by James Ellroy
Dudley wept then.
39
(LOS ANGELES, 7:00 P.M., 1/28/42)
Star-studded bash meets field study. Know your foe. Observe her habitat. You’re a scientist and a thrill seeker. This could be fun.
She read up on Klemperer and his guests. The Herald previewed the party. She had the address and the pedigrees. The piece featured pix and boxed bios. It’s a slick study guide.
Pretend it’s a frat bash. You’re the new girl on campus. Breeze in and blend in. Crash the party.
Joan surveilled the Lake-Blanchard house. It was streamline moderne and just north of the Strip. It was turned out, c’est bon.
The house intensified rumors. Ex-boxer Lee took dives and reaped big payoffs. He was a name heavyweight. He raked it in for a spell. The cop rumor mill stamped it true.
Joan sat in her car. Her beat-to-shit ’36 Dodge. It still bore New Year’s Eve dents. She’d had the cracked windshield replaced.
Kay Lake drove a ’41 Packard. It sparkled and gleamed up her driveway.
Joan lit a cigarette. Her thoughts tumbled. She tossed words and characterized the excursion. Words came and went. Voyeuristic and Inconsequential stuck.
She watched Kay’s front door. She wore a green cocktail dress and high heels. She felt too tall/gawky girl at the prom. She went sleeveless. She missed her gold cuff links.
Her thoughts retumbled. They went party-to-party. She jumped back to the Biltmore. New-Captain Smith and new-Lieutenant Ashida. Behold the gold bayonet.
Possible mint marks. A raised swastika. She studies Ashida as he studies her. It’s a holy shit moment. Ashida photographs the bayonet. It’s evidence now.
Joan stretched and kicked off her shoes. Kay Lake stepped out on her porch. Kay, you’re a knockout. That black cashmere dress really works.
Kay walked to the Packard. She pulled out and swung down to the Strip. Joan U-turned and caught her at Doheny.
It’s a two-car caravan. It’s heading west through Beverly Hills. It’s all voyeuristic and inconsequential.
Joan reviewed her study guide. She respooled that Herald piece. Sid Hudgens penned it. He laid in a sidebar on Claire De Haven.
Dudley’s screwball lover. A “former Las Madrinas Ball debutante.” “Scrupulously scrutinized in 1940. State HUAC reads Red Claire the ripe riot act.”
Claire looked highborn and haughty. Buzz Meeks dished her at Lyman’s. He said she was snooty goods and rode the white horse.
Westbound on Sunset. Two women/two cars/one schoolgirl prank.
Joan lagged back. They passed the Bel-Air gates and UCLA. They swung through Brentwood and cut north on Mandeville Canyon. The terrain went posh rural. Recessed lawns and topiary. These rich folks had spreads.
Spanish haciendas. French châteaux. All-glass-cube moderns. Tall eucalyptus trees and terraced backyards.
Kay cut west. Joan followed her. Kay slowed and braked. There—that’s the spot.
A massive adobe. The Sidster’s “Maestro Manse.” Bright windows and lantern-lit yard. Blackout-reg violations up the ying-yang.
A wide porte cochere. Mexican valets. Loudspeaker music—gloomy and dissonant.
Kay swung in. Joan hung back and let a Coupe de Ville pass her. Kay ditched the Packard. She tossed her keys. A Mexican kid snagged them.
Joan swung in. She stepped into her shoes and out of the car. A little Mex gawked La Gringa Grande.
She gave him her keys and a dollar bill. He said, “It’s free.” She said, “It’s a tip.”
The porte cochere was spiffed up. Three flagpole banners rotated in sequence and supplied a drape effect. Stars and Stripes/Loyalist Spain/hammer and sickle. Red guardsmen flanked the front door. They looked like winos hired off skid row.
The front door stood open. Joan breezed inside. Kay played whirling dervish. She whooshed and disappeared.
Now, the looks. They’re all standard-issue. Who’s that? Check the big redhead.
Joan rebuffed looks. She checked the Maestro Manse. Holy moly. Somebody lives here.
There’s a foyer. It’s stark Deco and Nuremberg-sized. Living room, nein. It’s a Bauhaus beer hall. It’s all pillared and bas-reliefed.
Brass statuary. Backlit and floodlit. Beethoven and Wagner, splashed in workers’ red. It’s all distinctly modernist. Note the Picassos and Mirós on the walls.
