by James Ellroy
Pompadour held up his hands—Don’t hit me, hoss. I pulled out the bag of weed and caught his left mitt in one motion. I pressed hard to ensure a full fingerprint spread.
It started drizzling. I gestured toward the street. Joi Lansing’s second ex-hubby took off running.
“Hollywood could use a guy like you.”
I turned around. “You mean I could use Hollywood.”
Joi gave me a big kiss.
It all started just like that.
4
I heisted a bookie room a week later.
A Hitler mask concealed my identity. I entered with an empty grocery sack and exited with four grand. I spent half the swag on Joi and bankrolled my biz with the remainder. A Beverly Hills pharmacist fronted me a pill pusher’s Parthenon. Harry Fremont sold me eight ice-cold roscoes. Joi hipped me to a discreet scrape doctor. I gave him a signing bonus and told him I’d be out seeking nice-girls-in-a-jam. Guns, dope, and a felonious physician. My girlfriend as conduit to a corrupt culture.
Joi hit Hollywood in ’42. She was 14. She matriculated at MGM and met everybody. She was both low-rent and confoundingly connected. She knew everything. She was a one-babe Baedeker. She knew bartenders, bellhops, busboys, call girls, casting directors, and cads. She knew pornographers, pushers, and pimps. She knew troves of tramps in trouble. She knew that this soiled city lacked a single fix-it man. That was my role.
Joi greased Holly-weird with my handouts. Scores of scurrilous scamsters licked up my largesse. We were buying potentially profitable dirt.
I worked LAPD. I got an off-duty gig as security boss at the Hollywood Ranch Market. It was licentiously legendary and open-all-nite. I bagged shoplifters and check kiters. I lived within my means and never gave Bill Parker’s goons a hook to entrap me. I took Joi to Ciro’s and the Mocambo. I saw intelligence-squad cops dead-eying the scene. I braced them as a brother and ballyhooed my big nights financed by big days at the track.
I sold guns, I sold pills, I brokered abortions. I mail-order-hawked a filthy film called Mae West’s Menagerie. Shack jobs were verboten for LAPD men. Joi and I trysted at her mom’s pad in Redondo Beach. She said the word was moving out and metastasizing: Fred O.’s the man to see.
Assignments rolled in. I pounded a perv who’d whipped out his whang on Duke Wayne’s wife. Duke paid me five yards and gave me the skinny on Red Hollywood. Dino Martin called me. That’s amore: he knocked up his Mex maid with soon-to-hatch triplets. I bribed a customs official and got Dolorous Dolores deported to Mexico. Dino paid me two G’s and dished the dirt on a stunning string of starlets. They bounced on my bed two at a time and dug up dirt on my regular retainer. Want C-notes and riotous ruts in the hay? Call Mr. Nine Inches.
I got Lana Turner a scrape. She banged an alto sax named Art Pepper in a bout of bebop abandon. Putzy Pepper wanted her to keep the kid and threatened exposure. I planted two reefers in his sax case and got him six months at Wayside Honor Rancho.
Joi knew a classy clique of Hancock Park housewives. They were unbearably unbodied and entrenched in ennui. They needed furtive fucking. She saw money in it.
Franchot Tone’s girlfriend was banging a boogie. It was something out of Ramar of the Jungle. I covered the Congo and caught the cat in a gassed-hair joint on Slauson. I kicked his black ass back to Biloxi.
That Fred Otash—he baaaaaaaaaaad!
Joi said Liberace had a job for me. We were in the sack at her mom’s place. Her eyes twinkled and twirled me some all-new way. She drew dollar signs in the air.
The moment vibrates in VistaVision and fabulous Fag-O-Scope. There’s calendar pages and sheet music. A piano noodles a nocturne and pounds a polonaise.
* * *
Liberace’s Swank Swish Pad
Coldwater Canyon
4/29/53
A fairy factotum met me. The yard was tropically tricked out and football-field size.
Flamingos flitted. Toucans tooled and bit at bugs. A path cut through ten-foot-high fronds and floral explosions. Everything was green, purple, and pink.
We hit a clearing. It was paved with stones embossed with musical clefs. The pool was shaped like a piano. Liberace sat in a deck chair. A leopard with a mink collar was snoozing at his feet.
The factotum sashayed off. I pulled up a deck chair. The leopard stirred and snarled at me. I scratched his neck. He went back to sleep.
Liberace said, “You’re fearless. You’re the kind of man I need.”
