by James Ellroy
She knew that he had to be tall and intelligent and about her age–eighteen years of floral tribute without a clue to his identity! Except that he had to have come from the old neighborhood, had to have seen her on the way to school with her court…
Thoughts of her court gave Kathleen a hook. She took up her pen and wrote:
Bring back the dead
Give them head
Remember the songs they sang
And the words they said.
From protracted adolesence
To premature senescence
I do penance with regret;
For the epiphanies I never held
And the joy I never met.
Sighing, Kathleen settled back in her chair. Sighing again, she got out her diary and wrote:
Good prose seems just about to burst out of me, so I’ll do a little tease number and sit back and collate the present again, from approximately my nine thousandth “good prose breakout” plateau. Weird these days. Even good serviceable prose seems contrived. This diary (which will probably never be published!) seem much more real. I’m probably moving into a period where I’ll just sit back and let things happen, figure them out as they happen, then shut whatever is happening out and sit down and grind out another book. The cop seems to be evidence of this. O.K., he’s compelling and attractive, but even if he weren’t I’d probably give his attentions a shot. Weirder yet: Is this “Let it flow” attitude undertaken out of the desire for edification or out of loneliness, horniness, and the desire to ultimately give up that awful part of me that wants to stand apart from the whole human race and exist through my words? Empirically speaking, who knows? My solitude has given me brilliant words, as have my abysmal relationships with men. Another (nine billionth?) meditation on the identity of him? Not today, today is strictly the realm of things possible. All of a sudden I’m tired of words. I hope the cop isn’t too right wing. I hope he is capable of bending.
Kathleen placed her pen across her words, surprised that the combination of her dream lover and the policeman had inspired such somber sentiments. Smiling at the unpredictability of muses, she glanced at her watch. 6:30. As she showered for her date, she wondered where those first stanzas would take her and how she would react when her doorbell rang at seven o’clock.
The bell rang precisely at seven. When Kathleen opened the door, Lloyd was standing there, wearing beat-up cords and a pullover sweater. She saw a holstered revolver outlined on his left hip and cursed herself; her Harris tweed pantsuit was a definite overdress. To correct the mistake she said, “Hi, Sergeant” and grabbed at the gun bulge and pulled Lloyd inside. He let himself be led, and Kathleen cursed herself again when she saw him smile at the gesture.
Lloyd sat on the couch and spread out his long arms in a mock crucifixion pose. Kathleen stood over him selfconsciously. “I made those phone calls,” she said. “To over a dozen bookdealers. Nothing. None of my friends recall seeing or talking with a man like the one you described. It was bizarre. I was helping the police to find an insane woman-killer, and women kept interrupting me to ask questions about the Equal Rights Amendment.”
“Thank you,” Lloyd said. “I didn’t really expect anything. Right now I’m just fishing. Badge 1114, homicide fisherman on the job.”
Kathleen sat down. “Are you supervising this investigation?” she asked.
Lloyd shook his head. “No, right now I am this investigation. None of my superiors would authorize me to detach officers to work under me, because the idea of mass murderers killing with impunity makes them afraid for their careers and the Department’s prestige. I have supervised homicide investigations, duties normally assigned to Lieutenants and Captains, but I’m—”
“But you’re that good.” Kathleen said it as a matter-of-fact.
Lloyd smiled. “I’m better.”
“Can you read minds, Sergeant?”
“Call me Lloyd.”
“All right, Lloyd.”
“The answer is sometimes.”
“Do you know what I’m thinking?”
Lloyd draped his arm over Kathleen’s tweed shoulders. She buckled, but didn’t resist. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “How’s this for starters? Who is this guy? Is he a right-wing loony, like most cops? Does he spend hours cracking jokes about niggers and discussing pussy with his policeman buddies? Does he like to hurt people? To kill people? Does he think there’s a Jew-commie-nigger-homo conspiracy to take over the world? Does…”
Kathleen put a gentle restraining hand on Lloyd’s knee and said, “Touché. In basic theme you were correct on all counts.” She smiled against her will, slowly withdrawing her hand.
Lloyd felt his blood start to race to the tempo of their banter. “Do you want my answers?” he asked.
“No. You’ve already given me them.”
“Any other questions?”
“Yes. Two. Do you cheat on your wife?”
Lloyd laughed and dug into his pants pocket for his wedding band. He slipped it onto his ring finger and said, “Yes.”
Kathleen’s face was expressionless. “Have you ever killed anyone?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Kathleen grimaced. “I shouldn’t have asked. No more talk of death and woman-killers, please. Shall we leave?”
Lloyd nodded and took her hand as she locked the door behind them.
They drove aimlessly, ending up cruising the terraced hills of the old neighborhood. Lloyd steered the unmarked Matador through the topography of their mutual past, wondering what Kathleen was thinking.
“My parents are dead now,” she said finally. “They were both so old when I was born, and they doted on me because they knew they’d only have me for twenty years or so. My father told me he moved to Silverlake because the hills reminded him of Dublin.”