Black leather couches and chairs. Silk tapestried carpets. Cut-crystal tables. A forty-foot fireplace. Mounted polar bears standing guard.
Joan just stood there. Guests mingled in clumps. War blah-blah bombarded her.
Hitler was wicked. Stalin was swell. Their recent pact was all rightist ruse. Hear those piano chords? That’s Otto’s sneak peek. He got V-mail from Shostakovich. It’s his new symphony. Nazi tanks attack Leningrad. Listen close—you can tell.
A waiter swooped by. Joan snatched a champagne flute. She imbibed Pernod and absinthe. It went straight to her head.
She stood her ground. She looked around. She matched faces to newspaper pix.
There’s the Maestro. That’s easy. Talk about tall. He suffered a brain tumor, circa ’39. He’s got a half-frozen face.
There’s Thomas Mann, Kurt Weill, and Bertolt Brecht. There’s Lotte Lenya and Arnold Schoenberg.
Sid Hudgens defamed them all. He wrote a private-PD dirt sheet. It covered his poker losses to Jack Horrall.
Lenya was a loin-lapping lezbo. Weill traveled Estrada Chocolato with George Cukor. Mann and Schoenberg ran Red. Brazen Brecht brought the bratwurst to Leni Riefenstahl.
Joan laughed. She snagged another Pernod and absinthe and quaffed it. Short men dipped by and gawked her. She looked left and saw José Iturbi. She looked right and saw Claire De Haven.
She’s patrician and near-translucent. She’s got hophead eyes. She’s Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Dudley Smith’s bed.
Claire evinced screechy nerves. She fretted a handkerchief. Her eyes darted. Guests swirled by her. Joan saw her eyes land.
On a small old man. Playing courtier. Perched on a black leather couch.
He sported a Sigmund Freud beard. He held a doctor’s bag. He pontificated on overdrive. A big blond girl cleaved close to him. She wore a tweed skirt and a brown crewneck sweater. She wore prep-school saddle shoes.
Joan sidled over. She perched in eavesdrop range. The old man gasbagged. Partygoers dropped by and said hi. They called pops “Saul” and “Dr. Lesnick.”
The blonde oozed adoration. She looked parodistic/he talked parodistic. Joan caught “Comrade Stalin” and “noble Red Army.”
Claire beelined up. Party fools swelled and crushed against her. She pointed to the doctor’s bag. Lesnick nodded. Lesnick went There, there.
Joan hovered. Claire fidgeted. A Chinese man pushed his way over. He plopped on the couch. The blonde went eeek and spilled half her cocktail.
She blotted her skirt. Lesnick patted her knee. He copped a leg feel and went Oy vey. The Chinaman gasbagged.
Joan heard “Hitler”/“Waffen-SS”/“racial science.” Words devolved to jabber. Lesnick said, “Slow down, Lin. I know some French, but I don’t know Chinese.”
Lin laughed. “Two-Gun Davis speak Chinese. Not you. Chinese new master race. They fix your Jew wagon.”
Lesnick laughed. The Davis crack ditzed Joan. The whole exchange warped in weird. Someone told her something pertinent. Some Lyman’s barfly. The exact source eluded her.
Claire leaned in and whispered to Lesnick. Chinaman Lin jabbered on. Joan caught movement, stage right.
Kay Lake hovered. She stood within voyeur range and eyed Lesnick and Claire. Guest swarms covered Joan. Lin’s blather drowned out Lesnick and Claire.
Kay drifted off. Lesnick and Claire stood up. The blonde pouted—Don’t leave me, lover. Lesnick mollified her. He laid out There, there’s.
Joan voyeurized. Pops bid deference. Moses parts the Red Sea. Guests step aside and hosanna. Lesnick hooks Claire’s arm and leads her off.
Joan followed them. They walked outside. Pole-fixed lanterns lit the backyard. Guests mingled by a barbecue pit. Negro chefs in Red Army tunics dished out spareribs and slaw.
A guesthouse stood by the back fence. Lesnick led Claire over and in. Joan caught up and peeped a side window. She caught an eye track inside and saw this:
Lesnick opens his bag. He pulls out a hypo and jabs a vial of morphine sulfate. Claire rolls up her left sleeve. Lesnick ties a silk-sash tourniquet. Claire shuts her eyes. Lesnick dips a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol. Claire trembles. Lesnick swabs her arm and injects her.