“I’m here to help you out, sir. Joi said you’ve got a guy bugging you.”
The factotum sashayed back with cocktails. Two highball glasses emitted nuclear pink foam. The guy served us and skedaddled. My drink tasted like high-test bubble gum.
Liberace said, “Bottoms up.” Pederast patter—yuk, yuk.
“A kid’s putting the boots to you, right? Pay up or he’ll rat you to the Legion of Decency. All those dago mob guys that book your act in Vegas will hightail it. Your TV show will be canceled if word gets out you go Greek.”
Liberace sighed. “Inimitably candid, and so, so true. He’s a dishwasher at Perino’s. What was I thinking?”
I sipped my pink drink. “Pictures?”
“Of course, dear heart. He lured me to a motel with a wall peek.”
A hi-fi speaker by the pool kicked on. Judy Garland belted, “Someday he’ll come along, the man I love.” The leopard woke up and licked his balls. Liberace goo-goo-talked him.
“Five thou, sir. You get the pictures and negatives, along with my assurance that it won’t happen again.”
Liberace pouted. His chest heaved. Sequins popped off his toga, caught the light, and shined. The leopard ambled to the pool and hung his ass over the edge. A giant shit ensued.
The factotum ran up with a scoop device. Liberace reached under his chair and pulled out a scrapbook.
“Ex-convicts are a weakness of mine, I’m chagrined to say. I’ve got mug shots of him and quite a few other rough-trade conquests. It’s my new hobby. I paste pictures when I’m not wowing my fans or practicing Chopin.”
I grabbed the book and leafed through it. It was the fucking lavender lodestone. I counted 26 KY cowboys wearing neck boards. Names, dates, penal-code numbers. A smutty smorgasbord of malignant maleness. Parole holds and prosty beefs galore.
Liberace jabbed a pic of one Manolo Sanchez. The guy was a Filipino flathead.
“He broke my heart while his evil lezzie sister took snapshots. Feel free to get tough.”
I nodded and flipped ahead. Three glum glamour boys beamed baleful off the page. Ward Wardell, Race Rockwell, Donkey Don Eversall. All booked for possession of pornography.
I pointed to the pics. “Blue movie actors, right? They peddle it on the side. You see the movies, you get a yen, you make a phone call.”
“That’s correct. I went to a screening at Michael Wilding and Liz Taylor’s house. Michael screened Locker Room Lust and Jailhouse Heat and supplied the referral.”
“Referral” buzz-bombed me. “Could these guys get it up for women?”
Liberace whooped. “Could, can, and do, sweetheart. And Donkey Don is the eighth wonder of the world, if you follow my drift.”
I tingled. I thought parlay. I saw dollar signs and movie-star movement on my Landing Strip.
“So, Michael Wilding’s a gay caballero?”
“In spades, love. His house is known as the ‘Fruit Stand,’ which perturbs lovely Liz no end.”
I yukked. “And Liz wants a divorce so she can move on to her next husband and break the all-time world record?”
Liberace slapped his knees. “Yes, and she’s pulling ahead of your girlfriend in that department.”
I cracked my knuckles. Liberace swooned. The fey fucker almost creamed in his jeans.
“Tell Liz to meet me at the Beverly Hills Hotel tomorrow night. Fill her in on my résumé.”
Liberace re-swooned. The leopard snarled and shooed a toucan up a tree.
* * *
Perino’s was hi
gh swank and old money. It catered to sterile stiffs and dotty dowagers who lived with 45 cats. I drove over at close-up time and parked by the back kitchen door. It was propped open. Manolo Sanchez and a fat beaner were scrubbing pots.
I got out of the car and hunkered low. I noted a row of lockers by a walk-in freezer. Fats opened his locker, grabbed a coat, and hit the road. I had the filthy Filipino alone.
He minced to his locker and primped. A mirror covered the inside door and threw his image back at me. I cop-read him: vicious little prick.
I squinted. Aaaaaaaah, the top locker shelf. A stack of photo sheaths.
He picked his teeth, he squeezed blackheads, he de-waxed his ears. I walked in. I crept up behind him. I pulled my beavertail sap. I saw his neck hairs bristle. He wheeled and pulled a shiv.
Flick—the blade sliced my Sy Devore blazer. He shrieked insults in Tagalog. They assuredly pertained to my mother.
He pirouetted and parried. We were in knife-fight tight. I risked a ripe stab wound and roundhoused him to the head. My sap hit him full force.
