Widespread Panic Read online

  * * *

  —

  The cop lived. He sustained a through-and-through wound. He was back on duty inside a week.

  Vicious vengeance. Wrathfully wrong in retrospect. A crack in the crypt of my soul. Harry Fremont passed the word. Freddy O. is kosher. Chief C. B. Horrall sent me a jug of Old Crow. The grand jury sacked him two months later. He got caught up in a call-girl racket. An interim chief was brought in.

  Ralph Mitchell Horvath. 1918–1949. Car thief/stickup man/weenie wagger. Hooked on yellow jackets and muscatel.

  Ralphie left a widow and two kids. I got the gust-wind guilts and shot them penance payoffs. Money orders. Once a month. Fake signatures. All anonymous. Dig—Ralphie’s dead, and I’m not.

  * * *

  —

  Memory Lane. I’m fetching fine in ’49. I’m full-fuck filleted in ’92.

  I holed up at my pad. I lingered through Labor Day. I looped the lane and took last looks at my loved ones, lewd ones, and lost ones.

  I scoured scrapbooks. The old photos got my gears going. I’m there with Frank, Dino, and Sammy. I broke legs for them. They cringe and crawl away. There’s boocoo pix of my bed at my old pad. I called it “the Landing Strip.” I was Mr. Three-Way then. I swung with stewardesses, starlets, and stars. Liz Taylor and I swung with a stew named “Barb” on many groin-grabbing occasions. There’s pix of my lost love, Joi Lansing. There’s pix of my true love, Lois Nettleton. I was young and hung then. Aaaahhhh—sweet motherfucking mystery of life!!!!!

  There’s my dictionary and thesaurus. They were teaching tools for the wrathful writers at Confidential. Utilize alliteration and instill intensive slurs. Homosexuals are “licentious lispers.” Lesbians are “beefcake butches.” Drunks are “bibulous bottle hounds” and “dyspeptic dipsos.” Vulgarize and vitalize. Create a craaazy populist parlance. Make it sinfully siiiiiing.

  My pals popped over on Labor Day. We built burgers and boozed big. They left at 2:00 a.m. A male nurse corps shagged them and shot them down to their limos. Walkers wobbled, oxygen tanks toppled and rolled. It rubbed me raw, Daddy-O.

  I settled in and watched a Dragnet rerun. I bought the juicehead judge in four of Jack Webb’s drunk-driving beefs. I shtupped Jack’s wife, soaring songstress Julie London. She said I was the biggest and the best.

  I noshed a dozen Famous Amos cookies. I’d seen the episode before. Sergeant Joe Friday busts some hirsute hippie punks. I missed Jack. We shared some yuks. He kicked off back in—

  A hydrogen bomb hit my heart. Mushroom clouds claimed me. Monsters morphed out of them. Johnnie Ray. Monty Clift. Politicians pounded and movie stars mauled. It’s a calamitous kaleidoscope of condemnation.

  They jumped me. They went J’accuse, j’accuse, j’accuse!!!!! I gasped. My left arm exploded. I hit the medical-emergency button on my phone.

  Then some pixilated pops. They’re the Herald’s horror headlines. Tattle Tyrant, Mr. Fear, Shaman of Shame. Then a crunching crash. My door’s down. There’s a mask on my mouth.

  I’m dead. Thence comes Purgatory and this confession.

  MY FUCKED-UP FOOT BEAT

  Downtown L.A.

  10/4/52

  Central Division. The doofus day watch. Freewheeling Freddy’s at loose ends.

  I disbanded my 459 gang. My main men got hooked on Big “H.” They were decidedly desperate and snitch-prone. I’d gambled away my gelt. I was living on a schmuck cop’s pay and was suffused with the blues. William H. Parker became Chief in ’50. He instituted righteous reforms and riddled the ranks with a phalanx of finks to sniff out miscreants and misconduct. I drove a Packard pimpmobile. I won it in a darktown dice game. Parker’s punks tattled to the hellhound Jefe. I got called in and grindingly grilled. Parker warned me not to be a Bolshevik. He said, “I’ve got my four eyes on you.”

  It rained that day. It was some mad monsoon. Wild winds whipped me along on my foot beat. I stopped at a lockbox phone and called the station. The deskman told me to hotfoot it to 668 South Olive. They were shooting a Racket Squad episode in the lobby. They needed a hard boy to shoo off autograph hounds.

  I headed over there. I caught a taut tailwind and slalomed in the slush. It was a medical building. The lobby was all lit up. I caught a frazzled fracas, right off.

  Lights, cameras, boom mikes. Here’s the action, straight up.

  A jug-eared cat was hassling a boss blonde. He wore pegged chinos and a gone jacket. She was built, va-va-voom.

  The cast and crew orbed the scene. Jug Ears grabbed the blonde’s arm and applied abrasions. It gored my gonads and hit my heartstrings. I walked up behind him. He saw my shadow and swift swiveled. I notched his nose with a palm shot. I looped a left to his larynx. I kneed his nuts as he dropped.

