laffed. I scanned the impound. It was the Audi Auschwitz, the Buick Bergen-Belsen, the Dodge Dart Dachau.
A tech man walked up. Frappé Freddy—no smile/no jive.
He pulled a master key. He unlocked the Pontiac’s trunk. He let the door pop.
I looked in. I inventoried:
K-Y jelly, one tube, 1/2 squeezed. Boy-banger books: Cock It to Me, Shlong, For Those Who Think Hung.
Stamped on back: Porno Vista Boox/Selma Ave/Hollywood.
Loose twenty-dollar bills. Bank-inked. Dried ink coating the trunk.
Tom said, “I don’t get it.”
I did.
The killer wants butthole. The vic’s got bank cash. The killer’s clueless: The vic 211’d a bank. He stores the gelt in his trunk. They’re pouring the pork. The killer loops back for lubricant. He sees bankrolls. He pops one. Ink jets spray. He’s packing a piece. Rock it—Rhino lites the lites and pops windows. The killer shoots the vic. The killer beats feet. Donna eyeballs his ass.
I nudged Tom. “Call the Feds and Central Robbery. Get the stats on 211’s going back a week.”
Tom slapped his phone book. “Hey, I’m the senior partner, and I got some important calls to make.”
“I’ll give you a call. It’s a freebie, because we’re partners now.”
Tom grabbed his pen. I said, “Carol F. Brochard. 213-886-1902.”
“Who is she?”
“My ex-wife.”
“Wow!”
“She’s a nympho. She pulls trains for spooks. She’s a real mud shark.”
Tom went ugggh. The tech guy said, “I’ll scrape an ink sample and get the numbers to Dave Slatkin. He’ll match it to the dye batch.”
I said, “Thanks.” Tom Ludlow ran to a phone.
DIG IT:
The Hollywood Fuck Pad.
I walked into the macho-maimed maelstrom. Dig what I saw:
Trusties hauling disco balls. Appliance King coolies lugging water beds. Detective “Condom Cal” Coleman walking the room-to-room rubber route. The biddy landlady—replete with Camels and oxygen tank.
There’s Dave Slatkin. He’s checking out a wall crack.
I said, “What—”
Dave cut in. “That impound clown called. Some shitbird clouted the Hollywood Federal at Santa Monica and Cole four days ago, and I made the ink comparison off a fax slide. There’s a surveillance photo of the guy stomping a bank guard, and he matches the late Randall J. Kirst. SID took his prints at the morgue, and guess what? They matched a latent on the teller’s ledge.”
I leaned on the wall. “We solve a 211, but come up short on the snuff. Kirst was a horny motherfucker. He drives around with his stash in the trunk on a pork run.”
Dave squinted at wall flecks. “Or it’s a lovers-thieves’ altercation.”
I shook my head. “They’d have gotten a motel room.”
“You mean a pork pit like this one?”
I looked around. Trusties rolled TVs on dollies. Va-va-voom— fuck flix in every room.
I said, “What’s Russ doing?”
“Canvassing, borrowing guys and hitting the fruit bars near the Academy. He’s got Ludlow leaning on registered sex offenders.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch, but it works.”
I heard growls, sobs, shivers, and oh shits. It sounded like Migraine Miguel. I figured I’d console his ass and divert him from Donna.
I walked upstairs. Miguel rolled his head on a wall beam.
I said, “Bad one?”
“Yeah, with accompanying pix—you know, recurring shit.”
I leaned in the doorway. “Tell me.”
Miguel said, “Recurring since age 1, in 1950-fucking -6, where the same big pervo guy is chasing me through my house, with my mother chasing him, bashing LP records over his head. Headache, nightmare, day flash, the fucking trinity.”
Miguel looked up. Fresh-dry eyes/no twitches/no temple throbs.
I said, “How do you handle it?”
“The Collins way, man. Fantasy and vodka.”
Grunts graveled next door. Triple X/staged sex/some zit-backed cat with a monster curved shlong.
I drove by the station. I left Donna messages at her pad and the set. Porno Vista Boox/Selma near Highland/probable surveillance film.
I checked the squadroom. Phone Book Tom held sway.
Six interrogation booths. One pervert per. Tom in booth 4.
He swung like Ted Williams. The hip pop, the crisp follow-through. The suspect was cuffed to a chair. He ducked 40%. Tom batted .600.
Teeth dribbled. Pages riffled. Blood dripped.
I walked out. Rhino reg #6: phone-book jobs on rape-os and child molesters only.
SELMA: A DRAG- QUEEN drag off Sunset. Homo from the get-go. Prostie boys and chicken-hawk Charlies. Porno book bins and backseat fellatio. Lice like Lassie and burned-rear-end rubber. Malignant microbes like Mount Matterhorn.
And Donna Donahue—right by the bookstore—a bliss blast in LAPD blue.
I double-parked and jumped out. Donna said, “I didn’t have time to change, but it bought us some time here.”
“Say what?”
“I impersonated a cop. The bookstore guy’s cueing up his surveillance film from two days before the robbery. We can stand in a stall in back and watch.”
I walked in first. The clerk ignored me. The clerk salaciously salaamed to Donna. He pointed us down “Dildo Drive”—a mobile-mounted, salami-slung corridor. Packaged porno reposed on racks and shimmied off shelves. It was a donkey-dick demimonde and Beaver Boulevard.
We ducked dildos. We made the booth. Donna doused the lights. I tapped a projector switch. Black-and-white film rolled.
We saw pan shots. We saw ID numbers. We saw Sad-Sack Sidneys slap sandals in slime.
Donna said, “I already checked the credit-card receipts. Nothing from Randall J. Kirst.”
I nodded. “Nobody—not even turd burglers—want credit-card receipts from the fucking Porno Vista.”
Donna said, “Right. We’re looking for two men making purchases together—the victim and the killer I saw.”
Police smarts in forty-eight hours—add breeding and brains. I said, “What kind of work does your family do?”
Donna laffed. “They manufacture toilet seats.”
I yukked. My gut distended. I hyper-humped it back in.
Film rolled. We saw dykes buy dildos. We saw kollege kids buy Beaverrama, Beaveroo, Beaver Den, Beaver Bash, Beaverooski, and Beaver Bitches. We saw flits flip through The Greek Way, Greg Goes Greek, Greek Freaks, More Is More, The Hard and the Hung, and The Hungest Among Us. I laffed. Donna laffed. We bumped hips for kicks. Donna’s gunbelt clattered.
Moby Dick’s Greek Delite, Moby Dick’s Athens Adventure, Moby Dick Meets Vaseline Vic. We yukked. We howled. We bumped hips. Donna yelled, “Now!”
I punched Stop. The frame froze. The clerk ran back. The clerk ogled Donna.
I poked him. The clerk said, “That’s the dead guy from the TV news on the left. The other guy is Chickie or Chuckie Farhood. From his height, I’d say it’s Chickie. Chickie’s queer, but tough. Chuckie’s a chubby chaser that likes fat chicks. He runs fat outcall whores out of the counterculture rags. And I mean fat. Real quarter-tonners with cheese, and—”
Donna poked him. “Get to it.”
“Okay, Chuckie lives at the Versailles on 6th and Saint Andrews. Chickie steals cars and sleeps in them, and you didn’t get this from Burt D. Lelchuk. I’m a clean man in a dirty business.”
THE VERSAILLES/6th and Saint Andrews—Koreatown, aaah sooo.
We rolled south. Complexions combined and palate-popped yellow. Crime stats crawled low. K-people kept to themselves. I was Rickshaw Rick here. Dig the signs—all Korean—no coons with Olde English 800.
We hit the address. Fuck it—let Donna roll, too.
We checked the mailbox bank. Donna tapped 106—“Farhood.” A K-lady said, “Velly fat woman, no can cl
imb stairs.”
We walked to 106. Donna knocked. I heard TV noise. A woman yelled, “I’m in bed! I can’t get out! I’m too heavy!”
I heard a coughing fit. I heard “The door’s open.”
Donna turned the knob. We walked in. Wig the walls: photo-phased by 8-by-10 testaments—monuments to morbid obesity.
Six hundred-pounder pix. Eight yards, the Big Ten. Donna looked around and down. I prayed for aerobics in heaven.
A cracked door. That voice: “I’m in here.”
Donna pushed the door open. The bed: an endomorph endeavor—big/wide/bolted down. On it: a nude woman, horribly fat.
I said, “Police officers. We’re here to—”
Donna yelled, “Gun!”
Instinct: I hit the floor. Actor’s instinct: Donna piled on me.
I pulled my piece.
I dropped it.
I saw the gun. I saw the shooter: a mini-man under Fat Mama.
He fired. Two shots went wide. Donna pulled her gun. Donna fired. Fuck—empty actor’s prop.
Fat Mama reached under a pillow. Fuck—it’s a .44 Mag. Mini-Man shot over my head. I rolled. I dumped Donna. She pulled off my ankle piece. Velcro snapped. Fat Mama aimed and fired. A wall section blew out.
Donna stood up.
Donna walked to the bed.
She aimed. She shot Fat Mama in the head. She shot Fat Mama in her fatty mass. Fat Mama buckled. Mini-Man got exposed. Donna shot him four times in the face.
THINGS WENT SLO - MO.
I called Russ. Russ called Wilshire dicks. The Wilshire guys brought extra throw-down guns. I gave a statement. It was my gun. I assumed credit/blame per guidelines. Russ called the shooting board a lockdown. Donna wasn’t even there.
Russ brought her Ativan and scotch. She snarfed it. We stood in the hallway. We hugged and stood head-to-head.
Donna said, “Say something nice to me.”
I said, “You know who you are now.”
SHE WOULDN’T GIVE up her uniform. It was bloodstained. It was dirty. She wouldn’t go home and change. She wouldn’t visit the set. She wouldn’t scrounge fresh threads.