She looked at Lloyd, who sensed that she wanted to end her games of will and be gentle. He pulled to the curb at Vendrome and Hyperion, hoping that the spectacular view would move her to divulge intimate things, things that would make him care for her. “Do you mind if we stop?” he asked.
“No,” Kathleen said, “I like this place. I used to come here with my court. We read memorial poems for John Kennedy here on the night he was shot.”
“Your court?”
“Yes. My court. The ‘Kathy Kourt’–spelled with two Ks. I had my own little group of underlings in high school. We were all poets, and we all wore plaid skirts and cashmere sweaters, and we never dated, because there was not one boy at John Marshall High School worthy of us. We didn’t date and we didn’t neck. We were saving it for Mr. Right, who, we all figured, would make the scene when we were published poets of renown. We were unique. I was the smartest and the best-looking. I transferred from parochial school because the Mother Superior was always trying to get me to show her my breasts. I talked about it in hygiene class and attracted a following of lonely, bookish girls. They became my court. I gave them an identity. They became women because of me. Everyone left us alone; yet we had a following of equally lonely, bookish boys–‘Kathy’s Klowns’ they were called, because we never even deigned to speak to them. We… We…”
Kathleen’s voice rose to a wail, and she batted off Lloyd’s tentative hand on her shoulder. “We… We… loved and cared for each other, and I know it sounds pathetic, but we were strong. Strong! Strong…”
Lloyd waited a full minute before asking, “What happened to your court?”
Kathleen sighed, knowing that her answer was an anticlimax. “Oh, they drifted away. They found boyfriends. They decided not to save it for Mr. Right. They got prettier. They decided they didn’t want to be poets. They…they just didn’t need me anymore.”
“And you?”
“I died, and my heart went underground and resurfaced looking for cheap kicks and true love. I slept with a lot of women, figuring I could find a new entourage that way. It didn’t work. I screwed a lot of men–that got me the entourage, all right, but they were creeps. And I wrote and wrote and
wrote and got published and bought a bookstore and here I am.”
Lloyd was already shaking his head. “And what really,” he said.
Kathleen spat out angrily, “And I am a damn good poet and a better diarist! And who the hell are you to question me? And? And? And?”
Lloyd touched her neck with gentle fingertips and said, “And you live in your head, and you’re thirty-something, and you keep wondering if it’s ever going to get better. Please say yes, Kathleen, or just shake your head.” Kathleen shook her head. Lloyd said, “Good. That’s why I’m here–because I want it to get better for you. Do you believe that?” Kathleen shook her head affirmatively and stared into her lap, clenching her hands. “I have a question for you,” Lloyd said. “A rhetorical question. Did you know that the L.A.P.D. treats the undercarriage of all their unmarked cars with a special shock-proof, scrape-proof coating?”
Kathleen laughed politely at the non sequitur. “No,” she said.
Lloyd reached over and secured the passenger safety harness around her shoulders. When she remained blank-faced he waggled his eyebrows and said, “Brace yourself,” then hit the ignition and dropped into low gear, popping the emergency brake and flooring the gas pedal simultaneously, sending the car forward in an almost vertical wheel stand. Kathleen screamed. Lloyd waited until the car began its crashing downward momentum, then gently tapped the accelerator a half dozen times until the rear wheels caught friction and the car lurched ahead, straining to keep its front end airborne. Kathleen screamed again. Lloyd felt gravity fighting sheer engine power and winning. As the hood of the Matador swung down, he punched the gas pedal and the car nosed upward, holding its pattern until he saw an intersection coming up and hit the brakes, sending them into a tire squealing fishtail. The car was spinning out toward a row of trees when its front end finally smashed into the pavement. Lloyd and Kathleen bounced in their seats like spastic puppets. Dripping with nervous sweat, Lloyd rolled down his window and saw a group of Chicano teenagers giving him a wild ovation, stomping their feet and saluting the car with raised beer bottles.
He blew them a kiss and turned to Kathleen. She was crying, and he couldn’t tell if in fear or joy. He unstrapped the harness and held her. He let her cry, and gradually felt the tears trail into laughter. When Kathleen finally raised her head from his chest, Lloyd saw the face of a delighted child. He kissed that face with the same tenderness as he kissed the faces of his daughters.
“Urban romanticism,” Kathleen said. “Jesus. What next?”
Lloyd considered options and said, “I don’t know. Let’s stay mobile, though. All right?”
“Will you observe all traffic regulations?”
Lloyd said, “Scout’s honor” and started up the car, waggling his eyebrows at Kathleen until she laughed and begged him to stop. The teenagers gave him another round of applause as he pulled out.
They cruised Sunset, the main artery of the old neighborhood. Lloyd editorialized as he drove, pointing out immortal locations of his past:
“There’s Myron’s Used Cars. Myron was a genius chemist gone wrong. He got strung out on heroin and kicked out of his teaching post at U.S.C. He developed a corrosive solution that would eat off the serial numbers on engine blocks. He stole hundreds of cars, lowered the blocks into his vat of solution and set himself up as the used car king of Silverlake. He used to be a nice guy. He was a big rooter for the Marshall football team, and he lent all the star players cars for hot dates. Then one day when he was fucked up on smack he fell into his vat. The solution ate off both his legs up to the knee. Now he’s a cripple and the single most misanthropic individual I’ve ever known.”