Joan walked off. She got the Sad-as-Shit Blues and traipsed back to the house. The triad concept ditzed her. It applied to chemistry. She applied it right here and right now.
Kay Lake/Dudley Smith/Claire De Haven. Unknown quotients abound. Smith/Parker/Conville. The same applies. Claire thinks Kay knifed Dudley. I’m a Wisconsin farm girl. What am I doing here?
Bombs away:
She caught more war talk. More guests talked it. More guests shouted it. More guests shouted over other guests and poked at their chests.
More spilled drinks. More cigarette-burned furniture and dumped ashtrays. No more sit-down space. More guests tripping and sprawling flat on their ass.
Joan detoured. She traipsed up a back stairway and hit the second floor. She heard a piano. Somebody played soft Chopin or Liszt.
She walked toward it. She stopped short at a doorway. She tucked herself out of sight and peeped.
Kay Lake and the Maestro played four-handed. Kay played the easy parts, the Maestro carried the weight. They sat close together. They wore symphony black. Kay was half the Maestro’s size. He had that half-frozen face.
They played to a crescendo. Klemperer’s hands trembled. Kay improvised one-handed chords and steadied them.
The piece built to an off-key finish. Klemperer laughed. Kay said, “Please tell me I’m not all that bad.”
Klemperer half-slurred. He pushed words and made himself understood.
“Your formal sense exceeds that of most amateurs. You learn very quickly. You interpret passionately, and you will give a successful recital before the end of this decade.”
Kay said, “I’m honored.” Klemperer banged chords. Boom, boom, boom. They were ominous and bluntly repetitive.
“German tanks descend upon Leningrad. Dimitri errs on the side of the descriptive and polemical here. He hates Hitler and Stalin equally, you know.”
“You should conduct the American premiere. I’m sure Maestro Toscanini would disagree, but you—”
“But I shall preempt him, dear Katherine. The finished score will reach me in advance. Smuggling plans now proceed. I will put together a vast assembly of film-studio musicians. Exorbitant ticket prices will assure vast sums for European war relief.”
Kay said, “Don’t price out my Police Department friends.”
Klemperer laughed. His whole face contorted.
“I will give your suitor Lee Blanchard a free ticket. That is because I saw him beat the piss out of Irish Eddie Gilroy in 1935. Did you know that I enjoy boxing? I will give your Lee a free ticket, because I fear him.”
Kay said, “The fight was fixed, Liebchen.”
“Then I hereby retract the offer.”
Joan waltzed. She felt overmatched. The Sad-as-Shit Blues reappeared. She traipsed back to the yard. A standing bar was set up. She ordered a double scotch mist.
Orson Welles whizzed by and vamped her on the fly. He tapped his wristwatch and mimed We’ll talk later.
Joan blinked. The Welles vignette consumed .5 seconds. She pulled up a lawn chair. A young woman materialized.
Frizzy-haired. Saul Lesnick’s distaff double. Her white gown trailed the ground. The hemline had been trampled. Joan saw footprints.
“I saw you watching my father. He was talking to that Nazi Chink.”
“It’s Miss Lesnick, is it?”
“It’s Andrea, or 19832040. That was my booking number at Tehachapi. I married a butch while I was inside, so that would have made me Mrs. Cahill. It wasn’t a real marriage, but it kept the really bad girls off of me.”
The Sad-as-Shit Blues, redefined and—
“I was in for vehicular manslaughter, but my daddy turned FBI snitch, and got me sprung as part of the deal.”
Too-real reprised.
“Do you always unburden yourself to total strangers at parties?”
Andrea said, “Yes. That’s what parties are for. I always come with my daddy. I keep him company while he writes dubious prescriptions for his numerous hophead patients—especially the ones he has qualms about finking off to the Feds.”
“Does your daddy supply his patients with liquid morphine?”
Andrea nicked a cigarette. Joan slid the pack over. Andrea dropped it in her purse.
“He supplies a Communist lady named Claire. She throws the best parties, because she’s really rich, and a faux Communist. He tattles her to the Feds, and shares it with me. He showed me a naughty film she was in. She had a scene with an actor named ‘Captain Hook.’ He had this big you know what, shaped like a dousing rod.”
Kay walked by. She bypassed Andrea’s floor show. Andrea glared at her and made claws.
“I met that girl at Claire’s house. Claire hates her. My daddy says she’s a police snitch. I always say it takes one to know one.”
Joan killed her drink. “Who was that blond girl sitting with your daddy?”
“That’s a whore he’s fucking. He fucks her and tattles his patients to her. He showed me a lock of her snatch hair.”
The Sad-as-Shit Blues. Revised and regurgitated—
Joan waltzed.
She ducked back inside. She snagged a Pernod and absinthe and downed it. She saw Doc Lesnick write scripts for Orson Welles and the Maestro. She saw the Chinese quack hobknob with a famous clinician. She made him. It was Terry Lux—“Plastic Surgeon to the Stars.” Sid Hudgens called him “Herr Eugenics.”
Joan circulated. The weird drinks had her weavy. Lesnick’s blond dipped by. Joan followed her outside. The blond ducked behind the guesthouse. Joan crouched behind a banyan tree and peeped her.
The blond pulled off her sweater and blouse. The blond went Oh shit and futzed with a microphone taped to her bra.
Bombs away:
Joan walked back to the house. Loudspeakers blared Tannhäuser. The ten thousand guests went rouge-cheek opera buffa. Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya bushwhacked her.
They German-jabbered. They dragged her to a book nook. A projector and movie screen were set up. Opera buffa ghouls whistled and cheered.
Shucks. No Claire De Haven, no Captain Hook. Too bad, but:
Barbara Stanwyck fellated Walter Pidgeon. Carole Lombard and Anna May Wong went 69. Fredric March keestered Norma Shearer. A German shepherd scoped the two-bed action. He looked like Rin Tin Tin and wore a foil leprechaun hat.
Bombs away:
Joan waltzed. Lotte Lenya yelped good-bye. Joan pushed through yet more ghoul swarms and made it back outside.
She caught some air. War-chat cliques mingled. She glanced around. She looked for Kay and didn’t see her. She felt voyeuristic and inconsequential.
It was cold. The car valets lugged out coil heaters. Joan hit the stand-up bar and ordered black coffee.
It diluted the oddball drinks and revived her. A barside clique formed. Joan heard Spanish and Russian yak-yak.
Saul Lesnick plus two. One man and one woman. They dragged lawn chairs up to a heater and warmed themselves.
Joan pulled up a chair. The woman was dark-haired and wore klutzy glasses. The man was tall and gone to fat. He wore a Spanish Loyalist greatcoat and tuxed
o pants.
Supplicants buzzed the clique. Lesnick played emcee. He introduced the woman. Her name was Jean Staley. The man got no intros. His coat did the job. The supplicants fawned. He was “our Meyer” and “Comrade Gelb.”
He stood up and embraced his fans. He employed the Spanish-style abrazo. Joan saw his burn-scarred hands. She nailed the full gist then.
The fire. L.A. Times coverage. Meyer Gelb fronts the Young Socialist Alliance. The Pershing Square orator. His public rants precede the blaze.
Joan pulled her chair close. Doc Lesnick schmoozed Jean Staley. They came off as old pals.
Jean updated him. She said she flogged real estate. She specialized in ritzy sublets. So many rich people traveled.
Lesnick said, “Don’t shit a shitter, Jean. You’re a carhop. Your house gig’s strictly part-time.”
Joan tuned them out. She brushed her chair up against Comrade Gelb’s. He turned and looked straight at her.
She said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gelb. I heard you give a speech many years ago. I’ve never forgotten it.”
He appraised her. He did that slow head-to-toe cruise.
“You’re very tall. Are you a lesbian volleyball player? It’s a shame there’s no money in it.”
“I was quite young when I heard that speech. High school girls are impressionable, and it was very hot that day. I’ll chalk this chance meeting up to disillusionment. You were someone aflame with purpose then, and you’re someone bitter now.”
Gelb lit a cigarette. He blew smoke too close to her face.
“You’ve never been to a political rally, and you’re not from L.A. Your drawl denotes the northern Midwest. Don’t try to jive me, I’ve been jived by the best.”
Joan lit a cigarette. She blew smoke too close to his face.
“It was ’33, Comrade. I remember the time vividly. The Griffith Park fire occurred a few days after your speech. My father was a greenskeeper on the golf course. He was lucky to escape with his life.”
Gelb twitched and flicked his cigarette. It hit damp grass and fizzled.
Joan said, “It was ‘a low, dishonest decade.’ That’s another line you could have stolen from Auden. ‘This storm, this savaging disaster’ has got more punch, but the former acknowledges History, which I know you Red shitheels deem essential.”