  The blonde genuflected. I tipped my hat. Jug Ears cradled his busted beak and moaned for his mama. The cast and crew clapped.

  The blonde said, “He’s my ex-husband. He stiffed me for three months’ alimony.”

  I kicked him in the head and lifted his wallet. Jug Ears mama-moaned anew. The cast and crew whistled and stomped.

  The wallet weighed in heavy. I fanned the cash compartment and counted a sea of C-notes. I handed them to the blonde. She dropped them in her purse and dropped a dollar on her ex-hubby. She said, “For old times. He was good in the sack.”

  I laffed. I reached in my pocket and handed her a card. Understated class shows. There’s my name, phone number, and “Mr. Nine Inches.”

  She dropped the card in with her cash stash. A guy yelled, “You’re up, Joi. Scene 16-B.”

  She winked and walked away from me. I cuffed Jug Ears behind his back and pay-phone-called the station. Hollyweird: they filmed the scene with the ex coma-conked and cuffed on the floor.

  I walked outside and smoked a cigarette. A black-and-white cruised by and hauled the ex to Georgia Street. I thought of Ralph Mitchell Horvath. A kid returned my calling card. She wrote on the back: “Joi Lansing. 39-25-38. Googie’s, tonight at 8:30.”

  * * *

  —

  I’ve got a boss bachelor pad, straight up from the Strip. It’s jammed with Jap flags and shadow-boxed Lugers. There’s a periscope perched on my porch. I peep neighbor women and gas their gestalts.

  I’m a voyeur. It’s vampiric. I study people. I rage to know their secret shit.

  My bedroom features a biiiiiiiig walk-in closet. I’ve got sixty Sy Devore suits. My dresser drawers drip with lacy lingerie. My lynxlike lovers leave me mucho mementos.

  I’ve got a file on Ralph Mitchell Horvath. I culled it from PDs and penitentiaries statewide. I know all Ralphie’s secrets.

  He poked a Mexican sissy in reform school. He fathered two half-wit kids. He pimped his wife to cover his poker debts. He scored prescription goofballs from a Chink pharmacist.

  I dug up that dirt. It bought me distance on Ralphie. It held off his hold on me. Know your foe. I’ve known that godless gospel since my crib.

  I dressed sharp for Joi Lansing. I wore my crocodile loafers and hid my heater in a shoulder rig. A spritz of Lucky Tiger—and a short stroll to the meet.

  Googie’s was a coffee cave on Sunset and Crescent Heights. The space-age aesthetic rubbed me raw. Fluorescent lights/Naugahyde/chrome. A hip hive for showbiz shitheels headed for Hell.

  I walked in. Joi Lansing table-hopped. She wore a too-tight gown and a meager mink stole with a pawnshop tag attached. The joint buzzed per a sneak peek in Glendale. A Googie’s regular played a love scene with Bob Mitchum. Bad Boy Bob slipped her tongue. They toked a reefer in the RKO backlot. She blew him in his ’51 Ford.

  A hubbub juked the joint. I knew I radiated FUZZ. I crashed into a booth and unbuttoned my jacket. A flit flamed by and ogled my piece. He hopped to a hen party, one booth over. Dig this dirt: the barman at the Cockpit Lounge ran an all-boy slave auction. Adlai Stevenson got embroiled and
embarrassed. The hens hooted—ha, ha, ha!!!

  Joi sat down. I pointed to the pawnshop tag. She pulled it off and dropped it in the ashtray.

  I said, “Thanks for the invitation.”

  Joi said, “Thanks for the revenge. That guy fractured my left wrist on Saint Patrick’s Day, ’49.”

  “You’re too young to have an ex-husband.”

  “Yeah, and I’m estranged from number two. I’d head to Reno for a quickie, but it might not work. We got hitched in T.J., so the paperwork could get dicey.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Well, you’re a policeman.”

  I lit a cigarette and held the pack out. Joi shook her head.

  “He’s on parole, and he’s a grasshopper. You could call Narco. That might do me some good.”

  I shook my head. “Give me his address. I’ll think of something.”

  “He’ll be here at nine-thirty. He’s been living at the Y since I kicked him out, and the fry cook here takes his phone calls. He’s a nonunion grip. I stiffed him a fake message after I met you. You’re a producer at Fox, with a job for him. You’re meeting him in the parking lot.”

  I laffed. “You just assumed that I’d do it?”

  Joi laffed. “Come on, Freddy. That stunt you pulled downtown, and ‘Mr. Nine Inches’? What won’t you do for money or gash?”

  A Mex busboy sidled by. I grabbed a belt loop and stopped him. He saw my roscoe and got the shiver-shakes.

  I socked him a sawbuck. “Go to the kitchen and get me a bag of weed. You’ll be on the night train to Culiacán if you don’t deliver.”

  Manuel went Sí, sí and moved out. Joi laffed and bummed a cigarette. I blew a high smoke ring. She blew a higher one. They hit the ceiling and mushroomed, Hiroshima-esque.