Kathleen joined in the travelogue, pointing across the street and saying, “Cathcart Drugs. I used to steal stationery there for my court. Scented purple stationery. One day I got caught. Old man Cathcart grabbed me and dug into my purse. He found some poems I had written on the same kind of stationery. He held me and read the poems aloud to everyone in the store. Intimate poems. I was so ashamed.”
Lloyd felt a sadness intrude on their evening. Sunset Boulevard was too loud and garishly neon. Without saying a word he turned the car north on Echo Park Bouelvard and drove past the Silverlake Reservoir. Soon they were in the shadow of the power plant, and he turned and looked at Kathleen for approval.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s perfect.”
They walked uphill silently, holding hands. Dirt clods broke at their feet, and twice Lloyd had to pull Kathleen forward. When they reached the summit they sat in the dirt, heedless of their clothes, leaning into the wire fence that encircled the facility. Lloyd felt Kathleen pulling apart from him, regrouping against the momentum of her tears. To close the gap, he said, “I like you, Kathleen.”
“I like you, too. And I like it here.”
“It’s quiet here.”
“You love the quiet and you hate music. Where does your wife think you are?”
“I don’t know. Lately she goes out dancing with this fag guy she knows. Her soul sister. They snort cocaine and go to a gay disco. She loves music, too.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?” Kathleen said.
“Well…more than anything else I just don’t understand it. I understand why people rob banks and become thieves and get strung out on dope and sex and become cops and poets and killers, but I don’t understand why people fart around in discos and listen to music when they could be goosing the world with an electric cattle prod. I can understand you and your court and your screwing all those dykes and creeps. I understand innocent little children and their love, and their trauma when they dicover how cold it can get, but I don’t understand how they cannot want to fight it. I tell my daughters stories so they’ll fight. My youngest, Penny, is a genius. She’s a fighter. My two older girls I’m not so sure about. Janice, my wife, isn’t a fighter. I don’t think she was ever innocent. She was born practical and stable and stayed that way. I think… I think maybe… that’s why I married her. I think… I knew I didn’t have any more innocence, and I wasn’t quite sure that I was a fighter. Then I found out I was and got scared of the price and married Janice.”
Lloyd’s voice had assumed an almost disembodied monotone. Kathleen thought briefly that he was a ventriloquist’s pawn, and that whoever was pulling his strings was really trying to get to her, laying clues in the strange barrage of confession she had just heard. Two words–“killers” and “price” stuck out, and in her haste to make sense of the story Kathleen said, “And so you became a policeman to prove you were a fighter, and then you killed in the line of duty and you knew.”
Lloyd shook his head. “No, I killed a man–an evil man–first. Then I became a cop and married Janice. I lose track of chronology sometimes. Sometimes…not often…when I try to figure out my past I hear noise…music…awful noise…and I have to stop.”
Kathleen felt Lloyd wavering in and out of control, and knew that she had broken through to his essence. She said, “I want to tell you a story. It’s a true romantic story.”
Lloyd shifted his head onto her lap and said, “Tell me.”
“All right. There was once a quiet, bookish girl who wrote poetry. She didn’t believe in God or her parents or the other girls who followed her. She tried very hard to believe in herself. It was easy, for awhile. Then her followers left her. She was alone. But someone loved her. Some tender man sent her flowers. The first time there was an anonymous poem. A sad poem. The second time just the flowers. The dream lover continued to send the flowers, anonymously, for many years. Over eighteen years. Always when the lonely woman needed them most. The woman grew as a poet and diarist and kept the flowers dated and pressed in glass. She speculated on this man, but never tried to discover his identity. She took his anonymous tribute to her heart and decided that she would reciprocate his anonymity by keeping her diaries private until after her death. And so she lived and wrote and listened to music–a quiet mover. It almost makes you want to believe in God, doesn’t it, Lloyd?”
They stood in the doorway of Kathleen’s bookstore-apartment, holding each other loosely. Kathleen burrowed into Lloyd’s shoulder, and when she raised her head he thought that she wanted to be kissed. As he bent to her, Kathleen pushed him gently away. “No. Not yet. Please don’t force it, Lloyd.”
“All right.”
“It’s just that the whole thing is so unexpected. You’re so special, and it just…”
“You’re special, too.”
“I know, but I’ve got no idea of who you are, of your natural habitat. The little things. Do you understand?”
Lloyd pondered this. “I think so. Look, would you like to go to a dinner party tomorrow night? Policemen and their wives? It’ll probably be dull, but illuminating for you.”
Kathleen smiled. His offer was a major capitulation; he was willing to be bored to please her. “Yes. Be here at seven.” She moved backward into her dark front room and closed the door behind her. When she heard Lloyd’s departing footsteps she turned on the lights and got out her diary. Her mind rambled with profundities until she muttered, “Oh, fuck it,” and wrote: