I pointed to them. “I got tipped to an all-male pajama party in ’56. I paid some LAPD hard boys a yard apiece to bust it and brought my camera along. Those cats were piled up in a five-way with Rock Hudson, Sal Mineo, and a dude with giant acne cysts. Confidential wrote it up. Universal paid me ten G’s to keep the Rockster’s name out of the story.”
The whole booth roared. Julie Slotnick gasped for breath and oxygenized. Al Wexler yukked out a bagel chunk and said, “Tell us your motto again, Freddy. Man, it’s a gasser.”
Alky Al owned six porno bookstores, fourteen fag bars, and a nose-job clinic. He plowed a truck full of migrant Mexican workers and left six dead. I got it mashed down to a Mickey Mouse misdemeanor. Al owed me.
I killed my sandwich. Here it is, Freddy O.’s credo, intoned like the Gettysburg Address:
“I’ll work for anyone but Communists. I’ll do anything short of murder.”
Boffo: My boys clapped and guffawed. Heads turned one booth over. An older guy flashed an LAPD retirement badge. I made him: Lieutenant Mike Matthews, a pious aide to my old foe, Chief William H. Parker, a.k.a. Whiskey Bill.
He stepped out of the booth. He said, “Freddy shot an unarmed man in cold blood. Has he told you that one?”
The cocksucker nailed me.
The cocksucker winked at my pals and ambled out to the street.
Sol said, “Come on, Freddy.”
Julie said, “Give, boychik.”
Sid said, “Give it up, living legend. Don’t be a CT.”
Al said, “You’ve been holding back, Freddy. You know that’s not nice.”
Another twinge hit my heart. I dipped a fistful of French fries in gravy and snarfed them. I popped another Digitalis and stared down my pals. Woooooo — that Fred Otash don’t-fuck-with-me glare.
They twitched, flinched, and looked down. I waited a moment and let their submission simmer. I said, “I’m meeting a cat named James Ellroy here in half an hour. He wrote some shitty novels, and he wants to turn my life story into a TV show. If his money’s green, I’ll play along. I’ve requested my Freedom of Information Act file from the feds. It’s full of good dirt the putz will cream for.”
Sol looked up first. “It’s 1992. The ’50s are stale bread.”
Al looked up next. “The ’50s are a drug on the market. You can’t sell that shit to anyone but white stiffs in Des Moines.”
Sid looked up third. “Your story’s too ugly. It’s the Age of Aquarius, bubi. The wetback dishwashers are unionized, and the fruits want their rights. I predict a jig president one day. The only way Ellroy’s story will fly is to indict your evil, camel-fucker ass.”
Julie said, “Fuck your life story. How about a show about a movie producer who extorts blow jobs on a daily basis? It’s got pizzazz and social significance. You call it Head Man and run it on one of those cable channels that feature immoral content.”
I laffed. It built into howls and roars. I felt my corned beef and sauerkraut on the rise. I got floaty. I popped a bread crust out on my plate. Fuck — this again.
The booth tumbled. My pals vaporized. My vision went black. Ruffling calendar pages flew backwards. Decades disappeared and devolved. Please stop somewhere — I don’t know if I’m dead or in a dream—
Robbery Division Squad Room
LAPD Detective Bureau
6th Floor, City Hall
2/4/49
There I am. I’m primping in front of a hallway mirror in full uniform. Fred Otash at 27: beefcake, boss, and bangin’ them bonaroo bitches.
I exemplify greasy good looks. I’m full-blooded Lebanese — a camel cad from the get-go. I was a Marine Corps DI during the Big War. I joined the LAPD in late ’45. I went on the grift faaaaaast. I put together an ex-jarhead burglary ring. My downtown footbeat provided me with a road map of exploitable biz fronts. My gang hit pawnshops that fenced contraband, pharmacies that pushed narcotics, bookie joints behind storefront churches. I fingered the jobs. My gang clouted cash and merchandise. They were 2 a.m. creepers. I knew when the graveyard-shift prowl cars were elsewhere and passed the word along.
I’ve always been corruptible and tempted by the take. I don’t know where it came from. I had a squaresville home life in Bumfuck, Massachusetts. My mom and dad loved me. Nobody buttfucked me in my crib. The tree limb bent early in my case. I’ve got a sketchy semblance of a code. There’s shit I’ll do, there’s shit I won’t do. The line wavered on that cold day back in ’49.
I combed my hair and adjusted my necktie. The squad room buzzed heavy all around me. A shootout just went down at 9th and Figueroa. A traffic cop traded shots with a heist man. The cop was hit baaaaad and was not expected to live. The heist man was grazed and was expected to live. Both men were at Georgia Street Receiving right now.
The squad room buzzed. The squad-room phones rang incessant. I thought about the business cards I carried and handed out to women. They were understated and oozed high class. My name and phone number were printed in the middle. Right below: “Mr. Nine Inches.”
I heard heavy footsteps. I got bombed by booze breath.
“If you’re through looking at yourself, I’ve got something.”
I turned around. It was a Robbery bull named Harry Fremont. Harry had a vivid rep. He allegedly stomped two pachucos to death during the Zoot Suit Riots. He allegedly pimped transvestite whores out of a he-she bar. He was non-allegedly shitfaced drunk at noon.
“Yeah, Harry?”
“Be useful, kid. There’s a cop killer at Georgia Street. Chief Horrall thinks you should take care of it.”
I said, “Take care of what? The cop isn’t dead.”
Harry dropped a key fob in my hand. “4-A-32. It’s in the watch commander’s space. Look under the backseat.”
I steadied myself on the wall and lurched back to the bullpen. I zombie-walked downstairs. I couldn’t feel my feet find the pavement. I swear this is true.
A K-car was parked in that space. The key fit the ignition. I couldn’t feel my hands on the steering wheel. The garage was dark. Overhead pipes leaked. Water drops turned into sharp-toothed goblins.
I recall pulling out onto Spring Street. I recall driving slow. I might have prayed for nothing to be under the backseat.
The heist man was being held in the jail ward. He had to be fit for a transfer to the city lockup soon. It was 43 years ago. It’s still etched in Sin-emascope and Surround Sound. I can still see the faces of passersby on the street.
There — Georgia Street Receiving.
The jail ward was on the north side. The ward for square-john folks was to the south. A narrow pathway separated the buildings. It hit me then:
They know you’ll do it. They’ve sized you up as that kind of guy.
I reached under the backseat. Right there: transfer papers for one Ralph Mitchell Horvath and a .32 snub-nose.
I put the gun in my front pocket and grabbed the papers. I walked down the pathway and went through the jail-ward door. The deskman was LAPD. His eyes drifted to a punk handcuffed to a drainpipe. The punk wore a loafer jacket and slit-bottomed khakis. One arm was bandaged. His lips were covered with chancre sores. He looked insolent.
The deskman did the knife-across-throat thing on the QT. I handed him the papers and uncuffed and recuffed the punk. The deskman said, “Bon voyage, sweetheart.”