  Manuel meandered back with the mota. I told him to scram. The hen party parsed a new nugget. Ava Gardner sacked Sinatra. She’s shacked with a heavy-hung extra at Monogram.

  I said, “What’s your real name?”

  Joi said, “Joyce Wassmansdorff.”

  “Give me the fill-in.”

  “I’m from Salt Lake City. I’m twenty-four. I went to the MGM school, and went nowhere.”

  “But now you’re up-and-coming?”

  Joi stubbed out her cigarette. “I’m uncredited in six pictures, and credited in four. I’ve got Racket Squad, Gangbusters, and a comedy with Jane Russell in the can.”

  “Give me some dirt on Russell.”

  “What’s to give? She’s a Goody Two-shoes married to that quarterback for the Rams.”

  I eyeballed the room. Paranoia pounds me, periodic. The two crew cuts by the take-out stand? They’re Bill Parker’s boys. I’d seen them at Central. They were purse-lipped puritans out to bag bent cops.

  Joi said, “You’ll need money to enjoy my company.”

  I re-eyeballed the room. I exercised my X-ray vision. A punk I popped for flimflam made me and beat feet.

  Joi said, “It’s nine-thirty. Look for a little guy with a big pompadour.”

  I bopped back to the parking lot. Pompadour lounged upside a ’51 Merc. I closed in close. He orbed my shoulder rig and went Oh shit. He wore light-colored slacks. Piss coursed and covered his cuffs. I dug in, diplomatic.

  “Don’t contest the divorce. I’ll negotiate your alimony payments. Send the check directly to me. I’ll take my cut and deliver the rest to Miss Lansing.”

  Pompadour held up his hands. It was Don’t hit me, hoss. I pulled out the bag of weed and caught his left mitt in one motion. I pressed hard and finagled a full fingerprint spread.

  A drizzle drifted down. I gestured toward the street. Ex-hubby #2 took off running.

  “Hollywood could use a guy like you.”

  I turned around. There’s Jolting Joi. She knows from opportunity.

  “You mean I could use Hollywood.”

  She kissed me. I kissed her back. That’s how it all started.

  * * *

  —

  I know from opportunity. It costs money, honey. I heisted a bookie room two days later.

  A Hitler mask hid my face. I entered with an empty grocery sack and exited with four g’s. I blew half the swag on Joi. I bankrolled my biz with the remainder. A Beverly Hills pharmacist fed me piles of pills to push. Harry Fremont sold me eight ice-cold roscoes. Joi scared up a scrape doctor. I told him I’d be out seeking nice-girls-in-a-jam. Guns/dope/a felonious physician. My girlfriend as conduit to a coruscatingly corrupt culture.

  Joi hit Hollywood in ’42. She was fourteen. She matriculated at MGM and met Everybody. She was luridly 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 was out to crown me King Shakedown. Joi greased Hollyweird with my handouts. Scores of scurrilous scamsters licked up my largesse. We were buying bleak and blowsy blackmail dirt.

  I worked LAPD. I scored an off-duty gig. I was now the 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 cataloguing the scene. I braced them as a brother. I ballyhooed my big nights, financed by big days at the track.

  I sold guns. I sold pills. I brokered abortions. I 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. She said the word was moving out and metastasizing: Freddy O.’s The Man to See.

  Gigs 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. He knocked up his maid with soon-to-hatch triplets. I bribed a Customs cop and got Dolorous Dolores deported. Dino paid me two g’s and dished the dirt on a stunning string of starlets. They bounced on my bed 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 buzzed the fuzz. He got nine 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. Put “pimp” on my résumé. I’m on Stud Patrol as of now.

  Opportunity is love. That cold concept socked my sick soul.

  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 swervy Swish-O-Scope. A piano noodles a nocturne and pounds a polonaise.

  LIBERACE’S SWANK SWISH PAD

  Coldwater Canyon

  4/29/53

  A fey factotum met me. The yard was tropically tricked out and football-field size.

  Flamingos flitted. Toucans tooled and bit 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 snoozed at his feet.

  The factotum sashayed off. I pulled up a deck chair. The leopard stirred and snarled at me. I scratched his neck and kissed his snout. 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 glowed pink. The guy served us and skedaddled. My drink tasted like radioactive bubble gum.

  Liberace said, “Bottoms up.”

  I yukked. “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 sparked and kicked on. Judy Garland belted, “Someday he’ll come along / The man I love.” The leopard lolled and licked his balls. Liberace goo-goo-talked him.

  “Five thou, sir. You get the pictures and the negatives, along with my assurance that it won’t happen again.”

  Liberace pouted. His chest heaved. Sequins popped off his toga. The leopard loped to the pool and arced his ass over the edge. A giant shit ensued.

  The factotum ran up. He wielded a turd-scoop contraption. Liberace reached under his chair and snagged 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 twenty-six K-Y 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 vibed baleful bantamweight.

  “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 popped off the page. Ward Wardell, Race Rockwell, Donkey Don Eversall. All booked for possession of pornography.