“Mr. Crowley, it’s a pleasure.”
Crowley said, “Sir, I’ll be blunt. I’m swamped with pissed-off husbands and wives looking to take each other to the cleaners. Legal statutes are in flux, and divorce-court judges are demanding proof of adultery. Liz Taylor told me you might have some ideas.”
I lit a cigarette. Benzedrine arched through my arteries and piqued my pizzazz.
“I do have ideas. If you have flexible scruples, I think we can do biz.”
Crowley laffed. “I’m listening.”
I said, “I know some Marines stationed down at Camp Pendleton. I was their DI in ’43 and ’44, and now they’re back from Korea and looking for kicks. It’s a parlay. Hot rods, good-looking shills, walkie-talkies, phone drops, and Speed Graphic cameras.”
Crowley hooted. “Semper fi, sir. You’re a white man in my book.”
“Semper fi, boss. We’ll work out the details at your convenience, and I’ll round up my boys.”
“And in the meantime? Is there anything you need?”
Benzedrine was a groin groper. One thing came to mind.
“My Landing Strip’s got two empty runways tonight. Liz told me you’re conversant with the concept.”
I heard voices outside the bungalow — male and brazenly brusque. I thought I heard foot scrapes and coughs.
Crowley said, “Liz explained the concept, so I called you prepared. I’ll send two stenos over.”
“Mr. Crowley, you’re a pisser.”
“It takes one to know one, sir.”
We hung up. I heard the voices again. A key-in-lock noise followed. I walked into the living room. The door opened wide.
William H. Parker.
Two plainclothes bulls. Maladroit mastiffs on a mission to maul for their master.
“Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
I unpinned my badge and tossed it at Parker. It hit his chest and dropped on the floor. The mastiffs moved. Parker gestured Get back. The mastiffs pawed the carpeting.
I unhooked my gun belt and dropped it on a chair. I called up some cool. Freon Freddy, the Shaman of Shakedown.
“Hit me, Bill. Shack jobs, living above my means, bending the rules here and there. My head’s on the chopping block, baby. Guillotine me.”
The mastiffs smirked smug. Pious Parker parsed out a grin.
“You are currently engaged in an intimate relationship with a Pan American stewardess named Barbara Jane Bonvillain, now in federal custody for possession of narcotics procured in Mexico. I must inform you that the outsized Miss Bonvillain is a Communist agent and a personal emissary of Marshal Tito, the Red boss of Yugoslavia. As if that weren’t enough, Miss Bonvillain is really a man. She underwent a sex-change operation in Malmö, Sweden, in late 1951, before her stellar efforts impersonating a woman at the ’52 Olympics. You fucked a man, Freddy. You’re a homo. Get the hell off my police force.”
“You’re a homo.”
“You’re a homo.”
“You fucked a man.”
“You fucked a man.”
“You’re a homo, you’re a homo, you’re a homo.”
I drank myself into a stunned stupor. I passed out on the floor. I got intimate with insects inhabiting the rug. They were dung desperadoes. They were my filthy fellow travelers, lower than lice.
“You’re a homo, you’re a homo, you’re a homo.”
I drank, I passed out, I woke up. I went eye to eye with a big beetle. We discussed the man-bug metaphysic, infused with frissons from that freaky frog Camus. The beetle explained that life was horrifically happenstance and that we were all fucked by fate. Bugs were bid by biology to live off larvae and leaves. Men were massacred by lascivious lust and bumbled into bed with he-shes. You didn’t know that she was a he. Hit your bennie stash and find your way out of this funk.
I obeyed the beetle. The Benzedrine outrevved the booze. I talked shit with the beetle for hours. We went feeler to feeler on the floor.
I called Abe Adelman at the State License Bureau. I promised him two G’s for PI’s ducat, quicksville. I bid the beetle adieu and climbed back into my civvies. I drove straight to the Hollywood Ranch Market.
L.A. looked like Pompeii, post-earthquake. The summer sun skimmed the sky and scattered death rays. Hes were shes and shes were hes and the most gorgeous girls were gargoyles. I got to the market and ran up to my office. Jimmy was scanning the August Lowdown.
He said, “You’re wigged out, Freddy.”
I said, “I’ve been talking to a bug.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Some shit you wouldn’t believe.”
“I would. It’s the basis of our friendship. We tell each other shit the world wouldn’t believe.”
I smiled. “Tell me something typical. I’ve had a jolt. I need to get my feet back under me.”
“The barman at the Manhole is pushing horse.”
“I’ll file it away in case I need him.”
Jimmy said, “I’ve got a picture of Marlon Brando with a dick in his mouth.”
“I’ll give you a C-note.”
Jimmy passed me the Old Crow. I took a pull and felt the floor meet my feet.
“How was your date with Donkey Don?”
Jimmy held his hands two feet apart. Jimmy said, “Ouch.”
I roared. We passed the jug back and forth. Jimmy lit a Pall Mall.
“I’m up for a role on GE Theater, but this Paul Newman punk will probably get it.”
“I’ll plant a bag of weed on him and lay on the fear. You’ll get the gig.”
“Thanks, Freddy.”
I thought about the talking bug. I looked down at the floor. I saw the kid with the wagon, unloading magazines.
“I’ve got all this good dirt and no place to put it. It’s driving me fucking crazy.”
Semper fi.
I assembled my ex-Marine cadre. My porno-prosty boys proceeded priapically apace. My Camp Pendleton pals came up to L.A. and joined Operation Divorce. The two crews crossed over. I had six certified psychos culled for my command. My Pendleton pit dogs were blood-blitzed from killing Commies in Korea. They were out for chaotic kicks and required tight tugs on their chains. Our marks were adulterous wives and husbands. Donkey Don lured ladies to hot-sheet hotels and instigated insertion. Flashbulbs flared as I kicked in doors, camera cocked. My Pendleton pits were adroit and adept at rolling surveillance. They tailed wayward wives and whorehound hubbies to hotels and walkie-talkied me. Joi was the mouthwatering man bait. She worked off Arthur Crowley’s craaazy crib sheets on his hubbies’ habits. Joi was sinful seductress and cold cock tease. I always kicked the doors in just as zippers dropped.
Operation Divorce was a Marine Corps maneuver and a mad moneymaker. Operation Otash was the ultimate umbrella command. I had an army of snarky snitches on my payroll. My PI’s license arrived in the mail and served to cinch my sinful sanction. I did not much mourn my severed service with the LAPD. I paid vulture vice cops for tips on quivering queers, jittery junkies, dipsos deep in the DTs. I built fat files on celebrity secrets and hoarded the horrors hard in my heart. Knowledge is power — the Beverly Hills Hotel bug reminded me of that. The one puzzle piece still missing: how to systematically carve cash from all of it.
Jimmy joined in. I kicked putzy Paul Newman’s ass and held a bag of Mary Jane primed with his prints. Jimmy got the GE Theater role and groveled with gratitude. I hired him to hump the husband of a divorce-seeking dowager sick of hubby’s hijinks. Jimmy was a swift switcherooer — if it mamboed, he’d move on it. He boffed five babes in one week — topping Donkey Don’s extant record. I camera-caught the wives as Jimmy shot them the schvantz.