The seams ripped his face. The business end tore an eyebrow loose and smashed in his nose. He dropped the knife. I kicked it away. I grabbed his neck and squelched a scream. The deep-fry dipper was a few feet away. It was spitting hot grease and spuds Lyonnaise.
I dragged him over. I stuck his knife hand in the grease and French-fried it. I thought of all the Japs I would have killed if I hadn’t spent the war stateside.
He screamed. It was brigades of torched Japs on Saipan. I held his hand in the grease and burned it to the bone. Spatters hit my London Shop shirt.
I dropped his hand. I walked to the locker, grabbed the pictures, and flipped through them. Liberace Goes Greek—Kodacolor prints and negatives.
Sanchez screamed and careened through the kitchen. He overturned a dish rack and spastic-bounced off the walls. His hand was charbroiled. I saw flesh fall off the fingers.
* * *
The night was young. I was five thou to the good and hopped up on blood and aggression. Revelation ripped me. I knew I could mix my own fruit shakes. I decided to keep two of the negatives.
A call to R&I delivered the dish on the smut-film troika. The boys shared a pad in Silver Lake and a bent for things sex-soiled and seditious. Semper fi—they met in the Marine Corps and ran rackets out of a bondage bar down in Dago. They sold forged green cards, peddled Spanish fly, led Rotary groups to TJ for the mule act. Their bestselling item: dildo replicas of Donkey Don’s 16-inch whanger.
They fell in the shit in ’50. They sold Spanish fly to a high-school nympho and promised her a date with Donkey Don. The Donkster reneged. The nympho impaled herself on the gearshift of a ’46 Buick and hemorrhaged. San Diego PD filed assault one. The judge tossed the case. A ripe rumor: he was one of Race Rockwell’s regular tricks.
Their pad was a little wood-frame job overrun by bougainvillea. I rang the bell at 23:00 and got no answer. A loose window screen gave me quick access. I crept flashlight-first and inventoried.
The boys possessed Nazi armbands, Mickey Spillane novels, and combat-pinned Marine blues. Barbells, camera and lighting gear, nudist-colony mags going back to ’36. Souvenir snapshots from the Klub Satan, Tijuana, New Year’s ’48. Ticket stubs from the Manuel Ortiz–Harold Dade fight. A promotional contract for a nigger stumblebum named Junior “Knockout” Wilkins.
I walked out to the porch. I brought a pint of the boys’ Old Crow with me. I recognized the ribbons on their uniforms. I was training troops in Parris Island while they stormed Guadalcanal.
I sipped bourbon. I got a light load on. A jalopy pulled up at 1 a.m. The boys piled out and made for the door.
I whipped out my badge and held my flashlight beam on it. It was très dark out. I couldn’t see them cringe and capitulate. I imagined it, ghoul-like.
“My name’s Fred Otash. You’re going into business with me.”
* * *
Exuberant extortionist, enterprising entrepreneur. A round-the-clock roundelay as I licked my lips for Liz.
I got half-gassed with the lads and laid down the law: 20 percent of your smut biz in trade for police protection. And—you’re now the naughty nucleus of Fred O.’s stud farm. Get ready to bring the brisket to some housewives in heat.
Donkey Don laid a ladle of bennies on me. I buzzed through a tour of duty downtown. I broke up a fistfight at the Jesus Saves Mission. I chased a raft of Red agitators out of Pershing Square. I popped a whip-out man at the Mayan Theater. I busted a high-spirited kid setting winos on fire with a blowtorch.
My tour of duty tapped down. I went by the criminal-courts building and read up on divorce law. I reserved a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and scrounged refreshments off local merchants. Lou’s Liquor Locker supplied champagne. Hank’s Hofbrau coughed up cold cuts. Fast delivery was assured.
I swooped by my pad and traded my cop suit for a Cary Grant ensemble. Oh, yeah—it’s your ardent arriviste poised to pounce!
The bungalow was big and boss, flouncy and flamboyant. The bellman sneered at the baloney and cheese backlit by spotlights. He rolled his eyes and split. I paced and smoked myself hoarse. The bell rang at 8 o’clock on the dot.
There she is—Elizabeth Taylor at twenty.
She stood in the doorway. I fumbled for an opener. She wore a tight white dress that caressed her curves and clamored up her cleavage. She said, “If I move too fast, I’ll split a seam. Help me over to that couch.”
I grabbed an elbow and steered her. She felt my hand tremble and smiled. I sat her down and poured two glasses of ’53 domestic. We perched on the couch and offered up a toast.
Liz raised her arm. A dress seam split down to her hemline. She said, “Shit. I didn’t have to wear this. You’re just the bird dog for my divorce.”
I yukked. Liz said, “Don’t marry me, okay? I can’t keep doing this for the rest of my life.”
“Have I got a chance?”
“More than you think. Hotel heirs and queer actors haven’t worked out, so who’s to say a cop wouldn’t?”
I smiled and sipped champagne. Liz reached around, snagged a slice of baloney, and snarfed it. The dress was still constricting her. She looked plainly plaintive.
I unzipped the back and gave her some breath room. She sighed—Aaaaah, that’s good.
The shoulder straps went slack and fell down her arms. She deadpanned it. Our knees brushed on the couch. Liz retained the contact.
“How do I cut loose of Michael? I can’t cite mental cruelty, because he’s a sweetheart, and I don’t want to hurt him. I know you have to show just cause in order to sue.”
I refilled her glass. “I’ll bug your house. You get Wilding looped and get him to admit he digs boys. I levy the threat in a civilized manner, and he consents to an uncontested divorce.”
Liz beamed. “It’s that easy?”
“We’re all civilized white folks. You probably earn more money than him, but he’s older and has substantial holdings. You broker the property split and the alimony along those lines.”
“And how are you compensated?”
“I get 10 percent of your alimony payments, in perpetuity. You keep me in mind and refer me to people who might require my services.”
Liz laid an arm across the couch cushions. Her dress collapsed past her brassiere. Our eyes found a fit. The rest of the room vaporized.
“And how will I keep you in mind? There’s lots of people vying for my attention.”
“I’ll do my best to make this a memorable evening.”
* * *
It was, for me.
Liz passed away a few years ago.
If I get to heaven, I’ll grill her per that first time.
It started out clumsy and sweet. My punch line cued the first kiss. Liz was already victimized by too-tight attire. She shrugged her dress off down to her waist. Our kisses multiplied.
I carried her into the bedroom. She popped off three buttons on my shirt. They zinged across the r
oom. We laffed. I heard the radio a bungalow over. Rosemary Clooney sang, “Hey, there—you with the stars in your eyes.”
We got naked. State it stark: we were built boss, stratosphere stacked and hung homewrecker heavy. We were the boffo best of L.A., circa ’53.
We made love all night. We drank champagne with Drambuie chasers. We smoked two packs of cigarettes and spritzed gossip. We put on robes and climbed to the roof of the bungalow at dawn.
An A-bomb test was scheduled in Nevada. The newspapers predicted some dazzling fireworks. Other bungalow dwellers were up on their roofs. There’s Bob Mitchum and a young quail smoking a reefer, there’s Marilyn Monroe and Lee Strasberg, there’s Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. Everybody looks fuck-struck and happy. Everybody’s got a jug for the toast.
Everybody laffed and waved hello. Mitchum brought a portable radio for the countdown. He turned it on. I heard static and “… 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”
The world went WHOOSH. The ground shook. The sky lit up mauve and pink. We all raised our bottles and applauded. The colors receded into bright white light. I had my arm around Elizabeth Taylor. I looked Ingrid Bergman straight in the eyes.
5
L.A. ’53 was my ground zero. That A-bomb blast still shoots shock waves through me. My calendar pages are radioactively roasted. You can’t read the dates as they swirl.
There was smog in the air then. People coughed and gasped citywide. I never noticed it. The bomb-blast colors stayed with me. My L.A. was always mauve and pink.
I worked LAPD. I walked a downtown footbeat. I rousted Reds during the “Free the Rosenbergs!” fracas. I pinched pervs, purse snatchers, and pickpockets in Pershing Square. My smut-film biz laid in loot. Donkey Don Eversall plied his python all over Hancock Park. Joi was Donkey Don’s dispatcher. She coffee-klatched with horny housewives and set up the dates. Liberace gave me girl-talk gossip. Liz Taylor and Michael Wilding went to Splitsville. I got 10 percent of Liz’s alimony. Joi, Liz, and I threeskied on my Landing Strip. Liz knew a Pan Am stew named Barb Bonvillain. She flew the L.A.–to–Mexico City route and had half of Hollywood hooked on Dilaudid and morphine suppositories. Bad Barb was 6'3", 180, 40-24-36. She scored high in the women’s decathlon, Helsinki ’52. All four of us locked loins. The Landing Strip lurched. We murdered the mattress and banged the box springs down to the floor.